John Lewis Denied Tenure at Ashland University

[Robert Campbell]

In today's Chronicle of Higher Education, there is an article about an affiliate of the Leonard Peikoff Institute being denied tenure.

"Tenure Shrugged: A Scholar's Affinity for the Philosophy of Ayn Rand Cost Him His Job" is about the case of John D. Lewis, who came up for tenure at Ashland University this past year and was turned down, explicitly for religious reasons.

I got access to the online edition of the Chronicle because a colleague who subscribes sent me a link that turns into a pumpkin in five days. There is no point in my trying to post a link here; only subscribers would be able to read the article. Instead, I'll summarize it and quote three passages.

In his sixth year at Ashland, a Christian university in Ohio, Lewis was turned down for tenure in January 2007.

A memo from Robert C. Suggs, who was then Ashland's

provost, to Frederick J. Finks, the university's president, said

that Mr. Lewis's tenure application was "a unique and

particularly thorny one." Mr. Suggs wrote that Mr. Lewis's

publications, teaching, and service all met or exceeded the

university's tenure standards, but said that his support for

objectivism, an atheist philosophy, "stands in unreserved

opposition to the Judeo-Christian values found in the

university's mission and the beliefs of the founding

organization, the Brethren Church."

In the memo, Mr. Suggs conceded that Mr. Lewis had not

proselytized objectivism in the classroom. But he argued that

Mr. Lewis's scholarly publications expressed ideas that were

contrary to Ashland's mission. He pointed in particular to Mr.

Lewis's chapter in an edited volume, Essays on Ayn Rand's

Anthem (Lexington Books, 2005). There Mr. Lewis

celebrated Rand's "break with the Judeo-Christian

condemnation of ambition and pride."

(The Chronicle consistently spells "Objectivism" with a small "o.")

Lewis contacted the American Association of University Professors. He also hired a lawyer and threatened to sue. He argued that out of 21 publications that he included in his tenure notebook, only 2 mentioned Objectivism.

A point of particular interest is that Ashland accepted grant money from the Anthem Foundation during the entire 6 years that Lewis taught there.

Mr. Finks, however, said the grants Ashland accepted, while

initially intended for the study of objectivism, were

significantly revised in response to the university's concerns.

"If you would read the grants, they are not for the promotion

of that at all," he said.

Mr. Finks declined to share the text of the grants with The

Chronicle. A copy of the final Letter of Understanding

provided to The Chronicle by the Anthem Foundation

appears to contradict Mr. Finks's account. "The primary

purpose of the fellowship is to fund release time so that

Professors Thompson and Lewis can pursue research and

writing on Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism," it reads.

Taking money from the Anthem Foundation makes Ashland's administration appear hypocritical. What refusing to disclose the text of the grants makes them I needn't spell out here.

The artlcle also notes that a speaking appearance by Lewis at George Mason University (originally scheduled for March) was nixed by the GMU administration after Muslims and Leftists complained. Lewis's topic, as many readers here would anticipate, was the alleged need for total war against Iran. The speaking engagement ended up being rescheduled in April; heavy security was provided for the event.

In April, Ashland's administration produced a weird compromise, granting Lewis tenure on the condition that he not exercise it. He took the deal, resigned from Ashland, and will be a visiting faculty member at Bowling Green State University next year.

Robert Campbell

PS. The author, David Glenn, may not know how to capitalize "Objectivism" but he is not entirely naïve about LPI.

In some respects, Mr. Lewis is an unlikely poster child for

academic freedom. In his 2006 essay on Iran, he urged

Muslim intellectuals to renounce political Islamism or face

"immediate, personal destruction." And he often writes and

speaks on behalf of the Ayn Rand Institute, whose leaders

are famously insistent on enforcing fidelity to Rand's beliefs,

as they see them.

"We have to always make a judgment about things we put

out, or things put out by people associated with us," said

Onkar Ghate, dean of the Objectivist Academic Center,

which is affiliated with the institute. "Are they going to be

teaching, talking about, advocating Ayn Rand's ideas, or are

they doing something else?"

[Barbara Branden]

Robert, I had just sent the Chronicle article about John Lewis to some friends when I read your post. In my email, I said the following:

"What irony! What's being done to him is exactly what ARI does to people it disagrees with."

