This school and its proposal have been in the news for a while, but have gotten the most publicity in an article in Thursday’s New York Times, “The Christian dorm at the public university.”
In short, Troy University at Troy, Alabama (of course), is a state (public) school that has opened a dormitory for Christian students, though it’s open to students of all faiths, as well as nonbelievers. (Those are as rare in Alabama as snowstorms.) Nevertheless, it’s still housing designed for students of a single religion. As the Times reports:
Citing reports from students who say they are hungry for more faith-based options on campus and national surveys that show a strong interest in spirituality among college freshman, officials at Troy, Alabama’s third-largest public university, this semester opened the Newman Center residence hall, a roomy 376-bed dormitory that caters to students who want a residential experience infused with religion.
Kosher dorms, Christian fraternity houses and specialized housing based on values have become part of modern college life. But the dorm on this campus of 7,000 students is among a new wave of religious-themed housing that constitutional scholars and others say is pushing the boundaries of how much a public university can back religion.
Officials said the dorm met a growing demand and did not conflict with the Constitution.
“It is not about proselytizing, but about bringing a values-based opportunity to this campus,” said Troy’s chancellor, Jack Hawkins Jr. “The parents are the most excited. I’ve had calls to get me to intervene to get their son or daughter in there.”
What it’s about is to promote a specific religion using public funds. There are no Jewish dorms; there are no Muslim dorms, though I suspect that there aren’t enough students of either faith to support such places. Annie Laurie Gaylor of the Freedom from Religion Foundation is quoted as saying, “This is too cozy. We are very concerned about this idea of religious-based dorms. This is very insidious.”
Indeed.
The dorm is partially funded by the Catholic-run Newman Student Housing Fund, which has already built similar dorms at two other public universities and plans more. Ask yourselves: why are they paying to do that?
Here’s more from the report. I’ve put in bold the particularly disingenuous parts:
Residents said the dorm provided a way for people of different faiths — or no faith at all — to mingle and learn more about each other’s beliefs.Some said they found support and guidance living among people who shared Bible-based values.
Those last two sentences are contradictory.
“We don’t want to offend people, but we don’t want to be offended,” said Stella Burak, 20. “We have to be tolerant of so many things, but nobody has to be tolerant of religion.”
At first I was puzzled by Burak’s statement, but then I realized that she means that there’s discrimination against Christians (cry me a river), and that the dorm is a place to escape criticism of her religious values. But isn’t exposure to such diverse ideas one of the purposes of college?
Like the school administrators who supported the dorm, students argue that the Newman hall is not, as it was originally marketed, a dorm designed for Christians on the campus of a public university.
“It is faith-based housing, but faith can be anything from atheism to Catholicism,” said Dom Godwin, a 19-year-old Catholic. Less than 3 percent of Alabama’s population is Catholic.
Here are the constitutional arguments against such housing, arguments with which I agree:
“If you set it up as a faith-based dorm and you expand it to include all faiths, you are still making a constitutional mistake,” said Charles C. Haynes, the director of the Religious Freedom Education Project at the Newseum and a senior scholar at the First Amendment Center in Washington. “Two constitutional wrongs don’t make a constitutional right.”
Providing dorms based on a set of values is one thing, he said, but providing housing so closely tied to religion is another.
“The reason we don’t hear about this happening at other public universities is that they know they can’t do it,” Dr. Haynes said. “A university really can’t take sides in religion, especially in a way that gives certain benefits to people of faith.”
When I started college, I lived in an “honors dorm” with 11 other students: 12 guys in six rooms. Our roommates were all chosen to be of the same faith, which became quite clear when I was put with the only other Jewish guy in the program. On either side of me were two rooms, each containing two Catholics. Two Protestants were at the end of the hall. The Christian Scientist posed a problem, but, making the best of a bad job, they put him with a Catholic.
That discrimination bothered me, though I didn’t know why. Now I know that I saw it as a misguided attempt to protect me by not exposing me to—horrors—a Christian. But I wound up rooming senior year with one of the Protestants from that dorm, although by then I was barely a Jew.
It seems to me that if one really wants to foster diversity, as so many campuses claim, you don’t try to house people of like faiths together. That simply protects them from the kind of diversity the college is trying to promote. After all, it’s exposure to diversity that is supposed to breed tolerance. Exposure to other coreligionists—Christians in this case—just breeds tribalism.
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Couldn’t agree more.
Better yet, the parents can visit the students while lodging at sectarian motels (Christian’s Comfort Inn and The Ramadan Ramada).
Probably best to avoid the Motel 666 though.
“When fascism comes to America, it will come carrying a cross, and draped in a flag.”
