SCSU Scholars welcome your comments. Offensive material will be deleted.
As a U. of D. graduate, I'm dismayed by this, but I'm less worried for the average dorm-dwelling student (who can probably ignore this nonsense; in reality, it's rarely "mandatory") and more troubled by the fact that becoming an RA is apparently conditional on professing a particular set of beliefs. The RAs are the ones who are most likely to find themselves in the awkward situation King is describing, wondering if thoughtcrime is going to prevent them from gaining the assistantship for which they are otherwise qualified.
dk, one of the distinctions I try to draw is between a public and a private school. NWC is a private school that advertises its Christian educational mission very openly. You give it zero dollars unless you accept that mission. The University of Delaware is a public institution; it chooses to engage in advocacy of a particular social view that a significant fraction of society does not accept, and it uses compulsory taxes to pay for it, including from those that disagree with the mission.
What about going to a different school? Isn't higher education a free market of sorts? At a school such as Northwestern College in Minnesota, the students must sign a Declaration of Christian Community in order to attend the college. How is this different? On a side note, I did find the SCSU respect and responsibility requirement a waste of time.
I understand that point, and I might even agree that you can be conservative, go to one of these things and just laugh it off at the end of the day. But two points here: First, the debriefing of each student by the RA seems to at minimum encourage one to lie -- it's kind of like relying on statements made under threat of torture. Second, what if this is a student raised in a strictly Christian household? Should I tell Littlest to lie and get through it? Should I tell her to fight it, and if I do why should I do that? Why should the State have the power to make me make that choice? Does freedom from state control of religion give me the right to tell my daughter not to submit to that?
These kinds of things....they're like driver's ed. You just go, don't really pay attention, and get it over with. I really can't understand the hand-wringing that either predicates these on the left or that they produce on the right.
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