Barbara

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Robert,

I had never heard of Ashland University. I guess that's where you go if you have Bible-beating parents or you can't get into Case Western or Ohio State.

I just looked up Church of the Brethren in Wikipedia and came across this:

The denomination holds the New Testament as its only creed. Historically the church has taken a strong stance for non-resistance or pacifism. Distinctive practices include believers baptism by trine immersion, a threefold Love Feast consisting of feet washing, a fellowship meal, and communion, anointing for healing, and the holy kiss.

LOL, no wonder they didn't like the fact that John Lewis was from ARI.

Jim

[Robert Campbell]

Jim,

Aha! The Chronicle definitely missed the pacifist angle.

Here is Lewis's information from the Ashland site (they haven't removed it yet):

http://www3.ashland.edu/academics/arts_sci...tory/lewis.html

Robert Campbell

[Chris Grieb]

Why is the feeling I have called irony

I find myself very distributing that the school took the money and then got rid of Mr. Lewis.

Not having seen the article I wonder if some member of the ruling body became aware of ARI, raised a stink and led to Mr Lewis's firing.

ARI doesn't believe in academic freedom. Read their archives policy. They are on line.

What has ARI said about all this?

[Neil Parille]

Does the Objectivist Academic Center (or whatever it's called) even have tenure? Would they consider hiring (or retaining) someone who is not a 100% follower of Rand and Peikoff?

Of course, there may be contractual and other issues involved (for example why did they hire Lewis in the first place) but, even so, this is just too funny.

Maybe Objectivists will explain how Lewis teaching at Ashland or Mayhew teaching at Seaton Hall (Roman Catholic) doesn't involve compromise.

[Robert Campbell]

Chris,

The article is not clear as to who at Ashland complained, and when, about Dr. Lewis's rejection of Christian values.

One the one hand, there is a vague suggestion of ongoing conflict between Dr. Lewis and multiple unidentified adversaries:

...he resigned from his position at Ashland, in the culmination of a years-long faculty battle over his interest in objectivism, as Rand termed her philosophy. And in the Ashland arena, Mr. Lewis says, his foes were mainstream and evangelical Christians.

On the other hand, the specifics provided are just Provost Suggs' negative recommendation for tenure, and President Finks' decision to uphold it (see my first post for the relevant passage).

There could be much more to the story than the article is able to give us.

However, Glenn does mention in his article that Lewis appealed the President's decision to a university faculty committee, which supported him and not the upper administration:

...Mr. Finks... says it is entirely appropriate for Ashland to defend its mission and identity by drawing certain lines in the sand.

"Ashland has had a commitment to Judeo-Christian values since its founding 128 years ago," he said. "In our faculty rules and regulations, and even in our bylaws, we talk about having a faculty committed to Judeo-Christian values. We don't require faculty to be specifically of Judeo-Christian persuasion, but we do require faculty to support the mission."

...

Mr. Lewis said that Ashland's formal faculty regulations did not explicitly state how and why a faculty member's scholarship might violate the university's mission. The faculty's committee on professional standards and responsibilities, which supported Mr. Lewis's appeal, agreed. Without clearer rules, the committee wrote in an April memo to Mr. Suggs, "the decision must be viewed as arbitrary and a restraint on academic freedom."

Funny you should mention the access policy for the Ayn Rand Archives... I'll get to that next.

Robert Campbell

[Neil Parille]

In other words, if Lewis was up-front about his views when he was hired, it seems unfair to refuse to promote him.

In the "about" section on the school's website, it states that the school is "historically related to the Brethren Church" and supports "Judeo-Christian" principles. It sounds to me that it is not officially tied to the Brethren anymore and supports a sort of "generic" monotheism.

To follow up on what Robert says, there may be a bit of tension between what the school was and what it has become, and some don't like it.

[Robert Campbell]

Chris,

Here's a piece of the mission statement for the Ayn Rand Archives:

The mission of the Ayn Rand Archives is to acquire, preserve, inventory and

make available Ayn Rand’s remaining papers and related documents to serious scholars

and general writers. Serious describes those who profess agreement with Objectivism and

wish to advance it, students who wish to learn and evaluate it, historians concerned with

its impact, and, finally, scholars who disagree with it and wish to critique it.