Who was that? The guy with the bifocals … Ben Franklin? Marx or Engels?
Sinclair Lewis said/penned that…
I wonder if the not-so-up front reasoning behind a Catholic funded faith based housing project that parents are reportedly dying to get their kids into is to combat people becoming less religious in college.
So what happens when the best, newest, roomiest, most well-equipped and well-situated dorms on public university campuses just happen to be the “Christian” dorms? Gee, maybe some secular students will move in for the worldly benefits but leave with a life well-grounded in Jesus the Savior.
Sure, I’d be happy to let my taxes advance that agenda, with government beaming down upon the golden opportunity.
“Atheism?” Really? Heh.
Well then, could be a golden opportunity here for us, too. Given that they want to consider atheism to be a “faith” and given that they’re hoping everyone will “mingle and learn more about other people’s beliefs” it sounds to me like here’s a fine place for some secular student atheist debate bootcamps to set up shop — complete with targets. A never-ending fresh supply of sheltered but curious theists are apparently eager to learn — in clear, uncompromising, consistent and exacting detail — exactly WHY the God hypothesis fails and why they ought to jettison their faith. Up and down the dormitory, all the atheists ready and available, no “faith” necessary, really.
And the lovely part is that nobody can start whining about how all that is “intolerant” or “disrespectful.” Hell no, this is the very PLACE for those kinds of deep, thoughtful, incisive, enlightening, challenging sorts of conversations, as people of all “faiths” mingle and learn. And which group is going to have the most to learn?
Still sounds unconstitutional to me but hey — maybe they should be careful what they wish for.
Your last paragraph highlights a major problem universities will have in defending this. Diversity is held to be a social good sufficient to justify constitutionally dubious admission practices, yet can be ignored for a constitutionally dubious anti-diversity housing practice.
“It is not about proselytizing, but about bringing a values-based opportunity to this campus,” said Troy’s chancellor, Jack Hawkins Jr. “We don’t want to offend people, but we don’t want to be offended,” said Stella Burak.
Stella would be offended by a Jesus & Mo tee and want it prohibited, perhaps. Her tender feelings must be protected and shielded in her dorm, after tough days enduring insult from the presence of non-Christian human beings on campus and other public areas.
And as for you, Jack:
When people like you and the evangelical community appropriate “values” as an adjective to set any group apart from all others (e.g. Values Voters), the corrolary is that those “others” have no values.
Either that, or the values others may say they have (assuming the heathens have the effrontery to even claim any!) are not fit to share the same space with Christians.
Desire for Privilege. Isn’t that located somewhere in the definition of Sin in the Christian dictionary?
Yes, and catching them between claims of political correctness and those of their respecitve religion is easy.
Using this rift costs nerves, again and again.
Troy is a good, small university. It has made giant strides in recent decades. There are programs there with good reputations nationally. I think that, in spite of a strong faculty, this is a leap backward, a concession to loud voices in the alumni and community, nosy ministers who should do their own jobs, and the exigencies of raising funds in a hard economic environment. Remember, the environment is South Alabama, there are nice, good hearted people there, but it is a landscape ripe with hundreds of churches, where right wing politics are the norm, where there is an unreconstructed working class, and an area influenced economically by a strong military presence. Reason has little chance of prevailing there; if they read the separation clause, I’m sure they didn’t like it.
The other two schools where the Newman Center has “projects” are Texas A&M – Kingsville (not the main College Station campus) and Florida Tech. Both are very small schools compared to Troy, which is third in Alabama after the University of Alabama and Auburn University. It’s very sad to see this happening in my home state, and quite strange, actually, given that Catholics are virtually nonexistent there. But then again, there really isn’t a very stark divide in AL between Catholics and Protestants — as long as you’re a Christian, you’re fine. This is different from Louisiana, where I now live, where there’s the Catholic part of the state and the Protestant part of the state and it’s a really big deal.
PS — I should probably be offended that I have to share a name with these freaks.
OMG; you’re a NEWMAN!!!!!
The very reason I started watching Seinfeld was so I would finally get the Newman jokes I kept hearing in high school. haha.
Ha ha! I’ve recently realized Seinfeld had a profound impact on me as I often relate something that happens in real life to a Seinfeld episode!
It’s a Christian dorm. But it’s a faith-based dorm open to all faiths. Or even no faith. Wtf does that even mean? How does that differ from any other dorm?
This was exactly what I was wondering. If it’s open to all, what does having a “Christian” college mean? How will it be different from other colleges? Are they going to ban saying sceptical things about religion? Or just put crosses up on all the walls? Have their own chapel? (Or do they already do this?)It doesn’t make much sense to me.
