SDS Motion for a Public Dialogue Regarding the Institute for American Constitutional Heritage
October 7, 2009
Last year the OSDS (Oklahoma Students for a Democratic Society) expressed concerns over the proposed Constitutional Institute to be housed in the Honors College and called for a public dialogue involving the administration, faculty, and students. After our statements, articles, and press releases failed to generate the discussion we had hoped for, we sent out a mass email on May 4th 2009, “Motion for an Honors College Discussion.” We received only one response, from Nancy L. Mergler, Senior Vice President & Provost on May 8th. Mergler asked us to submit a list of questions that she said she “would gladly try to answer.” On May 11th, we emailed Nancy Mergler our list of questions. We have yet to hear back from Mergler or any of the other recipients of our email. The list of questions we submitted and our exchange with Nancy Mergler are available on our website: oklahomasds.wordpress.com.
Although the “Institute for American Constitutional Heritage” will now be housed in the Department of Classics and Letters instead of the Honors College (OU Public Affairs Website, 9-18-09), we believe that our concerns are no less valid and pressing. What will be the selection process for the new faculty in the Institute for American Constitutional Heritage? Will they be hired through a national search? What will be the selection criteria? How does the new institute fit within the mission and curriculum of the Classics and Letters Department? Are there specific models or examples at other universities that our new institute will be emulating? How and by whom is the new institute being funded? And, finally, given the recent economic crisis affecting the university, should the Institute for American Constitutional Heritage be one of our budgetary and curricular priorities?
Also, we have some concerns regarding President David Boren’s appointment of Dr. Kyle Harper as director. We are not criticizing Harper for his personal or political convictions. Nor are we questioning in any way his formidable credentials as a classics scholar. We consider Harper to be an invaluable asset to the university, and we especially applaud Harper’s strong and demonstrated commitment to teaching excellence. However, given his strong ties to political think-tanks such as the Oklahoma Council of Public Affairs (OCPA) and the Heritage Foundation, his uncompromising views towards our constitution and our form of government, and his staunch commitment to “American exceptionalism,” the belief that America is an ‘elect nation,’ fundamentally distinct from its European partners and endowed with a special world mission, we question whether he is the right person to pioneer a constitutional institute that professes to be—according to the Public Affairs Website—“dynamic,” “interdisciplinary,” and “multifaceted.”
Kyle Harper’s statements regarding American government in general and our constitution in particular suggest that he is a man of intransigent and insular political views. For example, in “Exhuming Conservatism,” an article Harper wrote for The Fountainhead, a publication he co-founded at the University of Oklahoma, Harper chastises Republican leaders in the Clinton administration for compromising “core conservative principles” by cooperating with congressional Democrats. In Harper’s view, “The principles which define the rhetoric and, unfortunately, not the reality of modern conservatism are the most powerful principles in the history of mankind.” “Like a religion which compromises the doctrines of ultimate damnation or salvation,” Harper continues, “these principles – natural law, natural rights, free enterprise – lose their majesty when they are watered down.” According to Harper, the sole purpose of the American government is to protect the inalienable rights, bestowed upon Americans by God, of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Thus, as Harper proclaims, “Conservatives should proudly oppose the Department of Education, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Endowment for the Arts, and other blatantly unconstitutional entities.” In homage to his ideological hero Ronald Reagan, Harper concludes, “America is the last best hope of mankind, and conservatism is the last best hope of America.” (The Fountainhead, Volume 1, Issue 6, April 14, 1999). The SDS believes firmly in the principles of academic freedom that guarantee our professors the right to express their political views. Our concern is not that Harper is a committed conservative—we would share the same concern if the appointee were an uncompromising liberal. Rather, we question whether Harper is open-minded enough and flexible enough in his ideology to oversee the creation of an interdisciplinary and multi-faceted institute dedicated to the study of our constitution and form of government.