And here is the elaboration on it, in the formal Access Policy:

In this context, it is appropriate to define and comment on what is meant by

serious scholar.

It was Ayn Rand’s expressed wish to utilize her estate to carry out the

advancement of her philosophy after her death. Ayn Rand’s own wish, affirmed

throughout her life, was to present her ideas to intellectuals open to reason.

The legacy of Ayn Rand is reflected in the intellectual charter of the Ayn Rand

Institute. By institutional mandate, the Ayn Rand Institute reserves the right to determine

what constitutes the best use of its resources and how to comply with its mandate to

advance the study of Objectivism as a serious philosophy. This leads to our making the

archives available to: scholars who profess agreement with Objectivism and wish to

advance it, students who wish to learn and evaluate it, historians concerned with its

impact, and, finally, scholars who disagree with it and wish to critique it. To be fully

clear, this spectrum includes both scholars in basic agreement with the fundamentals of

Objectivism, however vigorously they may debate details and specifics, as well as

scholars emphatically not in agreement with its fundamentals, and who wish to critique it

in a serious manner. However, it is fully within the institutional mandate of the Ayn Rand

Archives, as a department of the Ayn Rand Institute, to deny access to individuals who,

in the Ayn Rand Institute’s sole discretion, would use the Archives’ resources to

legitimize theories that pose as Objectivist but which, in fact, contradict Objectivism’s

fundamentals—thus contradicting the Intellectual Charter and the Archives’ institutional

mandate as identified above.

The whole shebang may be obtained in PDF from

http://www.aynrand.org/site/PageServer?pag...chives_archives

Scroll down to Volume 3, 2000, for the Access Policy.

Now, let's suppose that Dragonfly wants to check the archives for documents pertaining to Ayn Rand's attitudes toward 20th century science, in the service of producing an informed critique of the views that have been attributed to her by Leonard Peikoff.

Dragonfly does not claim to be an Objectivist.

What are the prospects of his being allowed to see any of this material?

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Neil,

American universities have tended to become less religious over time, particularly during the last century.

Harvard started out as an institution for training Puritan ministers. It still has a college church, with a college minister. It also has a divinity school. Yet the rest of Harvard is as secular as can be.

Catholic universities have been getting less Catholic, much to the displeasure of some in the Church hierarchy. There was a major hullabaloo a few years ago when crucifixes were ordered (re)installed in every classroom at Georgetown. Our department interviewed an administrator from Seton Hall a while back; I can't recall him making a single reference to Catholicism or its impact on institutional life there.

Baylor (in Texas) and Furman (in South Carolina) were still resolutely Baptist a generation ago. There was a famous secret society at Baylor whose cachet consisted in the fact that anyone known to be a member was automatically expelled from the university. Both universities have now formally dissociated themselves from their state Baptist Conventions. (Whether belonging to the Noze Brotherhood is still such a big deal at Baylor I can't say.)

Robert Campbell

[Neil Parille]

Robert,

I realize that. Cardinal Ratzinger went so far as suggesting that nominally Catholic universities stop calling themselves catholic, but I doubt that will happen. A good indication of the secularization of US society is that orthodox Catholics actually have to start their own colleges.

Brown was Baptist, Yale congregational, etc. Last I read, Princeton actually has some official ties with the Prebyterian Church USA and its seminary even has a few conservatives.

[Ross Barlow]

As a footnote concerning Ashland University, I went to a weeklong summer course there a number of years ago. It was a special series of courses for high school Social Studies teachers, and the teachers that were selected – from many applications – received a scholarship type deal where the university (or rather a fund from a center within the university, the Ashcroft Center?) paid for everything: the course tuition, room and board on campus, and a box-load of free books mailed to each participant months in advance for assigned reading. It was an intense course, with the assigned reading and long hours of lecture. It was pure delight.

The course was excellent, as were the free books. I chose a course on the American Revolution. My teachers were both experts on this period of history (and I regret that their names won’t come to mind right now, but I think they both teach at California colleges). One of the teachers has written a lot about the Anti-federalists and edited some of the better collections from these radicals. The other teacher edited some fine collections also. I had actually possessed works by them earlier in my library (now stored Stateside and out of reach).