Religious colleges vary. I teach at a Methodist college in Alabama. I’m sure we would never dream of having a “Christian” dorm, although we have had a small, literal “interfaith house”). Being a religious college we have a chaplain, chapel, and regular services (multiple, for different religions/denominations). There is explicitly no religious requirement for any faculty or students. Official functions open with a very ecumenical prayer.
We recently updated our mission statement, which includes a line that the college “honors its Methodist heritage of informed inquiry and meaningful service.” I recall a draft to the effect that this was how we fulfilled our service to the Methodist church, but (probably for purposes of parallelism and other editorial fun) that didn’t make it into the final version.
Or, to paraphrase Stephen Colbert, all the dorm’s studnets are free to worship Jesus in their own way.
Or, to quote my friend Ally, on being told that the Mormons are coming to the housing estate, “Goody! I’ll get my goat mask and posing pouch.”
If only there were tax-exempt, religious organizations that could offer a private college alternative to these public universities.
*like*
I think the idea of segregated housing runs counter to the idea of a liberal education in a pluralistic society. I also think that public universities should be accepting private funding that supports sectarian activities.
And here is why people need to be exposed to diversity.
A world view doesn’t need to be faith-based (say, science). And it is commonly understood that generic atheism is encapsulated by skepticism (when organized, science-based) applied to religion as well as everything else.
One would think that the construction “a-theism” would be a tip-off for Godwin. But no.
Jerry writes:
“I was barely a Jew.”
I knew it, Jewish nudist camps!
A “public school”? Absolutely no reference to religion is legal unless it is a course about this mental affliction. Let the brain dead go to private colleges.
Surely you jest. You cannot really want to prevent students from discussing religion among themselves or even joining religious groups on campus.
I’m going to have to disagree with you on this, Jerry.
I’ll take the example of your honors dorm, as it’s easier for me to clarify my point there. I’m not pretending this isn’t a case close to the edge, I just prefer to stick to something simpler with the same idea to save long elaboration.
By putting students of two religions together in the housing, they’re not trying to avoid exposing students to other beliefs. Rather, they’re trying to keep conflicts in personalities down. There is plenty of time in college to hear new things, but I think your own room should be a refuge. Being challenged in what you believe is good, but when you go back to your place, you don’t want to have to go back to a roomate talking about you being a christ-killer.
As such, putting together likeminded people in dorms is not a bad idea. Classes are for challenging students, but dorms are for living in. And you can’t live comfortably somewhere where you can’t relax, and religious differences can bring up big frustrations.
As long as the christian dorm gets no special treatment or new added features, I don’t see a problem here. Does it promote tribalism? I won’t deny it.
It’s something I could have a discussion on though, as this is a lot more nuanced than “Not some Hindu monkey god”. As such, there are a lot of avenues for people to dispute me that I won’t be bothering to bring up and counter, as I’d be here all day.
I’m just saying I don’t see this as something bad, in and of itself. Sometimes, it’s nice to just relax with like-minded people. That you happen to be in the majority, and that that really shouldn’t be something you need to reach for, is not the point, when it comes to legality.
Of course, on a practical level… I still think it’s stupid. I really have no idea what the point of this is.
“Sometimes, it’s nice to just relax with like-minded people.”
I agree. But no is keeping Christian students from relaxing with like-minded people. Given that they are, as you say, the majority, they have more than plenty of opportunities to do so. They often even have their own school recognized groups. They hardly need to live in the same building to relax.
*no ONE is keeping Christian students…
Which is why I said it’s a stupid idea. But when it comes to legal decision (i.e. is this a first amendment violation), stupidity has nothing to do with legality.
It’s pointless, but creating dorms that segregate based on ideological differences is not inherently problematic for this reason. It’s not a bad idea to keep conflict and discussion to the classroom, and keep living spaces relaxed.
Again, I’m merely defending it from a basic legal point of view. Them being a super-majority makes it completely pointless (as does the “people of all faiths” admission policy), so I’m not really sure what they’re aiming for here.
Not up on current practices, but… don’t students have *some say so* in whom they room with? (As in non/smoker, likes to party/study, early/late riser?)
Their intent may be to keep personality conflicts down but I think it is misguided. Isolating people from others causes you to make up your own ideas about what they are like as people. Think about how atheists are the most distrusted group in America. If people got to know you as a person, liked you and discovered you were an atheist, they may not fear you. I’ve always been exposed to different people – different ethnicities, religious backgrounds, world views and I think I’ve been the better for it because I at least can articulate why they hold certain values dear.
