[Originally produced in printed form]
To the
students and faculty of Saint Francis University,
The letter you hold in your hands is fantastic. Truly, truly fantastic.
It’s not fantastic because of the paper it’s printed on. At best it might be recycled, but other than that it’s your average printer-friendly
paper. It’s white, it’s flat, and it
really shows off black ink. Ta-da.
This letter is not fantastic because
of the words printed on it. At best I’m
a decent writer who appreciates the written language. At worst I’m a hack who writes cliché love
poetry and is only an English major because I lack the smarts to be an OT, PT,
PA, or any of the other esteemed majors we offer here at SFU. I certainly hope I’m at my best for this
work, but again, I simply can’t compare to the letter itself.
This letter is fantastic because you—and only you—decide what you want to
do with it. You can keep reading it (I
hope you do), but you don’t have
to. No one’s forcing you. You can crumble it up and throw it away. That’s fine with me. In fact, I’d be elated if you did that. All I ask is that you don’t litter. Then again, you can fold this letter into a
paper airplane. Or a pirate hat. Or, if you’re dexterous enough, you can craft
it into an origami swan. The
possibilities are endless because your freedom is endless. I’m not standing next to you, gun in hand,
demanding you read this. If you’ve made
it this far then you’re reading because you
want to, because you find this letter (for whatever reason) interesting.
Some here at Saint Francis seem to have forgotten about this
freedom. Car keys, birthdays, and
the name of that guy you met at that
party two months ago: these are things which are okay to forget. The freedom of speech should never be
forgotten. Never. If you can’t remember than that, then you
need to get this tattooed right above you belly button, upside-down, so you can
remind yourself every time you step out of the shower: “Say whatever you want.”
I’m not so naïve as to believe many of you get excited about the annual
Furlong Lecture. Unless you’re an
English or Communication major, in need of CES credit, or your professor is
offering bonus points, then you’re not going to the Furlong Lecture. You go to class Monday through Friday and you
don’t want to listen to another speech.
I get that, fine, “different strokes for different folks….” You also probably won’t be upset to hear this
year’s Furlong Lecture has been cancelled at the last minute.
But you should care, even worry,
about why it’s been cancelled.
If you will, allow me to set the stage.
This year’s speaker was to be Ellen Goodman, nationally syndicated
columnist and Pulitzer Prize winner.
This isn’t someone from the Altoona Mirror who was going to come and
speak about how newspapers are going out of business across the country. All respect to the Mirror, but there’s no
doubt Ms. Goodman is on a higher tier.
She’s got the pedigree. She’s got
the readers. We should have been
thrilled to have her, and we were. No,
ecstatic. We were ecstatic to have
her. Whether you like her work or not,
you have to admit, this was a big draw for Saint Francis. Penn State usually gets these types of
authors, not us. But the stars aligned,
the gods smiled, and we got a Pulitzer Prize winner.
Last week, however, an announcement came from the higher-ups that Ms.
Goodman was to be uninvited (read as “cancelled”). Why?
Surely there had to be a good reason for such a seemingly rash decision,
especially considering it was less than a month before Ms. Goodman was to
arrive on campus. Had she renounced
writing and decided to dedicate her life to mathematics? Had she recently been convicted of a heinous murder? Had she left the country and claimed
sanctuary on foreign shores? All of
these would have made more sense than the actual reason.
We uninvited Ms. Goodman because she’s pro-choice.
She wasn’t speaking on pro-choice.
The title of her speech was “A Civil Tongue. Welcome to the era of polarized politics, food fight cable
shows, and ballistic blogging. How civility was shattered, who is
winning, who is losing, and how do we call a truce to the mud wrestling.” To summarize, Ms. Goodman was going to speak
about cooperation and compromise.
Abortion was nowhere on the agenda.
She just happens to be
pro-choice, so we “uninvited” her.
Let’s go back to
that word: uninvite. Microsoft Word
doesn’t even recognize that word.
Currently on my monitor it’s underlined with one of those swiggly red
lines, and this is for good reason; it’s a stupid word. It is.
It really is. To uninvite someone
is call them a year in advance, say, “Hey, we’re having this party on October
12th and we’d love for you to come as our guest of honor!” only to
call them back in mid-September and awkwardly mutter, “So, um, yeah, that
invite? Yeah, well, we found out you’re
{insert inane excuse for prejudice here}, so we’re kind of uninviting you. Yeah, so, uh, have a good day.” If that example seems ridiculous to you, it’s
because it is. So let’s call a spade a
spade. We cancelled Ms. Goodman,
no polite way to put it.
Saint Francis is a Catholic university, but it
claims to welcome everyone and anyone.
Protestant? Come on in. Jewish?
Sure. Atheist and agnostic? Why not.
Democrat? Uh-huh. Republican?
Yeppers. Gay? Okie-dokie. Black?
You betcha. Asian? Indian?
Arabian? All ethnicities are
welcome. Even pro-choice? Of course.
