amously, the French philosopher, Voltaire is reported to have made the following statement: “I will disapprove of what you say but I will defend to your death the right to say it”.  There is no gainsaying the majesty of those words.  A society that embraces Voltaire’s ideal affirms the humanity of the other even as it holds that individual in question accountable for what she or he says.  Not only that, history shows that where speech is suppressed, progress is impeded.  Recall the Catholic Church’s opposition to a heliocentric conception of our solar system rather than a geometric one—and so the Church’s opposition to the scientific views of Copernicus and Galileo.

It is thus most striking that, in contemporary times, it is on university campuses across the United States that free speech finds its most vociferous opposition.  This opposition comes from distinguished faculty and deans.  It comes from university presidents who ought to be setting a moral tone of democratic excellence involving the free exchange of ideas.  Most poignantly, it is arguable that American universities in the present are to free speech what the Catholic Church was in the past—its worst enemy. 

Indeed, the parallel is more striking than one might first suppose.  After all, the Catholic Church always took its suppression of free speech to be tied to fulfilling the will of God.  To be sure, the idea of God nowadays is seen as some sort of psychological affliction on most university campuses.  Just so, universities seem to have something akin to a gospel after all.  And in the name of that gospel, the suppression of free speech is deemed to be justified.  The quibble, then, is over which gospel to appeal to—and not over whether the suppression of free speech is morally permissible in order to insure that the spread of the gospel in question.

The very idea that one gospel has replaced another is more apt than not.  For as I have already intimated, it is permitted on secular college campuses these days to say any hostile thing one pleases against religion.  One can be downright blasphemous.  “Oh, you would like to urinate on the bible in order to obtain a better grasp your sense of self?”  Please do.

Instead of Genesis or the Book of Job or the Gospel of Matthew, we have three epistles: The Epistle of anti-Racism and the Epistle of anti-Sexism and the Epistle of anti-Homophobia.  And in the name of insuring that verses of these social Epistles have an immutable grip upon the thinking of students, the suppression of free speech is deemed permissible. 

So what is the difference between the Catholic Church and social Epistles of university campuses?  Surely, the answer can be put very succinctly: The Church was wrong, but we are right. 

There is no gainsaying this point: Racism and sexism and homophobia are wrong; whereas Copernicus and Galileo were right but the Church was wrong? 

However, this concession does not undercut the point that universities are suppressing free speech in the name of indoctrinating those who pass through their portals with the social gospels against racism, sexism, and homophobia.  This concession does not turn the indoctrination into a form of speech.  The quibble is simply over what is in fact true—and not over whether suppression of free speech is justified in order to ensure that the truth in question has a secure hold upon the minds of the individuals in question.  Quite the contrary, both the universities of today and the Catholic Church of yesterday are one in claiming that the oppression of free speech is justified in order to achieve this end.

Finally, if the above comparisons were not disconcerting enough, two more significant comparisons are in order.  First, universities engage in a secular version of the threat of excommunication, with the concomitant fear that this threat occasions.  The Church held the key to eternal life.  Few wanted to jeopardize that.  Universities hold one of the main keys to social and economic success.  Few who have opted for this kind of key want to jeopardize their chances of obtaining it.  Second, just as the Catholic Church affirmed and re-affirmed and re-affirmed its views and, moreover, did not brook critical discussions of its view, universities affirm and re-affirm and re-affirm their conception of the social gospels and, moreover, do not brook critical discussions of these gospels.  The Church quickly branded as heretics those who challenged its teachings.  And it did so with smug self-righteousness.  Universities have sanctified the art of calling anyone who disagrees with its social gospel a racist or a sexist or a homophobe.  And they do so with smug self-righteousness. 

Besotted by its own power, the Catholic Church did not grasp the world of fear that it created.  Precisely, the same holds for universities. 

I would that I could say that Syracuse University were a shining exception to the comparison offered above.  Unfortunately, I cannot.  I shall not rehearse some of my concerns here except to say this.  Either Chancellor Nancy Cantor is for free speech on the Syracuse University campus or she is not.  And she and only she can unequivocally affirm the first alternative by explicitly stating that she values free speech and welcomes respectful discussions of her ideas.  But she has not done so to date; and insofar as she refuses to do so, then Syracuse University under her leadership masterfully instantiates the parallel with ancient Catholic Church about which I have written.

I am, of course, ever so mindful of her commitment to the advancement of minorities.  But nothing anyone can possibly say could ever convince me that the good that she seeks to do for minorities cannot be achieved unless free speech is suppressed, either de jure or de facto.  In fact, it is my own view that she is in fact doing minorities themselves more harm than good.  With this thought in mind, I have asked myself the following question over and over again: If it is morally permissible to suppress the free speech of whites in the name of achieving some laudable goal for minorities, then why is it not also morally permissible to suppress the free speech of minorities, too, when doing so would further increase the chances of benefiting them? 

