Reflection

Instructor’s introduction: As usual, I have put some important passages in bold and added my own

footnotes, which have my initials. -DW

The possible discussion questions are:

• What action or policy can a Jesuit university take to promote one of Brackley’s seven standards?

Perhaps this is something that you have observed taking place; perhaps it is something that you

offer as a suggestion. Either way, be concrete in your proposal. “Being more open to new ideas,”

for example, would be too abstract and vague. Please be thoughtful about which standards you

and your group focus on (or avoid).

• How can Jesuit universities avoid becoming either a “confessional Catholic enclave” (like the

SSPX chapter in St. Marys) or an expression of the “pure-reason paradigm of the Enlightenment”

(like many American universities)? What specific steps would enable them to be an alternative?

Justice and Jesuit Higher Education

Dean Brackley, S.J.

… I take as my starting point two momentous signs of our times: first, spreading

injustice, violence and environmental degradation around the world, along with hopeful signs

that another world is possible, and second, cultural pluralism.1 These two realities intertwine in

our educational work. Obviously, helping people learn about injustice and what to do about it is a

necessary part of education today. Less obviously, that can be crucial in helping them find their

way in a pluralistic world…

[This educational] vision takes us beyond the liberal and conservative models commonly

held up to us. Jesuit colleges and universities dare not measure educational excellence by the

exact same yardstick as Harvard or Stanford --and not only because they can’t compete with Ivy

League endowments and laboratories. But neither are they called to be confessional Catholic

1 Here we see Brackley use the phrase “signs of the times.” We met this phrase at the beginning when we read selections from Vatican II and we’ve been encountering it all quarter. How would you assess Brackley’s sense of the “signs”? -DW

enclaves. Today’s needs and the heritage entrusted to us demand a more comprehensive set

of academic standards than either the pure-reason paradigm of the Enlightenment or

pseudo-Catholic fundamentalism. The Ignatian vision suggests to me seven higher standards

for higher education…

Giving Priority to Reality

… The first higher standard I propose is that reality be the primary object of study. This

is less obvious than it sounds. Many people graduate from college with little understanding of

key issues like homelessness, abortion or U.S. military adventurism.2 Last year polls revealed a

striking degree of ignorance on such vital issues during the U.S. electoral campaign. One

explanation I gave to foreign friends was that schools in the U.S. devote insufficient attention to

social reality3…

The Life-and-Death Questions

A second higher standard is related: focus on the big questions. The chief goal of

education is wisdom, not mere information. When that goal structures education as it should,

university life turns around the axis of the most important questions, questions about life and

death, injustice and liberation, good and evil, sin and grace. Yes, there are differential equations

to solve, obscure insects and obscure authors to study. But let that be part of a quest to

understand what life means, how life (human and non-human) are threatened and how they can

2 The phrase “military adventurism” refers to getting into a military conflict without a clear plan or goal in mind. Brackley speaks these words in 2005. In the wake of September 11, 2001, the U.S. engaged in several military campaigns. The war in Iraq lasted from 2003 to 2011; the war in Afghanistan began in 2001 and ended in 2021, making it the longest war in U.S. history. Strictly speaking, though, condemning military adventurism is not the same as taking an anti-war stance. -DW 3 Again, the speech was delivered in 2005. In the 2004 election, George W. Bush was reelected President and the Republican Party assumed control of both Houses of U.S. Congress. -DW

flourish. In the language of faith: the cross is the center of reality --Jesus’ cross and all the other

crosses4…

Cognitive Liberation and Reason Integrally Considered

Third, we need to pursue a discipline that will broaden our horizons and free us from

bias. Teachers frequently offer answers to students who lack the questions because the problems

lie beyond their experience. We also know how debates in the classroom and the lounge about

free trade and the war in Iraq can drone on without resolving much, even though participants can

marshal impressive arguments for or against. Why? Often because of unexamined assumptions

and prejudices…

From our families and cultural formation, we inherit benefits but also biases that

circumscribe our imagination and intelligence. Psychologists and social scientists have long

labored to surface the kinds of partly-conscious myths and assumptions that constitute the

horizon of each person’s world, the “grid” within which we interpret things.5 Because some of

these assumptions resist enlightenment, seeking truth is more than pushing back the frontiers of

ignorance. It involves unmasking distortion and hidden interests. If we take sin seriously –

personal sin, original sin, and so on--, then we have to draw the cognitive consequences; we have

to take personal, habitual, original and structural distortion seriously. We need to help university

students unmask deception especially in times like these, when war is waged on false pretenses

and Fox News claims to be impartial.

In the spirit of the Enlightenment, most modern thinkers prescribe more reason and

conscious awareness to overcome bias. I doubt that is enough. Although reality is reasonable,

4 When Brackley refers to “all the other crosses,” he refers (I believe) to the factors that crush and oppress people- - in particular, poverty. -DW 5 When this talk was given, the phrase “implicit bias” had not yet widely caught on. -DW

it is naïve to suppose that reason alone will take us to it. Only an “enriched reason” that engages

the whole person --intellect, will and emotions-- produces wisdom. This is reason rooted in

experience and practice and nourished by contemplation, affectivity and imagination. Above all,

modern, liberal thinking frequently overlooks the fact that distortion is rooted in unconscious

commitments and habits of the heart. That means that cognitive liberation requires personal

transformation, or conversion. In the end, prejudice is embedded in my identity, so that to

question my world is to question me. For these reasons, wholesome crises can expand our

horizons. This frequently happens to students when they engage poor and suffering people…

As this kind of experience shows, feelings play a vital role in reason integrally

considered. Students have to work through the powerful feelings and the thoughts which their

encounter with the victims of injustice provoke. These often include the interior movements

Ignatius of Loyola calls “consolation” and “desolation.” Both have powerful educational

implications. The sadness, inner turmoil and leaden discouragement which are desolation pull us

back into ourselves and shrink our vision. Consolation --which is peace, joy, a sense of fullness -

draws us beyond ourselves to greater freedom and generosity.6 It expands our horizon and

dissolves intellectual bias. Consolation leads into the light.7

Clearly, these three standards --focusing on reality, especially suffering reality, and the

need for cognitive liberation-- aim at greater academic rigor and intellectual authenticity.