We were made aware in advance, in a fairly non-obtrusive manner, that Ashland was a school with a Christian heritage and values. E.g., it is a dry campus, so alcohol-serving pubs are only off campus. (So I just brought a bottle of Scotch from home and discreetly stored it in the frig at the dorm.)

I never felt an oppressive presence from the school’s religious nature. Of course, it was summer vacation and the campus was empty. There may or may not have been a prayer at the opening dinner, but I do not remember. The Ashcroft Center had a lot of material on Ronald Reagan and his visits to the place, but religion was not in our faces.

What I sensed from the whole experience was a commitment to what was once called “classical liberalism.” I think that “libertarianism” would not be a term they would like, owing to the irreligion and libertinism of some modern libertarians. They would probably call themselves conservatives at Ashland. But my teachers, at least, choose for conservation some of the best traditions and political principles within history: the Radical Whig traditions of the American Revolutionaries. For one week we lived in the presence of radical revolution, and it was exciting.

So there is some common ground. But I am surprised to learn that an outspoken Objectivist was even hired there in the first place. I am also surprised that he would even think he could obtain tenure there. Why should they want him there permanently?

-Ross Barlow.

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

I read that this problem was partially the result of a change in management. The new boss is not atheism-friendly.

Michael

[Chris Grieb]

I guess Chris Hitchens shouldn't pencil Ashland in for a honorary degree.

Robert; I don't Dragonfly should plan a trip to ARI Archives for a look at the material you mentioned.

Edited July 6, 2007 by Chris Grieb

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

When you say "new boss," do you mean President Finks, Provost Suggs, or someone else?

(The way universities are run nowadays, it would almost certainly be the President or the Provost.)

Robert Campbell

[Robert Campbell]

Chris,

I haven't found any official Leonard Peikoff Institute response to John Lewis's situation.

I did find the following item on Ms. Hsieh's blog, dated May 31:

http://www.dianahsieh.com/blog/2007/05/big...john-lewis.html

The two paragraphs she ran from Dr. Lewis were extremely tight-lipped. Lewis was quoted as merely saying, "I have resigned Ashland effective May, 2008 (after my leave); my days dealing with small people at a small school are over."

After the year at Bowling Green, his plan is to move to North Carolina, where his wife has found a new job, and look for work there.

Robert Campbell

[Chris Grieb]

Robert;

Thank you for doing the nescarry work of looking at Noodle Whatever.

I have never brought any of Mr Lewis's lectures from ARI. Has anybody brought or listened to them. I believe he's doing lectures on English History. I will look up his essays in the Mayhew books.

[Neil Parille]

It does seem a little unfair for Ashland to accept money from the Anthem Foundation and employ Lewis knowing of their atheism and then say "by the way, we don't want to employ atheists."

On the other hand, I assumed that it occurred to Anthem/Lewis once or twice that the school might have a change of heart, so that's a risk they took.

And Ashland has been around for 125 years and probably tens of thousand of people gave money to the school thinking that it would maintain certain values, in particular theistic ones.

Even without Lewis, there is no doubt a much greater diversity of ideas than you would find at the ARI/OAS so the claim of "conservative political correctness" is ridiculous.

[James Heaps-Nelson]

It does seem a little unfair for Ashland to accept money from the Anthem Foundation and employ Lewis knowing of their atheism and then say "by the way, we don't want to employ atheists."

On the other hand, I assumed that it occurred to Anthem/Lewis once or twice that the school might have a change of heart, so that's a risk they took.

And Ashland has been around for 125 years and probably tens of thousand of people gave money to the school thinking that it would maintain certain values, in particular theistic ones.

Even without Lewis, there is no doubt a much greater diversity of ideas than you would find at the ARI/OAS so the claim of "conservative political correctness" is ridiculous.

I think the best thing a university can do is spell out specifically their objective and ideological requirements for tenure prior to appointing someone to a tenure track position. If this was really going to be a basis for denying tenure, they should have made that clear much earlier than they did.

Jim

[Robert Campbell]

The entire Chronicle article is available (I'm not sure for how long, but, hey, why not take advantage) via a link from Stephen Hicks's site.

http://www.stephenhicks.org/

See his "Worth Reading" entry for today, July 7.

Robert Campbell

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

When you say "new boss," do you mean President Finks, Provost Suggs, or someone else?