I am a tenured black professor with a very solid teaching and publishing record.  I have also been committed to living a morally upright life.  Chancellor Nancy Cantor can ignore me, but there is very little that she can do to jeopardize my position.  But what about a new and untenured faculty member, minority or otherwise, who is extremely gifted but who holds rather unorthodox views?  Would Syracuse University be the place for that individual? 

If Voltaire were Chancellor he would say to that new faculty member something like this: “Although your views differ mightily from mine, I shall defend with all my might your right to develop your thought.  Indeed, I hope to benefit from reflecting upon our differences just as I hope you, likewise, will benefit from reflecting upon our differences”. 

Thus, who has created a more nourishing environment in which the new minority faculty member might: A Voltaire-like Chancellor or a Chancellor who is deeply committed to helping minorities and who thus feels entitled to say to the minority untenured faculty member: “It is my way or the highway”?  Surely, it is the Voltaire-like Chancellor.  What extraordinary affirmation of a new and untenured faculty member such a statement would be, whether that this is person is a minority or not.  It is in the face of this indisputable truth that I ask Chancellor Nancy Cantor to be explicit and unequivocal in taking a stand for free speech.  

Quite simply the question is this: Is Chancellor  Nancy Cantor willing to affirm the humanity and intellectual creativity of a Syracuse University professor only insofar as the professor accepts her views about racial diversity?  This is the question that I mean to bring to the foreground.  I mean to do so respectfully, but forcefully.  And if I am deemed morally unfit or despicable or unworthy of respect on the part of her and her supporters for doing so, then that, alas, is the problem at Syracuse University.

I should say for the record that In the spirit of free speech, I do not screen comments posted to my blog-entries, including comments that point out my errors in grammar or spelling.  Nor do I remove blog-entries.  In terms of changing things, the most that I ever do is correct the spelling or grammatical errors brought to my attention. 

Trikingly, there are those who believe that a black whose views regarding affirmative action and free speech are like mine is a black who cannot have suffered much.  Suffice it to say that there is no direct correlation between suffering and the views that one holds.  After all, Nancy Cantor views regarding affirmative action and free speech cannot be tied to her having suffered as a black or a Latin or an Arab.  So those minorities who delight in the way that she is steering the ship of state called Syracuse University cannot for a moment think that the only credentials that make it possible to be a qualified captain is that one has suffered as a (visible) minority.  Or so it is if their confidence in her is genuine.  As for my personal life, I will just say this: I am the black who did a formal proof in philosophy of logic that was entirely correct but for which the professor would not give me a grade of "A" because he did not think that I was intellectually capable of understanding what I had done.  I am also that black who as an Oberlin College professor threatened to resign in mid-semester should the college suspend the 39 students arrested for interrupting a Board of Trustee's meeting of the college in protest of the college having stock in companies that did business companies in Apartheid South Africa.  This stance I took as a gesture of gratitude for those blacks who sacrificed so that I might see a better day. That stance carried the day.  My very soul is witness to the scars and the victories of the struggle for equality.  I do not wallow in the former.  Rather, I rejoice in the latter.  Case closed.   

These remarks were written as a simple response to a comment upon the previous post "Universities and the Catholic Church".    

o Senator Larry Craig maintains that it was a mistake to have admitted to guilt regarding the Minneapolis airport matter.  He further claims that he is not now nor has he ever been gay.  Whether these claims are true or not, what is unequivocally true, however, is that his behavior violates a well-understood and immutable rule among straight men regarding public restroom behavior.  Thus, Senator Craig’s behavior reveals something most fascinating about the times in which we live, namely the utter lack of foresight—about which I shall say more momentarily.  I shall make a rather interesting connection to religion.

It is well-known that for straight men, the public restroom requires what I shall refer to as the mental lockdown mode: One goes in one finds an appropriate receptacle (urinal or stall), and one proceeds with the process of bodily elimination.  For this public restroom moment, a straight man could just as easily be something akin to a robot or zombie.  This is not meant to be a learning moment. 

Any form of contact, be it with the eyes or directly physical, is absolutely out of order; and this is as iron-clad of a rule as is the rule of not putting one’s bare hands in a roaring fire.  This public restroom rule admits of an exception only if something quite extraordinary happens in the facility.  For example, a part of the ceiling collapses or a lion walks into the bathroom or a rattle snake moves across the floor.  The point being, of course, is that something of considerable magnitude has to happen before anything remotely resembling eye contact or bodily contact could achieve the level of permissibility. 

