Theology Professor: "We are punishing our students for enacting the dangerous and necessary insight to which we have called them."

Jesuit education unfolds against the backdrop of what Jesuits call cura personalis -- a care for the individual person and care for the whole person.  Within this context of reverential love and concern, students are challenged.  Challenged, they awaken to their real potential. Awakened, they are transformed.  Transformed, they are empowered. Empowered, they emerge from their experience on campus as recognizable Jesuit graduates: they are men and women of competence, conscience, compassion and commitment to the cause of the human family.  At the heart of their awakening and transformation is their encounter (both in their studies and in the care that they receive from their teachers) with the central belief of Christian Humanism, a belief that is, in turn, at the very heart of Jesuit education.  This belief is at one and the same time simple and profound: that human life is not at all what poor MacBeth thought it to be, namely a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.  Far from it, they learn with their hearts and their minds that life is a gift filled with meaning and of inestimable value, and that human dignity is to be both advanced and protected against all that would abridge or debase it.  Armed with this dangerous and necessary insight, Fordham graduates have gone forth into the city and the world eager to transform both. 

         Rev. Joseph M. McShane, S.J., Inaugural Address, October 24, 2003

May 13, 2017

Dear Fr. McShane, Mr. Carroll, Vice President Gray, Ms. Scaglione and Ms. Crosson,

I am writing to implore you to do what is in your power to ensure that our students not be punished for learning what we have been striving to teach them.

Commitment to the cause of the human family is, indeed dangerous.  In a world such as ours, that meets with force the agitating struggle for a better world, those who dare to set the world on fire are taking real risks to their own well-being. 

This is no different from the liberationist reading of Jesus of Nazareth that inspires so many of the Jesus followers of today.  Committed to the cause of the human family, Jesus was the center of a movement that sought to transform an unjust status quo.  This is no different from the witness of the Jesuit martyrs of the UCA, who committed themselves to scholarship on behalf of the poor, and who were murdered by state-sanctioned forces desiring to keep in place an unjust status quo. At Fordham we inspire our students to be agents of social change, but we forget to tell them how dangerous this really is. 

The students who are facing sanctions after their attempt at a peaceful demonstration on April 27, are learning first hand what can happen in the struggle for justice in an unjust world.  Unlike too many of us who are comfortable with a status quo where our well-being within our institution includes injustice to other members of our community, these students transformed the idea of being committed to the cause of the human family into action.

These are the students who have accompanied me in the difficult work of “a well-educated solidarity” that the Jesuits have called us to.  They have wrestled with me in Theology courses – interrogating a tradition that calls for human transformation yet cooperates with an unjust status quo.  They have reached out with me to our neighbors in the Bronx, through service-learning and social justice activism that attempts to align our lives with those on the margins.  They led me in prayer for a more just world, and have allowed me to see how education can be transformative.  These are the students who spend their weekends pursuing the life of a faith that does justice, and engaging all the opportunities that our Jesuit institutions offer for transforming our world.

Together we have pursued the vision of education that President McShane called us to.  With him, I have hoped that they would “learn with their hearts and their minds that life is a gift filled with meaning and of inestimable value, and that human dignity is to be both advanced and protected against all that would abridge or debase it.  Armed with this dangerous and necessary insight, Fordham graduates have gone forth into the city and the world eager to transform both.”

The insight that human dignity is to be advanced and protected against all that would abridge or debase it was the dangerous and necessary insight with which students entered the administration building in the hopes of transforming our institution toward greater justice for our adjunct faculty.

We are punishing our students for enacting the dangerous and necessary insight to which we have called them.

In addition to the breaches of protocol that the response to the April 27 demonstration reflects, the state-sanctioned training of our highest security personnel in tactics that meet with force the agitating struggle for a better world is a breach of our commitment to forming students in a well-educated solidarity.

Or, perhaps this is the greatest lesson of all for our students committed to the cause of social justice:  that the work of justice is dangerous.  The Crucified One through whom Catholic and Jesuit traditions draw us near to God has already demonstrated this to us.  Our crucified martyrs whose witness many of us hope to carry on in doing the university-work of justice have also shown this to be the case.  But, in the witness of my students, committed to the cause of justice in an unjust world, I see the words of Jon Sobrino come to life:  “In a world such as ours, full of lies and cruelty, martyrs tell us that truth and love, firmness and faithfulness, and love to the end are possible.  And that is good news.”

I know these students.  They are among the best that Fordham has educated in a mission that might indeed set the world on fire. 

I hope that the administration will see that we have created these students in their passion for justice, and we are teaching them now how dangerous this can be. 

I implore those with the power to address this situation to ensure that these students are not sacrificed to the preservation of an unjust status quo for having become recognizable Jesuit graduates.  They have been challenged, awakened to their real potential, transformed and empowered.  We have asked them to set the world on fire with their commitment to the cause of the human family.  They have done what we have asked them to do in becoming women and men for and with others. 

We owe it to our students not to fail them for embracing the education Fordham purports to offer:  committed to research and education that assist in the alleviation of poverty, the promotion of justice and the protection of human rights.

With a shared commitment to a more just world, I hope you will defend these students who were endeavoring to bring justice into reality on our campus.

Sincerely,

Jeannine Hill Fletcher

Professor of Theology