Is Santorum anti-academia?

"To concede that Santorum's remarks are within the bounds of the appropriate is to concede that our work as educators is pretty much meaningless."

Macalester College President: Appalled by Rick Santorum

Brian Rosenberg
Minneapolis Star Tribune

Brian Rosenberg is the president of Macalester College in St. Paul. A version of this article was previously published by the Huffington Post.

The unexpected rise of Rick Santorum in the Republican presidential field has provoked more than a few questions about how to respond to assertions that seem to test the limits of both democracy and truth.

For me, one of the most interesting questions bears directly upon my own responsibilities as president of a college. Under what circumstances and to what extent should a college or university president speak directly to political issues and even speak publicly on particular political candidacies?

The rule of thumb has for quite some time been that on such matters presidents had best remain silent. One of the chief jobs of a college leader is to raise money from alumni and other constituencies.

The political views of those groups are likely to be diverse, and silence is therefore preferable to the risk of alienating or aggravating any significant group of potential donors. Fiduciary responsibility requires political restraint.

More important (or at least more noble) is the argument about the preservation of academic freedom on a campus. College and universities should be places where all civil and reasonable views on important issues can be expressed and debated, and a president who takes a public stand on too many of these issues risks stifling debate.

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