Right Ascension - updated editorial on BYU Philosophy Department dismall of Jeffrey Nielsen

Right Ascension

6/20/2006 - updated editorial on BYU Philosophy Department dismall of Jeffrey Nielsen

News Item
BYU professor let go for questioning LDS stand on gay marriage

Preserved from the Salt Lake Tribune Internet Newsservice
http://www.sltrib.com/ci_3932572
Article Last Updated: 6/13/2006 01:42 PM
By Todd Hollingshead The Salt Lake Tribune

PROVO — “A Brigham Young University adjunct professor who recently called into question the LDS Church's opposition to gay marriage will not be rehired after spring term.

“The decision to let Jeffrey Nielsen go was based on an op-ed piece he wrote for the June 4 edition of the Salt Lake Tribune.

"I believe opposing gay marriage and seeking a constitutional amendment against it is immoral," wrote the part-time philosophy professor at the LDS Church-owned school.

“In a statement read over pulpits the previous week, leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints urged members to support a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and asked them to "express themselves on this urgent matter" to U.S. senators.

“Jeffrey Nielsen, a practicing Latter-day Saint, learned of the school's decision regarding him in a letter dated June 8 from BYU Department of Philosophy Chairman Daniel Graham.”

RIGHT ASCENSION COMMENTARY

Definitions

Some might make a distinction between discussing-criticizing church policy and discussing-criticizing church doctrine. In his editorial, Mr. Nielsen discussed both.   He discussed the First Presidency’s endorsement of a marriage amendment and LDS attitudes toward doctrinal prohibition against same gender sexual activity.

Nielsen’s employers apparently felt that he “criticized” rather than “discussed.”

Critics cannot ignore that scriptures backs the LDS Church’s position on same gender sexual activity. The Doctrine and Covenants says nothing on the matter. The one reference to it in the Book of Mormon is a rather oblique Old Testament quotation.   The New Testament features some negative scripture denunciations on the subject, but the majority of such verses reside in the Old Testament.

This, unfortunately, presents a problem for the Church right at the start.   The Old Testament is one of the most widely quoted books around, but it is also one of the least read.

On the one hand, the Old Testament text is clear that those engaging in same gender sexual activity deserve to be put to death. On the other hand, the Old Testament contains no fewer than 40 activities punishable by death, including opposite gender adultery which, incidentally, gets a rather technical definition in the Old Testament.   Apparently, it made some sort of difference if the woman in question was a slave or married.

Someone once said that if we still lived by the letter of Old Testament law, few of us would still be alive after all the punishments.   That an exaggeration of course, but not much of one.

Furthermore, Doctrine and Covenants scripture suggests in a number of verses that God lifted-ended certain of the Old Testament death penalties in modern scripture.

BYU'S OFFICIAL REACTION.

Mr. Nielsen served as an adjunct instuctor, which means that in the university community he does not deserve benefits or a living wage or common courtesy. Nonetheless, BYU still acted the chump in mishandling the dismissal. A department chair should have more manners than a moose, even when dealing with an adjunct faculty member.

Mr. Nielsen should insist upon an paragraph-by-paragraph commentary/explanation in writing of the offending editorial.

Here is a paragraph of Professor Graham’s letter (according to the Tribune article).

    "In accordance with the order of the church, we do not consider it our responsibility to correct, contradict or dismiss official pronouncements of the church Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders, and to do so in a public forum, we will not rehire you after the current term is over."

Nielsen deserves some explanatory annotations from his Chair.   For example, here is how I might annotate the chair’s letter:

"In accordance with the order of the church . . . "

which means in accordance with the order of BYU, which abhors any controversy that is bad for its public image and which upsets the people who finance BYU’s pay checks.

" we do not consider it our responsibility to correct, contradict or dismiss official pronouncements of the church. . . "

Though many BYU professors, administrators, and staff members have done so for years in their offices, class rooms, staff meetings, lunch rooms.

"Since you have chosen to contradict and oppose the church in an area of great concern to church leaders, and to do so in a public forum . . . "

If Nielsen had to write something contradictory, he should do what the shrewd BYU professors do and publish it in a scholarly publication that does not get read in conservative Utah circles.

The department chair should have had the decency to write Nielsen sometime between 4 and 7 June.   Did he?

He should have outlined in writing exactly what points in Nielsen’s editorial were false doctrine.   Did he?

The chair should have given Nielsen time to write a public amendment to the editorial, if Nielsen thought one was in order.

An Aside:

The First Amendment to the Constitution is not strong enough to keep BYU from firing Nielsen because his editorial is an embarassment to their public relations. The First Amendment was not strong enough to preserve the LDS Church practice of plural marriage in the nineteenth Century. (See Stephen L Carter: The Culture of Disbelief, pp. 28-29). The Fourth and Fifth Amendments on warrants and due process are not strong enough to keep the Bush administration from keeping political prisoners forever in a Cuban Gulag without charges, trials, or prison sentences.   The Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth Amendments were not strong enough to guarentee Black former slaves human rights in the United States. Why those who advocate a marriage definition amendment believe it will strengthen marriage in America is something of a mystery.

Another aside:

It would be darned interesting to find out how many BYU professors actually took the time to write to their Senators about marriage in general or the Marriage Definition Amendment to the Constitution.   It would also be interesting to know just how many professors have ever written an article about Principles of Marriage in a scholarly journal.

Qualifier

It is, I suppose, possible, that readers of the Tribune do not yet have all the details.   The Chair might complain that the Tribune has taken him out of context.   It is also hard, though, to contemplate a context where "We will not rehire you" is a good thing.

Meanwhile, across the valley at the Great Alternative Institution

For four years, this writer conducted a political column in the Daily Herald while working as an English Department adjunct faculty member at Utah Valley State. Over the years, I wrote columns full of right-wing opinions on politics and blunt observations about the failings of public education. I am sure some UVSC leaders and professors considered my logic faulty and my examples flawed.   Some of them wrote letters to the editor and posted comments in the "post a comment feature" in harktheherald.com. That is the way it should be.   In all those years, the chairs of my department never made me justify a single solitary column.   I still work in the English Department.

However, I enjoyed a certain amount of luck

The purpose of universities.

The function of the University is the political control of knowledge.    Universities insure that trained professionals keep knowledge pure and undefiled from the unwashed unlearned masses.   Universities determine who will and who will not be worthy to make money off knowledge. Universities also define what is real knowledge and what is not real knowledge.   For example, had I written columns extolling the virtues of terrorist activity against civilian children or of the Nazi holocaust, my leaders would have fired me. It makes my head spin to consider how quickly I would have been sacked had I had written columns condemning diversity or the separation of church and state.

We can believe what we want. We can write what we want.   We retain our jobs only to the degree that we and our attorneys persuade our bosses.

So in conclusion

The individual details in this controversy twixt Jeffrey Nielsen and the BYU Philosophy Department are still not yet completely full or clear.   Nonetheless, it does remind me of David O. Selznick’s classic observation, “There are two types of class: first class and no class.”     BYU bureaucracy strikes again, class of 2006.