Furthermore, the intransigence of Harper’s political beliefs appears to extend to his views on the university curriculum as well. In another article for The Fountainhead, Harper stridently called for the elimination of the Women’s Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma (“Prognosis Negative: The Women’s Studies Program at the University of Oklahoma,” The Fountainhead, Volume 1, Issue 3, February 24, 1999). At the time, the program had fewer than a dozen majors and suffered from a lack of funding. Against proponents of the program who called for more funding to increase student participation, Harper protested, “like social programs, the problem with Women’s Studies is inherent. More people will not come, no matter how hard you try to build it.” The main problem, in Harper’s estimation, was that course offerings on the topics of women and gender were too narrow to be of interest or value to the greater student body. After mocking the list of course descriptions offered by the program one by one, Harper sardonically concludes his article: “If the women’s studies program does lose the ability to grant majors, the university will be at no great loss. Sure students may be less able to ‘recognize homophobia and heterosexism in themselves,’ and it could forestall efforts to move to ‘alternative arrangements to marriage and family institutions.’ The world won’t miss them.” Harper’s prediction that the Women’s Studies Program would wither away due to lack of interest was clearly shortsighted; according to a recent article in The Oklahoma Daily, the newly renamed “Women’s and Gender Studies Program” has grown from 60 to 600 hundred in the past two years (“New Name Reflects Changes in Program,” September 30, 2009). More importantly, the SDS believes that study of women and gender is indispensible to understanding our national and constitutional heritage. Would Harper be opposed to including perspectives from Women’s and Gender Studies scholars in the new institute? Given such statements from Harper, we believe this is a valid question to raise.
Harper’s disdain for the Europeans, we believe, is cause for further concern. For example, in an article written for the OCPA that was inspired by his excitement over the movie The Patriot starring Mel Gibson, Harper describes his experience watching the film in England in a “room full of socialists” and argues that the Europeans remain irresistibly attracted to the “American’s gritty, rugged individualism” and freedom-loving spirit precisely because they lack those qualities themselves. The French in particular are singled out for scorn. “My first impressions in Paris,” Harper writes, “were how weak and tired many of the people look; unlike Oklahomans, these aren’t a people who want or deserve freedom.” “Fortunately,” Harper concludes, “we still have the freedom which is conducive to this type of character; Europe doesn’t, and they sense it. The Patriot brings to the big screen the moment when America decided to be different from Europe and made the sacrifice to prove it.” (The full essay and other articles written by Harper as a research assistant for the OCPA are available at www.ocpathink.org.) The United States of America was founded during an era of democratic revolutions that swept the Atlantic world, and since the founding of our republic, many of the most insightful commentators on our polity have been Europeans viewing America through a comparative lens. It is difficult, however, to pursue a constructive dialogue regarding either the uniqueness of our polity or the underlying commonalities it shares with its European partners if we conceitedly dismiss the Europeans out of hand. Moreover, as our university strives to become a more international institution, expanding the School for International and Area Studies and its study abroad programs, we believe that what the University of Oklahoma needs is more fair and open-minded cross-cultural awareness, not American arrogance.
The Oklahoma Students for a Democratic Society is a campus organization committed to making the University of Oklahoma a more democratic, transparent, and socially responsible institution. We share President David Boren’s concerns, outlined in A Letter to America, regarding the ailing state of American public life, and, like Boren, we believe that the solution to our democratic crisis lies neither with the Left nor the Right, but with a revitalization of civic participation among our nation’s youth and a renewed commitment to understanding our national history. As Boren asserts in his Letter, “We cannot defend these ideas or protect the vitality of our institutions, including our constitutional government, unless we understand their origins and how they have evolved over time” (88). At the same time, we would like to raise some questions and express some concerns regarding Kyle Harper’s appointment as director of an institute dedicated to exploring and understanding the diverse origins and complex evolution of our polity. More importantly, however, we believe that the proposed Institute for American Constitutional Heritage, which has the potential to dramatically reshape the mission and the curriculum of the Classics and Letters Department, ought to be implemented in full transparency and with the participation of OU faculty, staff, and students. To this end we encourage all members of the OU community, and especially those affiliated with the Classics and Letters Department, to participate in a public dialogue.
If you would like to help us organize a public dialogue, or if you would like to send us your comments and suggestions, please contact us at: OklahomaSDS@gmail.com. For more information about the OSDS and our campaigns for this year, go to oklahomasds.wordpress.com.