This is why I also do not like groups that exclude based on gender – like boy scouts and girl guides; I’ve always thought it introduces an “other” early in life.
Oh and just to support my point, I have a friend who went to a Jewish school in Montreal and he said people used to come by the school and throw rocks at them. It was a terrible experience for him but I have to think this is tribalism. Someone is different than I so let’s go throw things at them. You see a similar attitude with separation of Catholic and public schools.
In this case, it may not be rocks thrown but it certainly is an identification of the “other” that feeds our tribal instincts which are ultimately destructive to the free exchange of ideas and empathy toward one another as fellow humans.
Sines wrote:
Really? Matt Zerrusen, president of the Newman Student Housing Fund, a private Catholic development company that plans to open several more dorms every year, made it clear what the purpose was. “It’s definitely an evangelization opportunity, which is why we went down there,” he said.
But how is it an evangelism opportunity? Either it’s all christians, in which case… no evangelism, or it’s designated as a “Faith Discussion Heavy” dormitory. Sure, in those cases, evangelism can happen, but I don’t think people not in a sturdy position are going to go there.
I suppose they may see it as a way to ‘invite’ non-christians into a discussion setting where debate is to be expected, so evangelism isn’t pushy, as non-christians signed up for it in the first place.
So maybe that’s it. Still, when it comes to intelligent people having honest discussions, conversions from christianity are far more common than converting self-declared non-believers to christianity. In that sense, I think it would be a huge success!
Sines wrote:
Well, you may not see it as an evangelism opportunity, but obviously the person in charge of developing these housing units across the country sees it as such. He says that’s why they are doing it.
I don’t see any legal defense in your comment at all. Any time a public school privileges religion it is problematic.
It is an evangelism opp because, while you and I think Protestants and Catholics are pretty much the same thing, that isn’t what they think.
Think about the fundie Protestants that go to catholic countries as missionaries.
There’s often a “close” thing going. For example I’ve been asked twice now by the Lubavitchers if I’m a Jew, and they just basically ignore me because I say (truthfully) I’m not. Similarly, I’ve heard of about Muslims of various denominations targeting each other, but not, say, Christians.
Betteridge strikes again….
Cheers,
b&
That’s just a bad, bad, idea. As much as I would like to see an atheist dorm, I have to say the same argument applies. But here’s the point: If there is no suggestion that a dorm favors any religion or lack thereof, it’s de facto atheist, isn’t it? God doesn’t factor into who is going to feel more or less comfortable there. I mean, aren’t things like the Newman Center and Campus Crusade enough???
The good thing is, if you were an atheist in the south, maybe you’d get a whole dorm to yourself! 🙂
You would…except that it’d be in the basement…at the bottom of the stairs…which had gone out, along with the light…and your room would be in a disused lavatory — or, rather, in the back of a filing cabinet in said disused lavatory…but, at least, you’d have a feline roommate! A rather large feline roommate….
b&
I was pretty damn close when we lived in Nebraska! There was a tornado in my town (Wayne) day before yesterday, and there was a great outpouring of religious sentiment about God protecting most of the town, prayers offered, etc. etc.
As I understand it, even privare schools that have had Catholic and Jewish dorms hadthese places independently funded (most of the time) without any university funding. This was true of Stanfords (now defunct) Catholic dorm, and of arecently constructed Hillel dorm in Florida- all outside money.
one more terribly ignorant and unintelligent person still calling atheism a “faith”. At this point, there is nothing else to call them.
A dorm that is only for those who follow a certain religion is a wonderful idea. I wonder how many TrueChristians will refuse to live there since those awful pagan Roman Catholics built it, or are they hypocrites enough to benefit from those they are sure are going to hell.
Really, shock and surprise over this in Alabama? Have you not noticed how emboldened the religious right has become over the past 30+ years, (mostly out of desperation)?
Shocked that religion is dividing child/young adults as they take their first steps out into the bold new world?
This is exactly what religion was designed to do , divide groups into “us and them”, and without daily parental control the theists get fearful that their young will become too “worldly” and count on peer pressure to keep little Johnny/Jane inline, and the only way that can happen is through controlling every aspect of their life that they can.
On a good not its a good opportunity for a few good freethinking youths to live in those segregated dorms and document how they are treated by these “good children of faith”
George Wallace would be very very proud of these theists and their subversive ideas.
Maybe, just maybe, the Christian dorm will be a microcosm of what Christians should expect, if Dominionism really does take over. That is, maybe students in that dorm will compete for “truest Christian student” while ostracizing others in their same dorm for not being Christian enough.
And, what a sociological paper for newsworthiness that could be!