Are the Baylor Bears a Dealbreaker for the Pac-10's Expansion Plans?

Much as you probably wouldn’t like me to refer to all Southerners as ‘slack-jawed yokels’, not everyone in the Pac-10 is a bunch of atheists and agnostics. That said, the dynamic between religion and public institutions of higher learning is much different in the West than it is in the South. I make no judgments about whether this is good or bad – I’m a proud Catholic, and one of my cousins even attended Baylor – but religion in the sphere of higher eduction is a topic that Westerners approach very differently – especially given the strong academic credentials that many member of the current Pacific-10 Conference currently brandish. I’d appreciate a little respect.

You can certainly disagree with the methods, but the flagship public university system in the country – and quite possibly the world – is the University of California’s system of higher education. It’s essentially what’s driven the creation of everything from the defense industry to the technology hubs (IT in Silicon Valley, biotech in San Diego) in California.

A school that you probably don’t even think of on a regular basis – UCI (University of California, Irvine) – is more highly ranked than every other academic institution in the SEC, except for Vanderbilt. That’s the fifth-best public university in the UC system – after Cal, UCLA, UC Davis, and UCSD. Clemson and UGA would rank as the 6th best institution in the UC system, incidentally – right above that school I’m sure you’ve heard of…UC Santa Cruz. (Actually, come to think of it, if you’ve seen Pulp Fiction, you’re probably familiar with UC Santa Cruz).

Anyhow, my point: the Pac-10 heretofore has taken its academics pretty seriously, and one of its guiding principles has been to ensure academic freedom and integrity of each of its member institutions, and many religious universities haven’t exactly been pillars of academic freedom. And before you start in on ‘those damn liberals from Berkeley’, might I remind you that it was ‘those damn liberals from Berkeley’ who, y’know, hired John Yoo.

Another point to consider; Baylor is significantly close in profile to another west coast school – Pepperdine. Most schools in the Pac-10 have been leery of Pepperdine’s academic bonafides for years; incidentally, Baylor’s new president, Ken Starr, also happens to be the immediate past president of Pepperdine’s law school. And yes, it’s that Ken Starr.

Ken Starr is also somewhat notorious in California for having backed the Proposition 8 movement, by…oh, serving as lead counsel for Prop 8 supporters during the ensuing challenge to the Supreme Court. While he was president of Pepperdine.

Starr also is somewhat less famous in California for having previously been named the head of Pepperdine’s School of Public Policy in 1996, which he later had to withdraw from in 1998. The primary reason for his withdrawl was not his involvement in the Lewinsky and Whitewater investigation, but rather because immediately before Starr’s appointment as the Dean of this school, the School of Public Policy had been founded with a large endowment from billionaire Richard Mellon Scaife, who was in the midst of a personal crusade against Bill Cinton. Gee, that sure is a coincidence. The dude investigating Clinton just happened to be appointed the head of the school of Public Policy that Scaife endowed.

My point is thus: regardless of your political stance, this is exactly the type of political grand-standing that Westerners expect their collegiate presidents to not take, so yeah, color me extremely unimpressed with Ken Starr being hired as a university president for exactly the reasons listed above.

Also, a cursory review of the Baylor website, where they have a news release with Ken Starr basically begging the TX legislature to get involved and force them in to the Pac-10, makes me want to vomit a little.

I apologise for getting slightly political – I mean to pass no judgment on one’s political beliefs – my family is equally balanced between a large number of both Democrats and Republicans. I merely wanted to point out that the distrust of Baylor – and religious institutions in general – has a much larger history and context than perhaps you’re thinking. I consider myself a fairly religious person, but I would literally be sick to my stomach if a university that employed an individual as blatantly political as Ken Starr in the position of University President would be invited to the Pac-10.

It’s about the fundamental difference in the mission statement of a religiously affiliated insitution vs. a secular instutution. I kinda’ figured someone would bring up the USC example – since USC was originally founded a private, religiously affiliated university. However, here’s the mission statement of USC (emphasis mine):

The central mission of the University of Southern California is the development of human beings and society as a whole through the cultivation and enrichment of the human mind and spirit. The principal means by which our mission is accomplished are teaching, research, artistic creation, professional practice and selected forms of public service.

Our first priority as faculty and staff is the education of our students, from freshmen to postdoctorals, through a broad array of academic, professional, extracurricular and athletic programs of the first rank. The integration of liberal and professional learning is one of USC’s special strengths. We strive constantly for excellence in teaching knowledge and skills to our students, while at the same time helping them to acquire wisdom and insight, love of truth and beauty, moral discernment, understanding of self, and respect and appreciation for others.

And, for reference, here’s the mission statement for Baylor:

Pro Ecclesia. Baylor is founded on the belief that God’s nature is made known through both revealed and discovered truth. Thus, the University derives its understanding of God, humanity, and nature from many sources: the person and work of Jesus Christ, the biblical record, and Christian history and tradition, as well as scholarly and artistic endeavors. In its service to the church, Baylor’s pursuit of knowledge is strengthened by the conviction that truth has its ultimate source in God and by a Baptist heritage that champions religious liberty and freedom of conscience. Without imposing religious conformity, Baylor expects the members of its community to support its mission. Affirming the value of intellectually informed faith and religiously informed education, the University seeks to provide an environment that fosters spiritual maturity, strength of character, and moral virtue.

That’s a pretty substantial difference. While I’m passing no judgment on the merit of either approach, Baylor’s mission statement is wholly intertwined with a Christian world-view – and only a Christian world-view. I highlighted probably one of the more important parts the mission statement – while Baylor certainly doesn’t ‘require’ you to be a Baptist in order to attend the university – their mission statement itself basically says you need to agree with its mission as a Christianty-first university.

Mission statements like this are why – as a matter of supporting the mission – the univeristy is less likely to hire and employ people whose worldview they potentially disagree with (ie, someone like John Yoo at Berkeley), as well as encourage the university president to serve as lead counsel for an issue within the ‘Pro Ecclesia’ space as part of the Christian worldview. Again, I’m not passing judgment on those decisions, but it’s fairly easy to see how the mission statement of the university impacts those decisions, and places them in context.

Finally, I also really hate ‘well, this university does this all on the private dime, not the public dime, so it must be better’. The public institutions of higher education are what made this country great. It’d be nice if some people remembered that from time to time.