As is well-know, Senator Craig is reported as having done the following:

At 1216 hours, Craig tapped his right foot. I recognized this as a signal used by persons wishing to engage in lewd conduct. Craig tapped his toes several times and moves his foot closer to my foot. I moved my foot up and down slowly. While this was occurring, the male in the stall to my right was still present. I could hear several unknown persons in the restroom that appeared to use the restroom for its intended use. The presence of others did not seem to deter Craig as he moved his right foot so that it touched the side of my left foot which was within my stall area,” the report states.

Craig then proceeded to swipe his hand under the stall divider several times, and Karsnia noted in his report that “I could ... see Craig had a gold ring on his ring finger as his hand was on my side of the stall divider

Was he soliciting sex, gay or otherwise?  Well, it is clear, in any case, that his behavior violated the cardinal rules of straight male behavior in a public restroom. 

How is it even possible for Senator Craig not to have known this cardinal rule about male behavior in a public restroom?  It takes a very long and unobvious explanation to make sense of how any male born and raised in the United States could not know this cardinal rule regarding public restroom behavior.

This brings me to Senator Craig’s behavior and the matter that I find of considerable interest. 

What intrigues me is not whether he is gay or not, but that he chose to act as he did in the public restroom, given who he is.  How does a man who is essentially a public figure make the foolish mistake of doing what appears to be initiating sexual interest with an entirely unknown person in a public setting of all places?  A modicum of foresight would bellow out: Don’t do that.  No brilliant and sophisticated argument is needed in order to get to that simple bit of advice.

This brings me to what I find to be one of the very striking features of modernity, namely the absence of foresight in contexts where sheer unadulterated commonsense ought to deliver what is the appropriate form of behavior.  Either that, or people seem to have the utter inability to follow through with the deliverances of such foresight. 

We live in a culture that legitimizes desires in and of themselves.  And so at a practical level, increasingly gone are the days when precisely what was expected of people is that they would critically examine their desires and then—of all things—decide whether they should act upon their desires. 

It is not new that people have had desires that are unaligned with their station in life.  That has always been true.  What is new, however, is the way in which people respond to such desires.  Time was when people knew that some desires were not going to be satisfied; and they accepted that fact.  Or, they understood in no uncertain terms that they could satisfy the desire only if it was next to impossible for doing so to haunt them.  And with regard to the latter, people were quite realistic.

In this regard, the sex scandal of the Catholic Church proceeded with great means-end rationality, which is part of what made it so very despicable.  The scandals were not momentary lapses of the will but deeply calculating instances of behavior, which is a very clear exercise of means-end rationality.

Whatever else is true, it cannot be said that Senator Craig’s behavior was deeply calculating.  And that it was not is interesting precisely because the stakes are so extremely high.  It is not possible that a moment of sexual satisfaction could have made it worth putting so much at risk.

At this point, let me bring in religion in what I hope will be a somewhat interesting way.  Wile religion is commonly maligned nowadays, it turns out that one of its “gifts” to society is that it underwrote the importance of individuals examining their desires and the importance of exercising foresight.  Indeed the ability to do both was seen as a sign of maturity.  With religion: holiness and heaven are put forth as the goals; and the examination of one’s desires as well as the exercise of foresight are put forth as an essential aspect of the means to achieving these two goals. 

The thesis is not that only the religious can exercise self-examination and foresight.  That is obviously false.  Nor, again, is the thesis that all religious folks exercise self-examination and foresight.  That is equally false. 

Rather, the point is that religion valorized these two modes of being; and it did so in a way that is perhaps difficult for secular institutions to do.  For mere mortals, holiness is necessarily a work in progress; and, of course, heaven is necessarily a future state.  Because it is not possible for secular institutions to characterize themselves in this way, they cannot valorize self-examination and foresight in the way that religion can.

Indeed, all that secular institutions can say is that folks should exhibit these traits or have a reason to exhibit such traits only if they want to do them; whereas religion in effect claims that people have a reason to exhibit these traits whether they want to exhibit them or not. 

While it may be true that human beings are rational creatures and while it may be also that there are many aspects of religion that quite disconcerting, the remarks of this blog-entry points to a very interesting, significant, and fortuitous congruence between human beings qua rational creatures and religion. 

Although human beings are rational creatures, it turns out they are not as good at taking themselves seriously in this regard as one would have supposed, given all that is conveyed by the idea of a rational creature.  The irony is that for all of its disconcerting metaphysics that folks readily seize upon, religion has very nicely underwritten the capacity of individuals to take seriously the fact that they are rational creatures because it has provided them with a powerful motivation to examine their desires and to exercise foresight. 

hancellor Nancy Cantor believes in diversity.  That ideal is one of the signature points of her distinguished career.  In one respect, the very idea that diversity is a good thing seems to be rather like an indisputable conceptual truth.  How can it not be a good thing when different people get together and learn from one another?  And if anything is true, it is true that each ethnic group can learn much from other ethnic groups.

