The Foundation for Intellectual Diversity Responds—
Dear Mr. Chaiken:
However laudable Brown University’s ostensible commitment to the ideal of a liberal education through free and open inquiry may be,its actual adherence to this mission remains a fan-tasy, a far-off Nirvana which is undercut every step of the way by overbearing ideologies and the faddish prerogatives of various “progressive” theories.
The Foundation for Intellectual Diversity was founded in response to the plain fact that it remains difficult to impossible for views dissenting from the academic orthodoxy to gain any institutional support.The Foundation is essentially a grant-making organization.Students identify extra-curricular needs which the University is either unable or unwilling to sustain, and apply for financial and organizational support. Given the profound leftward tilt of most curricular and extra-curricular endeavors at Brown, we doubt that Mr. Chaiken needs too much help in discerning why the best use of our limited resources does not lie in supporting more of the same. Furthermore,grants from the Foundation do not constitute an endorsement of the content of any lecture or publication, but rather an assessment that the mission of the venture will contribute to a more intellectually diverse environment at Brown.
Given our mission and the current state of affairs at Brown,the formative years of the Foundation have seen us form partner-ships with The Brown Spectator and, more recently, with Closing Remarks, a publication which explores the relationship between the Christian worldview and the modern academy. We have also held our first two Commencement Weekend receptions,with presentations by a former Rhode Island Attorney General as well as a former Justice of the state Supreme Court. We doubt that either of these luminaries would self-identify as conservative,and we did not ask them.
Should Mr.Chaiken succeed in identifying a glaringly under-served area in the intellectual culture at Brown, we would like to offer him assistance in achieving a remedy. That is, after all, what we’re here for.
Sincerely,
The Foundation for Intellectual Diversity
The Editors of The Brown Spectator respond—
Dear Mr. Chaiken:
While we are happy to learn that you have been reading our publication, we think that you have misunderstood The Spectator’s mission. The Spectator was formed in response to the omnipresent leftism at Brown, and continues to contribute to the intellectual diversity on campus by discussing important issues from viewpoints otherwise neglected at this venerable bastion of liberal orthodoxy. The Spectator provides an ideological label in the interest of openness and honesty by acknowledging the worldview of our staff, something most “unbiased” (read liberal) journalists regularly neglect to mention in their own writings.
In each issue the Editor-in-Chief makes clear in her letter, “From the Editor,” that The Spectator is committed to the ideas and values of Western civilization,leaving no doubt as to the mission of this publication. Of course, the members of our staffhave diverse, and in many cases divergent, perspectives on critical foreign policy, domestic policy, and cultural issues, as seen in our varied writings and opinions. We seek to provide a forum for students who disagree with the mainstream culture at Brown to express their thoughts and to contribute to the intellectual diver-sity on campus.We cannot, we must not, we will not, surrender.
And as to your question concerning whether “the Specta-tor repudiates the stated views of the Foundation for Intellectual Diversity, the very institution that gives it financial viability”, the glaringly obvious answer is: Yes (with the caveat that we simply have different missions). The Foundation supports our existence,spiritually and financially,solely because there is an appalling pau-city of places where men and women of the Right can air theirviews. In other words, we do not endorse the Foundation’s views because we accept its assistance, just as the Foundation does not endorse our views because it assists in our survival. To belabor the point, do you honestly think that Brown supports the Bush Administration’s policies simply because it accepts funds from the Pentagon?
Sincerely,
The Brown Spectator Editors