We accept everyone and anyone (so long as your check clears…). But try and host an author whose personal
views contradict that of the Catholic Church and it’s no thank you, right this
way toward the door, let me kindly kick you through it. SFU claims it doesn’t want to be represented
by Ms. Goodman. I actually go here. I attend classes. I go to the sporting events. I eat at Torvian. I’m asked to work the open houses because
this university wants me representing them.
I represent Saint Francis more than Ms. Goodman and I, a noted atheist,
have yet to be asked to leave campus.
Maybe if Ms. Goodman offered to pay the university to come speak they
might look the other way.
Now let’s jump back to a year ago, right before
we booked Ms. Goodman. Let’s pretend we
found out she was pro-choice before we even called her. Let’s imagine the university denies the
request to host Ms. Goodman. That’s
fine. They have that right. Like I already mentioned, we are a Catholic
university. When you sign on to attend
here you have to expect there are certain lectures the university will never
support, like “God’s Dead, Become a Hedonist,” or “Catholics: They’re Just
Plain Wrong,” or even “Jesus Christ vs. Elvis:
Why the Latter King is Better than the Former.” Never will we hear these lectures, and not
only do I understand, but I’m okay with it.
I knew what I was getting when I signed on to SFU.
To be honest, I’ve never felt confined by
Catholic dogma the entire time I’ve been on campus (until now, that is). No one forces me to go to church on
Sunday. Philosophy courses teach
something besides the Bible. All in all,
we’re a pretty liberal Catholic university.
I thought SFU respected opposing viewpoints. In fact, I know they do. Like I said, I’m not Catholic but the friars
still treat me with the respect I deserve.
Fr. Gabe, Fr. Nathan, and Fr. Malachi all smile and talk to me when they
see me, along with anyone else wearing a black habit or white collar on this
campus. I’ve never had any of them for
class. I promise you they don’t know my
name. They have nothing to gain by being kind to me. They’re kind because they’re kind.
Saint Francis isn’t a run by tyrants; I know
it’s run by good men and women who’ve simply had a lapse in good judgment and
good taste. Maybe they don’t want Ms.
Goodman to speak, but the simple fact is that we’ve invited her, we’ve paid
her, we’ve advertised to the local community that she’s coming, and we’re lucky
to have her. We need to stand behind
that. Maybe we could have sent out
disclaimers, something like “Saint Francis University doesn’t support or
condone the views of Ms. Ellen Goodman and we’re only hosting her because we
didn’t know she was pro-choice before we booked her.” Maybe we could have passed out tomatoes to audience
before she spoke. Anything so long as
she spoke. Anything is better than the
black eye the university will take with this cancellation. This isn’t the university standing up for
what they believe in, but the university ignoring basic human rights and
respect while simultaneously encouraging prejudice and intolerance.
Ms. Goodman was going to discuss cooperation
and compromise. The university is demonstrating
ignorance and stubbornness. If anything,
we need Ms. Goodman on campus more than ever.
The university is wrong. We are very, very wrong. Ms. Goodman won’t come speak whether we
reinvite her or not, but we can still do the right thing. We can apologize. We can admit just how very wrong we were.
As I said before, I respect and love Fr. Gabe,
and I know this isn’t entirely his doing (he does, after all, have donors and
religious superiors to answer to), but he’s as high up as we as a student body
and faculty can reach. Send him an
email, something short and respectful, something like, “Father Gabe, I just
wanted to let you know how disappointed I am with the university’s decision to
uninvite Ms. Goodman. I pray you and the
others in charge will make the right decision and reinvite her.” Even just five hundred emails in one inbox
sends a powerful message.
Students, show this letter to your
professors. Let them know there’s at
least one student on this campus who’s angry that she’s being told who she can
and cannot listen to not because of material but because of subjective,
personal issues (although I have a hunch there’s more than one perturbed
student on campus). Give this letter to
them. Tell them it’s for Fr. Gabe. I purposely wrote this under a pseudonym, not
out of cowardice but because I wanted the university to respond to not just me,
but us. They need to explain themselves to not just
one person, but thousands, to every single person enrolled and working on this
campus.
This letter is also online. Check out the link at the bottom of all of
the pages. Send the link to your
friends. Send the link to local newspapers
and news stations. Send the link to your
parents. Post the link on Saint Francis
University’s numerous facebook pages.
Make copies of this letter and give it to anyone you meet. Stand in the mall and read it out loud at the
top of your lungs.
Or better yet, take these sheets of paper and
make them into a hat. Something really ridiculous. Wear it to all of your classes. Wear it to Torvian. Wear it to DeSepio. People will stop you to ask what you’re
doing. Maybe it’ll be Fr. Gabe. Maybe it’ll be a donor. Whoever asks you, calmly turn to them and
tell them you’re wearing it because you’re expressing yourself.
Because that’s your voice.
Because you want to, and nobody can tell you
otherwise.
With love,
“Ann O’Connor”
[Father Gabe's email is GZeis@francis.edu]
[Father Gabe's email is GZeis@francis.edu]