But the view that I have just put forward is a particular conception of diversity.  Let us call it interactive diversity.  As the name suggests, people get together and learn from one another through marvelous and felicitous interaction.  This form of diversity is to be distinguished from what I shall refer to as shared-space diversity, where different ethnic groups are simply in the same room or building or on the very same campus.   People can be in the same room and not give a damn about one another.  Nay, they may radically despise one another.  People often talk as if shared-space diversity naturally gives rise to interactive diversity.  But they are mistaken.  It does not.  And universities—indeed, Syracuse University—are a marvelous and most poignant illustration of this truth.  At Syracuse University: Asians are generally with Asians, whites are generally with whites, blacks are generally with blacks, and so on. 

It is not at all clear to me that Chancellor Cantor is committed to interactive diversity.  Let me explain why. 

A very common view nowadays among liberals is that victims of injustices have a right to be angry and wrong and perhaps even to hold a grudge against persons who are members of the group of individuals who committed the egregious wrongs in question.  I call this the grudge factor. 

Indeed, to hear some liberals tell it a victim does not have self-respect unless she or he is running around being angry and holding a grudge against the wrongs committed against her or his people. 

Now, my intellectual abilities are severely limited.  So I tend to be very simple in what I say and do not say.  By contrast, I expect a very talented person, such as Chancellor Nancy Cantor to be exceeding clear about her intentions. 

So if she really is for interactive diversity and not shared-space diversity on the Syracuse University campus, then I would expect her to say that with unequivocal clarity. 

But wait a minute, there is a fascinating issue here.  For if one is for interactive diversity, then one has to reject what I have called the grudge factor as a proper moral posture on the part of, say, blacks or Indians or whomever.  For nothing is more of an impediment to any two groups interacting with one another, then the members of one group holding a grudge against the members of the other. 

Accordingly, if Chancellor Cantor is for interactive diversity, as opposed to mere shared-space diversity, then she has to be unequivocally clear that Syracuse University is not a place where what one does is learn how to hold a grudge.  Now, for all I know she hold just this view and perhaps it is implied in what she does say.  But it would wonderful—ever so wonderful, in fact—if she were so unequivocally explicit about this that no competent speaker of the English language could fail to grasp that this is where she stands.

It has been suggested to me by a most inform source that her handling of the Hill-TV fiasco was exceedingly complicated.  And for all I know, that may very well be the case. 

All that I can say, however, is that from where I stood, the way things were handled it looked as if the Chancellor had sanctioned a lynch mob on the part of minorities against whites, and thus she had tipped her hat in favor of the grudge factor.  Claims were made about racism on the part of students that were absolutely foreign to me, although I, a very visible black, have walked back-and-forth across this campus for 18 years. 

Not only that, the vast majority of my students have been white; and it is well-known that if there is one thing I will not tolerate, it is disrespect for me as the professor of the class.  You want to see a black man go from being jovial to being utterly outraged faster than the blink of an eye: let a student lift a newspaper in my class.  The student can be any color under the sun; and I will walk out of the class in mid-sentence.  I have done so in the past; and I will do so again.  Here, in fact, is the letter I wrote when a student did just such a thing this past semester, a copy of which was sent to Chancellor Nancy Cantor’s office and also to Dean Cathryn Newton of the College of Arts and Science.

The point of the story is simply that notwithstanding my very hard-line in the classroom, I have experienced none of the disrespect on the part of white students for which the Hill-TV affair became, to the uninformed eye (perhaps), a vehicle for expressing. 

And this brings me back to appearances.  It looked as if Chancellor Nancy Cantor reveled in the idea of minorities being angry and seeing racism at every turn and in every nook and cranny.  Accordingly, it looked as if she had sanctioned what I have called the grudge factor.  By implication, then, it looked as if shared-space diversity—and not interactive diversity—was the order of the day. 

Now, in the final analysis, the simple truth is that no black or Latino (two groups often stereotyped as being intellectually inferior) will ever be secure in her intellectual abilities unless she or he understands in a way that only the experience of success can anchor that she or he can compete with any and all ethnic groups.  This secure conviction comes not by rhetoric or sympathy, though these things may have their place, but only by experience.  On my view, then, mere shared-space diversity continues to have a crippling effect upon minorities.

