Vanderbilt and Diversity

Michael Stokes Paulsen, writing for Public Discourse, laments the sorry condition of Vanderbilt’s awfully ironic pronouncements of toleration. An ultimatum has be issued announcing that the university will dispense with student religious groups that “impose faith-based or belief-based requirements for membership or leadership”:

There is a further, bitter irony in all this. The reason why Vanderbilt may discriminate against religion is precisely the same principle of freedom that Vanderbilt denies to religious groups on its campus—the freedom to form its own expressive identity. Vanderbilt purports to be liberal and tolerant of different views. But its university officials do not appear to understand what this means. They think the university is being open-minded by requiring student groups, including religious groups, to conform to university officials’ view of orthodoxy. This is not so much hypocritical or cynical (though it may be that as well) as simply embarrassingly ignorant. Vanderbilt does not appear even to recognize that its actions are intolerant. It thinks it is protecting its community from improper influences, just as it once thought that segregation protected its community.

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