Robert,

I don't know all that much about Ashland, but I was referring to President Finks. See his bio and inauguration info here. He took office on June 1, 2006. Here is a statement from his bio:

He was one of 17 people selected by the Ashland Times-Gazette as “People Who Changed Our Community.” He has received national recognition as one of the top 20 seminary leaders in the country and serves as president of the Fellowship of Evangelical Presidents, an organization of 80 seminaries with a combined enrollment of 50,000.

His accomplishments during the 23-year period as head of Ashland Theological Seminary include taking ATS from a small regional seminary to a nationally recognized and respected seminary, now the largest in the state of Ohio; increasing endowment from $172,000 to approximately $9 million; successful completion of four major fund raising projects including construction of two classroom and office facilities; instituting changes within the faculty structure including reducing both faculty load and class size; and increasing the average GPA of incoming students.

Prior to being named president at the Seminary, Finks served as pastor of the Winding Waters Brethren Church in Elkhart, Ind., from 1972 to 1982.

From what I see, I don't think he cares one way or another about the bulk of Objectivism. In my read, he doesn't sound very atheism-friendly. (The "cosmic justice" of the orthodoxy getting what it dishes out is pleasant to contemplate, though.)

I have read some of the orthodoxy people bitterly complain that Ashland received money from the Anthem foundation. The money, however, was for the "release time" for Professor Lewis and "adjuncts" to research and write, so we are essentially talking peanuts. President Finks does not sound like he has any trouble at all with fund-raising.

Here is the picture of President Finks.

He even looks like the quintessential southern Christian.

I also read in the article you linked that the way for Professor Lewis had been paved at Ashland by another Objectivist on the orthodox side: C. Bradley Thompson, who no longer teaches there. Now that niche is interrupted. In my guess, I think there will not be another orthodox Objectivist hired at Ashland in the near future.

All in all, this looks like a simple case of new boss in, old tolerances and old policies out.

Michael

[Robert Campbell]

Michael,

It's pretty clear from the material on President Finks that he was the one who didn't want to grant tenure to a faculty member who professes an atheistical philosophy. I don't know when Provost Suggs came on board (at most universities, the new president insists on hiring his or her own provost), but I'm sure that President Finks told him which page he'd better be on.

The Anthem Foundation money surely made a difference at the department level--Ashland has a dinky combined History and Political Science department with 5 full-time faculty. But you're correct in judging that a grant of (at most) half of Dr. Lewis's salary and benefits per year would not matter in the bigger picture.

The complaints were not merely about Ashland taking so many thousand a year in Anthem Foundation money. They had to do with the declared purpose of the grants. The Anthem Foundation was happy to show the text of the grants to the media; President Finks was not. Clearly, Finks knew he had an exposure, as they used to say at IBM.

Mr. Finks, however, said the grants Ashland accepted, while

initially intended for the study of objectivism, were

significantly revised in response to the university's concerns.

"If you would read the grants, they are not for the promotion

of that at all," he said.

Mr. Finks declined to share the text of the grants with The

Chronicle. A copy of the final Letter of Understanding

provided to The Chronicle by the Anthem Foundation

appears to contradict Mr. Finks's account. "The primary

purpose of the fellowship is to fund release time so that

Professors Thompson and Lewis can pursue research and

writing on Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism," it reads.

To put it in plain English, he lied to the Chronicle about what the grants were actually for, while refusing to show them to the reporter.

I think you are right in the sense that university administrators frequently lie to the media, and there are usually no penalties for it. Universities can also play fast and loose with grant money. The Feds have been known to crack down on universities that divert money from NSF or NIH grants to purposes not specified therein. But an outfit like the Anthem Foundation has no effective recourse except no longer funding anyone at that university. Which, as you've surmised, will be just fine with President Finks.

It is also true that universities can operate without specifying any clear dos or don'ts for getting tenure. What's more, university officials sometimes renege on agreements made in writing by their predecessors and get away with it. Neither is considered a good practice, however.

Keep in mind that a faculty committee did not support the upper administration on denying tenure to Dr. Lewis, which helped to lead to the weird compromise. This suggests that the "new boss" has some work in front of him, convincing the professors to support his new policies. He lacks the power to fire them en masse if they don't get behind him.