The issue is not whether racism continues to exist in America or on college campuses.  I assume that it does.  I also think that the racism is more lateral among faculty than lateral among students, which is why I wrote the essay “A Black Conservative Among White Liberals”.  Faculty members compete for scarce resources in a more direct way than students do.  An entire class can receive a grade of “A”.

The real issue, rather, is how we do undermine the debilitating effects of institutional racism and underwrite the abilities of all equally.  And to that I respond: interactive diversity.  For it is then and only then that all bring to the social moment tools for both criticism and self-criticism.  Mere shared-space diversity is compatible with debilitating self-indulgence. 

On university campuses across the United States, diversity is in the end thing.  But we have seen that diversity admits of at least two conceptions: shared-spacediversity and interactive diversity.  The second underwrites equality for all; the first by itself is compatible with the status quo and stagnancy.  Because souls are at stake, I write in the hopes that Chancellor Nancy Cantor not play fast and loose with this difference.  I want her to make it unequivocally clear even to a feeble-minded person like myself that she stands for excellence for all as opposed to sanctifying grudges for some. 

magine a university where people—faculty and students alike—do not free to wrestle with ideas and to engage in rich discussions about alternative points of view.  Why because an unofficial pall has been cast over the university owing to a fear in the air that does not speak its name.  The fear to which I am referring is the rhetorical charge that one is racist or, if not that, then one is sexist or, if not that, then at least one is homophobic.  Charges of this sort tarnish one’s reputation whether they are true or not.  Accordingly, such charges are an extremely effective way to silence one’s opponents.  Imagine a university where this sort of thing goes on, and one place that you will have imagined is Syracuse University.

If this is right, then in a most important respect Syracuse University has become a de facto police state.  And as the history of de facto segregation in the United States makes abundantly clear, de facto practices can be very real and efficacious.  Neighborhoods in the United States remained predominantly white owing to none other than de facto segregation practices: the apartment had just been rented or the announced rent is now 3 times more than what was “mistakenly” advertised.  And so on. 

There are many respects in which I profoundly admire Chancellor Nancy Cantor.  She is clearly a very capable and very ambitious individual.  And I like that in a person.  Before arriving at Syracuse University, she was known for her pro-diversity stance.  Needless to say, she is not open to criticism for having a pro-diversity stance.  She is as entitled to have that stance just as I am to have my stance to the contrary.

But imagine that every time my students disagreed with me, I implied that in some way or the other—sometimes explicitly; sometimes implicitly—that they are racist.  Suppose I argued as follows: “If you are for affirmative action, then you do not truly believe that blacks are the intellectual equal of whites; hence, you are a racist”.  You see, one get “racism” out of just about anything if one is creative enough. 

Now, as a matter of fact, I do worry about pushing affirmative action so hard that the issue actual intellectual wherewithal of blacks drops out of the picture; and increase in diversity numbers may be wonderful, such an increase is not logically connected to intellectual excellence on the part of blacks.  More blacks or Latinos or whatever the minority group does not thereby mean greater intellectual excellence on the part of the minority group in question, any more than it is obviously the case that a vastly white Syracuse University campus has not entailed greater intellectual excellence on the part of whites.  No one can call me racist for saying this if only because in addition to being black I am a tad too smart to be beguiled by that sort of rhetoric.  But it a white professor can easily be dismissed for making just the point that I have made.

Welcome to Syracuse University.  The issue is not whether Chancellor Cantor is pro-affirmative action and pro-diversity.  Rather, the issue is that she is playing in a most vicious way with the idea that those who are not are racist in some way or the other.  And one result of that is a pall of silence across the campus regarding her ideas.

I know this in a very personal way.  In April of 2006, an email was sent out across the campus asking people to sign a petition in support of Chancellor Cantor’s policies.  This email appeared after what is known as the Hill TV-fiasco, where Chancellor Cantor rushed to support the view that the stupidity of the 20 or so students involved was indicative of deep racist throughout the student body. 

Now, I know for a fact that there were many faculty members who quite angry at the way Chancellor Cantor handled the Hill TV-fiasco; and I also know that many roundly disagreed with the email of April 2006.  But there was deafening silence on the part of those who disagreed.  And make no mistake about it, the explanation for that silence is very simple: no white male professor, no matter how tenured and distinguished, wants to have to deal with the issue of appearing to be racist or sexist. 

I know of the disagreement on the part of a number of faculty members because I did write a response to the April email in which I made it manifestly clear that I, as a black man, did not come this far in life to be told that I must be silent when I do not accept a point of view.  Surely, so I insisted, I am entitled to disagree in a respectful manner.  I circulated the letter; and I received enthusiastic responses from a number of people—some in high places, in fact. 

