Sandra Day O'Connor has been a busy bee since retiring from the Supreme Court.
First, she's been complaining vociferously about Congressional critics of the Court, saying that some proposed changes to court jurisdiction "poses a danger" to the judiciary. Well, I guess if you think oversight is a danger, then this might place an undue burden on her right to force her opinion (and the use of foreign law to interpret the Constitution) on the American citizenry.
Since then, she's become chancellor at William & Mary College, the oldest institution of higher education in the country, and also a Christian college. Or, at least, it was.
William & Mary, like a lot of private institutions, started out as a Christian college but has become more secularized in the last 40 years or so. Now comes this by way of Agape Press:
The chairman of a Florida-based legal organization views the call for the removal of a cross from its permanent placement in William and Mary College's Wren Chapel as a sign of modern-day influences on yet another institution originally founded on Christian principles.
The cross has been in place in Wren Chapel for 75 years, where school policy allowed it to be removed for special events by request and then returned to ongoing display. But in a reversal of policy, William and Mary's current president has ordered the cross permanently placed in a closet, from which it is removed only by request for special events.
I know it's baffling, but doesn't one typically assume that a room called a "chapel" is a Christian worship area? And wouldn't it make more sense to keep the cross in a Christian worship area, then remove it when another group wants to use it?
I guess that's just too simple for some people to understand. I mean, 75 years of use without complaint must not constitute sufficient historical meaning the way a 1961 religious statue on the Austin state capital grounds did.
So, what caused the removal of the cross? Have students and faculty complained about it? Well, no.
Neither current William and Mary students nor alumni have objected to the cross being part of the permanent decoration of the chapel, the Liberty Counsel spokesman points out, and some have voiced displeasure over the policy change with regard to its display. He says the impetus for the removal of the cross likely came about through the influence of Nichols – a former chair of the University of Colorado's Gay and Lesbian Issues Task Force – and William and Mary chancellor Sandra Day O'Connor, who joined the school after leaving the U.S. Supreme Court.
"So unfortunately you're beginning to see some influences in this historic college," Staver says. "And, indeed, it started off as a religious college," he notes, "but in recent years has been taken over by the state, and it is now a state college."
President Gene Nichol said "the cross in question 'sends an unmistakeable message that the chapel belongs more fully to some of us than others.' The William and Mary College administrator claims he ordered the removal of the cross from the altar area in order to make the chapel less faith-specific, the Liberty Counsel attorney explains."
Ah, yes. The intolerant tolerance argument again. Do you think that a college with a Muslim historical background would be expected to become less faith-specific? And if not, why not?
Cross-posted at Common Sense Political Thought.
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