Why I am probably going to liberal hell

By Jenn Sykes

I am not upset to see Gene Nichol go. I think the Board made the right decision for two reasons, and that him leaving benefits the school more than hurts it in the long run. Note, I agree with all of Nichol's policies, and I think he did a better job at fundraising than Timmy J on the whole, but there are two things that he couldn't overcome.

The first was his own stubbornness. I caught myself agreeing with something a WM professor said last year when the Wren Cross controversy got very heated -- if Nichol were smart, he would have put the cross back in, apologized and moved on. The most critical part is that "moving on" one. Both sides -- Nichol and the Cross fans -- had problems with that. To play with counterfactuals, let's assume Nichol had moved on, would the Cross fans have done so? Probably not, but the bigger thing is that at that point, they would look worse for the wear. Nichol refusing to back down against them made it hard to point to who was causing more damage. And it wasn't just with the Cross that this existed. Look at his email to all possible listservs. Granted, I agree that sending that email was the right thing for him to do, and I completely expected it. However, that's about the only time I would agree with him doing that.

The second reason was the stubbornness of the conservatives. I have absolutely no reason to believe they will back down even now that Nichol is no longer president -- he and his wife are still at the law school, and I think they will spend resources removing him from that position and ensuring that the next President of WM is not a conservative. Had the Board left Nichol in, they would be even more vociferous about it. There would be no way for Nichol to accomplish anything with these roadblocks in place. If you want progress for WM, you need to be able to at least get something -- anything -- done.

One thing about some reports about this, mostly in Virginia, that have irritated me about the situation is that they neglect to note this is part of a culture war. The coverage where I live now has focused on how it's old Virginia versus new Virginia, and I think that's completely accurate. What the conservative alums don't understand is that the students and faculty were becoming more liberal before Nichol, and this reached some sort of local maximum under him. The world has changed, and these people are trying to fight it. At least that's been how it has played out down here. The dragging of BOV members before the General Assembly, the fight over the Sex Workers Art Show that raised almost no eyebrows at Duke, and the fact that people oppose diversity programs -- I must say, outside the Virginia bubble, the conservatives look like genuine idiots.

I also remember the aforementioned professor saying he'd heard rumors that the Republican Party of Virginia wanted to use this as an election issue. Obviously we saw conservatives put massive effort into making this an issue, be it either mainstream or for the base. I just have to wonder though, what was the overall impact of articles in the Weekly Standard or stories on O'Reilly on the average Republican voter in this state? My impression is "not much." Does this mean that the culture war is slowly on the decline? I can only wish… But do note that this year on the campaign trail it has been less and less about moral issues in terms of what people discuss. Maybe we are slowly getting out of this Third Great Awakening and back to rationalism. Again, I can only wish...

I will admit though, I've seen a dramatic change in the way the students are handling this than what I would have ever expected. When I was a freshman someone tried to have a boycott of Merchant's Square to no avail; now they have teach-ins and work with SDS legitimately. The fact that it's dying off now does not surprise me, simply that it even happened. While we had activist liberals when I was younger at the College, they weren't like these. Our activists went up to meet with legislators; these kids spray paint banners and protests signs. To quote Dylan, "the times, they are a-changin'." I can assure you had I been at WM for this, I would not be protesting. I'm too old, I guess.

We have an opening for the Chancellor position at the graduate school I attend. I hope Nichol applies here, because the two problems I outlined above probably won't occur with him where I'm at now.