The poignant point here is that I, the black male, could do what none of my white colleagues could do, namely express my view in a peaceful and respectful manner, precisely because I, as a black man, have a certain immunity to the charge of racism.  True, I can as a black man still be quite the sexist.  It is also true that blacks can in fact be racist.  Just so, the charge of racism against does not stick easily, if at all.

Now, what ought Chancellor Nancy Cantor have done?  Needless to say, she has every reason to be grateful for those who support her policies.  In general, public support is a very good thing.  Yet, all the while expressing gratitude to those who support her policies, she could have also affirmed the importance of others to examine critically her policies. By that single move, she would have changed the moral climate of Syracuse University.

I am not a fool.  A fortiori, Chancellor Nancy Cantor is not a fool.  The supporters of that email were effectively saying “If you do not see it our way and support the Chancellor, then you are a racist”.  This was not lost on Chancellor Cantor.  The Hill-TV fiasco committed by 20 students and the rest of the campus was entirely unaware of the ordeal.  But it was used as an excuse to indict the entire campus and to indicate the extent to which the campus was laced with latent racism.  This morally warped and ignominious strategy was not lost on Chancellor Cantor.  Had the stupidity of the 20 not been reported in campus student newspaper, The Daily Orange, the campus-at-large would not have known about it.

The very nature of things is such that to be president of a major university is to have a significant amount of discretionary power, not the least of which is the power to set a moral town.  But there is an unspoken power that Chancellor Nancy Cantor has, namely that she is a woman who very strongly advocates a pro-diversity program.  If one is a white male, it turns out that the most prudent thing to do is to keep one’s mouth shut, lest one be called a racist (not pro-diversity) or a sexist (criticizing a woman, especially a woman who is pro-diversity).  How does she use the power that dares not speak its name? 

Let me illustrate.  My signature course is Philosophy 191.  It routinely attracts around 400 students a semester.  Imagine, then, if I conducted that course in such a way that every white student had reason to suspect that I regard her or him as a racist.  No matter how polite and charming I was; no matter how funny I was: it would be impossible for a white student to not walk away with the sense that I take her or him to be a racist.  Imagine further that I could see racism in just about anything: “A white student is late for class: racism—a lack of respect for a black professor”; “A white student asks a tough question that puts me on the spot: racism—a desire to make a black professor look stupid in front of white students”.  And so on.  In this supposed-class, I never call anyone racist.  But my, oh my: Everyone knows. 

Now, I presume that the enrollment would drop precipitously.  But suppose that students were required to enroll in the course, I take it to be manifestly obvious that my approach to teaching would cast a devastating pall upon intellectual inquiry and discussion.  There would be a deafening silence that had nothing whatsoever to do with the majesty of my lectures or the strength of my argument.  No, the deafening silenced would be due to none other than moral intimidation.  And, of course, students would make every effort to parrot my view so that they could get a decent grade.  But would this have anything to do with learning?  Clearly not.  Needless to say, to teach in this way would be an egregious abuse of my power as a professor and of my social leverage as a black. 

What we would have in such a class is none other than a mini police state.  It would be a de facto one.  If by parity of reasoning a like atmosphere prevails over Syracuse University, then what we have is none other than a de facto police state—the tyranny of the power, to transpose the words of John Stuart Mill. 

If there is one thing that Mill what was unmistakably clear about it is that silencing reasonable discussion could never be justified; accordingly, it could never be virtuous. 

Chancellor Nancy Cantor has the institutional and moral power to invigorate Mill’s ideal of free speech.  Whether she does so not, it remains an unvarnished truth that when people of decency and good will are afraid to express their opinions lest they be deemed racist or sexist, then what we have is a morally scandalous environment and none other than the making of a de facto police state. That is the university climate over which Nancy Cantor, as Chancellor and President, presides.  More importantly, it is also the climate that she has created. For she has, and has always had, the power to affirm ever so magisterially intellectual diversity even as she proceeds full speed ahead with her program of racial diversity.  The simple truth of the matter is that she has chosen not to exercise that power.  Accordingly, that simple truth is telling about her. 

ost regrettably, it seem to be true that once a pedophile, then always a pedophile.  Upon reflection, though, it is easy enough to see why this might be true.  From the outset, the pedophile’s sexual interest is so distorted and warped as to be beyond the pale.  Surely, a part of what makes sex enjoyable—part of what animates us and gives rise to a longing—is that the person with whom we are having sex appreciates (at least to some extent) what we are doing.  That is why sex is generally preferable to masturbation.  For no matter how much relief masturbation can bring, the activity of masturbation pales in comparison to the satisfaction that comes with having one’s sexual gestures appreciated by another.