Of course, I agree with your bigger point that a faculty member affiliated with the Leonard Peikoff Institute ought to be in favor of hiring and firing professors strictly on ideological grounds--and ought to be the very last to complain about being on the receiving end of such personnel decisions.

Robert Campbell

[James Heaps-Nelson]

Michael,

It's pretty clear from the material on President Finks that he was the one who didn't want to grant tenure to a faculty member who professes an atheistical philosophy. I don't know when Provost Suggs came on board (at most universities, the new president insists on hiring his or her own provost), but I'm sure that President Finks told him which page he'd better be on.

The Anthem Foundation money surely made a difference at the department level--Ashland has a dinky combined History and Political Science department with 5 full-time faculty. But you're correct in judging that a grant of (at most) half of Dr. Lewis's salary and benefits per year would not matter in the bigger picture.

The complaints were not merely about Ashland taking so many thousand a year in Anthem Foundation money. They had to do with the declared purpose of the grants. The Anthem Foundation was happy to show the text of the grants to the media; President Finks was not. Clearly, Finks knew he had an exposure, as they used to say at IBM.

Mr. Finks, however, said the grants Ashland accepted, while

initially intended for the study of objectivism, were

significantly revised in response to the university's concerns.

"If you would read the grants, they are not for the promotion

of that at all," he said.

Mr. Finks declined to share the text of the grants with The

Chronicle. A copy of the final Letter of Understanding

provided to The Chronicle by the Anthem Foundation

appears to contradict Mr. Finks's account. "The primary

purpose of the fellowship is to fund release time so that

Professors Thompson and Lewis can pursue research and

writing on Ayn Rand's philosophy of objectivism," it reads.

To put it in plain English, he lied to the Chronicle about what the grants were actually for, while refusing to show them to the reporter.

I think you are right in the sense that university administrators frequently lie to the media, and there are usually no penalties for it. Universities can also play fast and loose with grant money. The Feds have been known to crack down on universities that divert money from NSF or NIH grants to purposes not specified therein. But an outfit like the Anthem Foundation has no effective recourse except no longer funding anyone at that university. Which, as you've surmised, will be just fine with President Finks.

It is also true that universities can operate without specifying any clear dos or don'ts for getting tenure. What's more, university officials sometimes renege on agreements made in writing by their predecessors and get away with it. Neither is considered a good practice, however.

Keep in mind that a faculty committee did not support the upper administration on denying tenure to Dr. Lewis, which helped to lead to the weird compromise. This suggests that the "new boss" has some work in front of him, convincing the professors to support his new policies. He lacks the power to fire them en masse if they don't get behind him.

Of course, I agree with your bigger point that a faculty member affiliated with the Leonard Peikoff Institute ought to be in favor of hiring and firing professors strictly on ideological grounds--and ought to be the very last to complain about being on the receiving end of such personnel decisions.

Robert Campbell

Now that wasn't very Christian of President Finks was it? Thou shalt not bear false witness to thy neighbor and all that. However, I wonder what the Christian take on privacy lies is .

Jim

[Neil Parille]

Robert,

I'd like to see the full text of the grants before I concluded that anyone is lying. For example, the article quotes the final grant as referring to "Professors Thompson and Lewis", but Thompson left in 2004, so maybe there was a later grant. And, the school has been pretty up front about why Lewis was denied tenure.

[Robert Campbell]

Neil,

I wouldn't mind seeing the full text of the grants either.

Still, an obvious explanation for the reference to Bradley Thompson as well as John Lewis is that the original grant was for a period of several years, continuing to apply to each recipient so long as he remained at Ashland. There could have been a simple renewal procedure every year or two (send us a brief report of what you've done with your release time, and the grant is renewed unless the Foundation is dissatisfied with your output during that period).

Why would President Finks not disclose the text of the grant to the Chronicle, if his statements about it were truthful? What could be the downside? A grant is not like an annual evaluation from a department chair or a letter from a tenure committee; it's not considered a "personal and confidential" document.

The Chronicle tends to go easy on university administrators, who constitute a large percentage of its subscription base. I read the article as saying, in the kind of language the Chronicle normally employs, that Finks is a liar.

I don't know whether you've had a chance to read the full article, but if you do you'll find more than a little old-fashioned administrative doublespeak coming from President Finks.

Robert Campbell