Discovering Our Deepest Vocation

Engaging suffering people and injustice frequently awakens in students the crucial

question: What am I doing with my life? And that suggests a fourth higher standard. Education

6 Cf. Ignatius Loyola, Spiritual Exercises, nos. 313-336. 7 Paul Ricoeur says the symbol gives rise to thought. P. Ricoeur, The Symbolism of Evil (Boston:Beacon Press,

1967), pp. 347-57. Consolation gives rise to liberating symbols. It undermines the original prejudice that divides the

world into important people and unimportant people

of the whole person, in the Ignatian style (as Paul Crowley says), helps students discover their

vocation in life, above all their vocation to love and serve… Besides helping students with their

careers, educators must help them discover their vocations.8

That vocation might be to raise kids, to discover galaxies, to drive a truck --or a

combination of these. Whatever it is concretely, faith and reason point to a deeper human calling

that we all share: namely, to spend ourselves in love…

Vocations are called forth from us, especially by role models and mentors, including

generous teachers, but also by poor and suffering people who show us how much we are

needed…

Who Gets In?

[Nelson] Mandela then raised the issue of who gets into universities. “The challenges of

ensuring full access, according to ability rather than wealth or privilege, have not been met,” he

said. “Until they are, we will forfeit some of the talent and genius that the world sorely needs.

All institutions of higher education have the obligation to open the door more widely.” That goes

for Jesuit colleges and universities, too. That is a fifth standard to be met…

Keeping Faith

A sixth higher standard is truth in advertising. Catholic universities should welcome

people of other communions and faiths, and no faith, as first-class citizens. At the same time,

they must be places where the Catholic tradition is studied, understood and handed on…

Through serious study of Christian faith and life, our colleges and universities should help the

church overcome unjust practices that are unworthy of it, as well as the ideologies that support

8 See the reflections of Jim Wallis, God’s Politics: Why the Right Gets It Wrong and the Left Doesn’t Get It (San

Francisco: HarperSanFrancisco, 2005), pp. 362-63.

them. Orthopraxis9 demands justice throughout the university community. Catholic colleges and

universities should be conspicuous in defending the dignity of women and of gay and lesbian

people.

Proyección Social

… Social projection [proyección social] includes all those means by which the

university communicates, or projects, knowledge beyond the campus to help shape the

consciousness of the wider society. This includes unmasking the lies which support an unjust

status quo, denouncing abuses and proposing constructive solutions. In practice, this means

public speaking, including appearances in the media, writing for publications, …

Conclusion

These reflections leave me with five items pending which I offer for your consideration:

First, how do we help our students unmask deception? …

Second, shouldn’t service of some kind among poor and suffering people be required of

all students at our institutions? …

Third, how do you get your institution to start up, alone or in collaboration, a study

abroad program in a poor country? How about a temporary freeze on more semester-abroad

programs in Western Europe?

Fourth, how can our institutions attract and retain more poor and more African-American

and other under-represented minorities? Financing and enrollment involves difficult tradeoffs.

To keep Jesuit schools financially viable, administrators commonly strive to provide facilities

that will attract more affluent students who can pay full freight and compensate for scholarship

students who cannot. This sometimes means providing a first-rate food service, pools, fitness

9 By “orthopraxis,” Brackely means “correct practice.” It’s not just a matter of believing the right things, but of living them. -DW

centers and other amenities. To what extent does this strategy foster an unhealthy upscale

consumer culture on campus that undermines the promotion of justice and compounds the

alienation of lower-income students? How can we cut this Gordian knot? Here are three

suggestions: Promote a culture of simplicity on campus. (Remember Ignatius’s Two

Standards!10) Maximize scholarships based on need, rather than athletic or scholastic ability.

Raise $50 million for scholarships in the next capital campaign. What else can be done?

Fifth and finally, what kind of proyección social is appropriate in the U.S. where it raises

questions –and eyebrows— both on campus and off? Who speaks for the university? …

We are called to fashion a new kind of university, building on the rich heritage of

Catholic and Jesuit education. This “new” university makes an option for the poor and for justice

that refocuses tired debates of liberal vs. conservative, confessional vs. secularist.11

… This may provoke conflict, persecution, even financial troubles… It may entail a loss

of prestige as the world defines it. But it will also provide a stronger sense of identity and

mission and more universal and lasting good for the glory of God.

10 At one point in the Spiritual Exercises, Ignatius speaks of two flags (“standards”), which represent a choice between good and evil. -DW 11 Ignacio Ellacuría [who was one of the Jesuits murdered in the UCA -DW] wrote, “It is often said that the university should be impartial. We do not agree. The university should strive to be free and objective, but objectivity

and freedom may demand taking sides. . . . Our university as a university has an acknowledged preferential option

for the poor . . . . We take this stand with them in order to be able to find the truth of what is happening and the truth

that all of us must be seeking and building together. There are good theoretical reasons to think that such an effort is

well grounded epistemologically, but in addition, we think there is no alternative in Latin America, in the Third

World, and elsewhere, for universities and intellectuals who claim to be of Christian inspiration.” I. Ellacuría, “The

Challenge of the Poor Majority,” in John Hassett and Hugh Lacey (eds.), Towards a Society That Serves Its People),

p. 175.