No child can have that kind of appreciation.  And no one can possibly think that a child could have that kind of appreciation.  In this respect, the pedophile is more incomprehensible than the rapist, who is incomprehensible enough.  For the rapist can entertain the warped thought that “X would in fact want me if only X had me”.  With a child, however, even this warped thought makes no sense at all. 

The pedophile, then, is essentially a person whose sexual desires have been misconfigured beyond repair.  And this is so on two accounts.  One pertains to the object of the desire, namely a child; the other pertains to acting upon that desire.  A person might recognize that her or his desire for something is disgusting and that realization suffices for the individual to refrain from acting upon that desire.  This sort of psychological structure does not exist with the pedophile.  The pedophile is not at all repulsed by the fact that the object of his sexual desire is a child who can have no appreciation whatsoever for the sex act. 

Now, if this were not bad enough there is the issue of the damage that child sexual abuse does to the child.  The act of pedophilia is a profound violation of a child’s trust.  Children look to adults for affirmation.  There is simply no respect in which a child looks to an adult for sexual gratification.  And this any adult can grasp with a modicum of reflection.  The pedophilia turns the child’s desire to be affirmed by him into an opportunity for sexual gratification.  Therein lies the profound breach of the child’s trust. 

What, then, is the appropriate moral and social response to the person who has committed an act of pedophilia?  The proper answer has to be tied to the recognition that pedophilia is not a crime like others. 

Stealing is wrong; murder is wrong.  Just so, we can understand how a person might have a motive for either of these acts, where the motive does not thereby constitute a misconfiguration of the soul.  If, for example, you killed my wife and children, then my desire to murder you, far from constituting a misconfiguration of my soul, may in fact be ever so natural.  And one can, in fact, steal as form of moral outrage, as when prices are exorbitantly high.  Notice, though, that if you abused my child sexually, it would never cross my mind to get even by abusing your child sexually.  That would be an utterly obnoxious thought.  Yet, if you murdered a member of my family getting even in a like way is at least a possible thought. 

The act of pedophilia is not a wrong like others.  Accordingly, a different response in the form of punishment is appropriate.  This is where the idea of chemical castration comes into the picture. 

In a 1997 response to the idea of chemical castration, the ACLU had this to say:

Mandatory chemical castration interferes with an offender’s fundamental right to procreate and the right to refuse medical treatment (my italics)

The very idea of pedophiles having a right to procreate ought to be an oxymoron, since precisely what arises is the issue of the pedophile sexually abusing her or his very own child. 

There is much to be said for being mindful of the rights of the criminal.  However, there is nothing whatsoever to be said for pedophiles procreating, precisely because they would do serious moral and psychological damage to their own child.

For you see, there is no reason whatsoever to think that the pedophile will say “Wait a minute.  Enough is enough.  The idea of causing such damage to my very own child is so utterly repulsive that I would rather die than do such a thing.  Someone else’s child is one thing; but my very own child: absolutely out of the question”.  Had we any reason to think that pedophiles would reason in this way, then the ACLU’s statement cited above might have a point.  But we do not.  And that is what makes the ACLU’s statement both utterly ludicrous and morally bankrupt.  Defending a pedophile’s right to procreate is tantamount to defending the right to put a child in harm’s way. 

There is also the claim on the part of the ACLU that castrating pedophilia is a form of eugenics.  All that I can say in response is that this is a morally irresponsible use of the language.  It is an instance of playing fast and loose with language.  The idea behind eugenics is that of creating a certain kind of group or race of people.  The chemical castration of pedophiles bears no semblance at all to that idea.  Indeed, doing so is not even about preventing the birth of other pedophiles.  Rather, it is about preventing harm to children. 

Now, to be sure, there are important issues to be addressed with respect to chemical castration.  If it harms the pedophile by, for instance, ruining the individual’s liver or giving the individual diabetes, then that would be a serious strike against the procedure.  If, in general, chemical castration shortened the life-span of the pedophile, then that would be a problem. 

Might there be good moral or health reasons for not imposing chemical castration absolutely?  Absolutely.  But one of them is surely not, as the ACLU claims, that the pedophile has a right to procreate.  Nor is it that doing so amounts to none other than the introduction of eugenics in society.  There is no parallel at all to, say, ridding the society of this group or that group or in order to create a superior group of people.  Eugenics is not about committing a morally reprehensible act.  Rather, it is the thesis that a group of individuals are of a morally reprehensible kind simply in virtue of their being of that kind, and so irrespective of the decency of the lives that these individuals may or may not live.  Nazi Germany was not about killing only the bad Jews?  Why?  Because one was a bad Jew simply in virtue of being Jew.  Pedophiles are not a race of people who live upright lives.  Rather, a pedophile is by definition someone one who sexually abuses children. 

