William Payne

You mention “The bigots still face the criticism of many powerful voices on campus including faculty, staff and students.” Can you expand on this? Maybe give a hypothetical as to what this would look like?

Dr. Payne,

Thank you for your thoughtful consideration of my “statement on statements.” I have enjoyed our conversations about my position, and I appreciate your updates to this post. I think that you have quite fairly captured the competing value propositions, and I don’t have any issues with what you have written about my position of restraint. In fact, I appreciate the generous reading that you have given my writings. As you know, this was not a decision that was made quickly nor was it made easily. There is a long list of readings and a considerable heap of arguments that have been considered including the Kalven report (which is not the position that I have adopted) and arguments made by the president of Seattle University among many other presidential statements.

I would also like to briefly address your non-hypothetical above. One of the things that has been confounding to an ability to respond from my seat is a rush to judgement in too many cases. If I was a lawyer, and I very intentionally am not, I would object to your non-hypothetical because it assumes facts not in evidence.

Unlike the statement on statements, what did or did not occur with respect to the student posters is not a matter of values in the first instance but rather, first, a matter of fact. What values are attached must, I think, rely on those facts as established. The assumption that posters were ripped down and that the intent in doing so was “aimed at silencing our students of color” may, certainly, be correct. They may also be incorrect, and many other possibilities and motivations are in the realm of the possible. If the assumptions are correct, then outrage at an assault on our broadly held values is certainly justified. If those assumptions are not correct, then the outrage may be misplaced and may actually be damaging to our ability to respond to such an assault on our shared values when it does occur. The determination of the truth or falsity of assumptions is often difficult and always takes time.

If the time required to make determinations of fact is not allowed and if the assumptions are accepted as fact absent evidence, the outrage may feel justified when, again, it could in fact be misplaced. If, entirely hypothetically, there was video evidence retrieved a day or two after that showed the poster(s) in question being blown away by a strong gust of wind, that fact would be problematic to the assumptions. And the challenge then is that any statement that confronts the assumptions, now accepted as fact and also imbued with a deeply held value, is too often seen as a challenge to the value that has been embedded in the assumption rather than the assumption itself. I think that is true even if the statement seeks to uphold that very value at the expense of the incorrect assumption. There is, in short, no positive value added or usually received by any statement at that point.

And the silence, the lack of a statement, will then be taken by some as a lack of support for the value in general. Connections will be made and new assumptions generated without the dialogue necessary to validate those new or even the old assumptions (now “facts”). The absence of a statement is newly recreated with whatever value the non-listener wishes to insert whether valid or not, and Griffin v California notwithstanding. I have not yet seen the right moment to “put a stick into the spokes” of that often very rapid cycle.

And so, then I am left wondering how to possibly navigate these difficulties. You and I have briefly discussed the problem of statements about the current war in the middle east as another example. There were many loud voices last October demanding a full-throated and unequivocal statement of support for Israel. The people desiring such were, in that moment, very clear about the value statement and were certain of the moral clarity of their position and I am sure that some still are. However, from my perspective and with the advantage of time, it may be less clear cut than it initially appeared. Some people, including some college and university presidents, who gave such unequivocal statements have certainly come now to regret those unambiguous statements with the admission of new facts and different value propositions into the equation. Many clarifications have been written as the facts and associated values have been stressed and have changed. Those clarifications and even retractions may be necessary, but they also have the effect of devaluing the positional power of the next statement, given that it is issued with the full knowledge by everyone that it might rightly need to be retracted or modified when its internal assumptions prove to be flawed or even incorrect. These are not easy waters to navigate. I think that it all ultimately augurs toward a position of restraint in institutional statements.

I hope that you will accept these thoughts as they are intended, clarifications and examples that might contribute to continued dialogue around these issues.

Dave