Once more, the ACLU would be right to point out that life is full of risks and that we are not entitled to restrict the freedom and rights of individuals merely because there is a risk that a person might do something wrong.  After all, that will always be true.  I might become a crack-head next year, although presently I would not recognize crack if one served it to me. 

Alas, the pedophile is not simply someone who might do something that is harmful to a child because he does something else such as consume too much alcohol that, in turn, dims his perception of the harm that he is doing to the child.  No, the pedophile is by definition one whose psyche is configured in such a way that he has a sexual preference for children, which he seems prepared to satisfy no matter what.  The very idea that this sort of individual has a right to procreate is easily one or the most morally obnoxious ideas ever advanced by the ACLU.   

Chemical castration, at least the idea of it, is a morally appropriate response to one of the most horrific harms, namely sexual abuse, that a child can suffer.  To hear the ACLU tell it, one would never know that the act of pedophilia constitutes a most egregious, and often permanent, harm to the child, as ne’er a word is uttered in this regard.  This may not make the ACLU evil.  But it does, in this instance, make the ACLU a handmaiden of evil. 

France's President, Nicolas Sarkozy, is in favor of chemic castration for pedophiles.  In this regard, I think of Sarkozy as a compassionate realist.  It would, of course, be absolutely wonderful if one could say to the pedophile "Stop that ! ! !  You are hurting innocent children" and the pedophile would indeed change his or her behavior for the better.  But we now know, unlike once upon a time, that in this regard the pedophile does not have an effective moral conscience nor an effective will (to use the felicitious expression by the philosophy Harry Frankfurt).  Against the background: President Sarkozy's proposal of chemical castration is a morally compassionate response to the horror of what a pedophile is like, a response that recognizes that the right to liberty correctly in this instance takes a back seat to the well-being of the innocent child.   

here is no greater indication of how malleable human beings are than that in this day and age there are women who still adorn themselves in the burka: a form of attire that entirely covers a woman from head to toe, with small slits over the head piece whereby the woman can see.  I say this even though I take the idea of modesty very seriously.  I think that both women and men can be modest in their dress.  And yes, I do think that the standards of modesty differ between women and men.  This difference, I believe, is tied to the indisputable fact that consensual sex is tied to the woman’s consent in a way that it is not tied to the man’s consent; and the exceptions prove the rule.

The burka makes a mockery out of modesty; and flies in the face of reality.  To start with the last point, it is simply false that sexual attraction is only one directional, with only men finding women physically attractive (to put things in a more neutral manner).  Even I can attest to the fact that all sorts of women, including Muslim women, find men physically attractive.  So if modesty in physical appearance in a public setting is what drives the burka for women, then there ought to be a like garment-piece for men.  In this way, all those Muslim women would not be distracted by that very modestly dressed Muslim man who nonetheless is extremely attractive.  Or, are we to pretend either that there are no such attractive Muslim men or that Muslim women, however, dressed lack the psychological wherewithal to recognize such a man. 

As for modesty, the very idea behind it is not that one hides entirely one’s physical attractiveness, but that the presentation of one’s attractiveness is done in a manner that does not flaunt one’s assets.  Surely, the choice is not between either a woman’s covering herself from head to toe or her presenting herself as brazen sexual object.  This is so even thought what counts as flaunting sexual attraction can be a matter of disagreement.  For on no account can showing one’s face in public be seen as flaunting one’s sexuality; otherwise, we would be in the awkward position of having to accuse nuns of flaunting their sexuality.  Not a very plausible thesis! 

This last observation is quite significant.  For if one does take the burka seriously as the form of modesty on the part of women, then precisely what one has to hold is that nuns are immodest in their public presentation.  Not only is that view absurd, it is an outright insult to nuns everywhere. 

Now, I ask: What does it mean to tolerate a practice that, without good reason, implies that those who do not behave in accordance with the practice are morally bankrupt in some way?  On the face of it, that is woefully unacceptable.  Yet, that is precisely what we are being asked to do insofar as we are being asked to tolerate the practice of the burka.  For the burka is not just a silly style for women like platform shoes like 7-inch spiked heels or whatever.  No, the burka is necessarily a statement about the proper way in which a woman should present herself in public: This is how other women would dress if only they were sufficiently modest.

What is more, a burka is not at all like a nun’s habit.  For the nun’s habit marks the acceptance of a special spiritual calling; and there is no implication whatsoever that other women are less morally proper if they do not also accept that calling.  It is understood from the outset that being a nun or priest entails a level of self-sacrifice that a very decent and upright individual might not be willing to undertake.

The burka, however, is not at all about a special calling of that sort.