Jon Meacham, Pulitzer Prize-winning author, former editor of Newsweek and political pundit, is no one’s idea of a radical. In a list of adjectives that might describe him — articulate, thoughtful, measured, even avuncular — the word “radical” doesn’t come close to making the list.
Tell that to the students at Samford University, a Southern Baptist school in Birmingham, Ala.
The new president of Samford, Beck Taylor, tapped Meacham to offer a lecture on the importance of civil discourse as part of the recent presidential inaugural festivities. The university at the time of the announcement described Meacham as a “skilled orator with a depth of knowledge about politics, religion and current affairs.” Samford praised his work, which includes biographies of Andrew Jackson, Thomas Jefferson and Franklin Roosevelt, for examining “the present moment in American politics and life by looking back at critical times in U.S. history when hope overcame division and fear.”
An antiabortion student at Samford, however, discovered that Meacham had spoken at a Planned Parenthood event in Texas and for that reason deemed him unfit to appear at Samford. Eager to “protect the core values and beliefs of Samford University” and characterizing the invitation to Meacham as “alarming,” several students initiated an online petition to disinvite him because “overall his beliefs and core values do not align with those of Samford University, as it is a Southern Baptist institution.”
There is no small irony in that statement.
In seeking to rescind the invitation to Meacham, a historian, the students betrayed a lack of knowledge about the history of their own tradition. Although the denomination later aligned itself with the antiabortion movement, the Southern Baptist Convention passed a resolution in 1971 calling for the legalization of abortion, a resolution it reaffirmed in 1974, a year after the Roe v. Wade decision, and again in 1976.
Let me be clear. Samford University is no Bible Belt hothouse. I’ve been honored to give several high-profile lectureships there, and I found students and faculty both intellectually serious and committed to their faith. However, some students apparently have become antiabortion zealots, although speculation abounds that the real reason for opposition to Meacham is that he has been critical of Donald Trump and, more recently, has advised President Joe Biden.
Anyone who thinks that the Samford kerfuffle is a mirror image of opposition to right-wing flamethrowers such as Charlie Kirk and David Horowitz is engaging in false equivalency. Unlike Kirk, Horowitz and their ilk, Meacham is a distinguished journalist and a careful scholar whose work has received the highest accolades within his profession. Nor is he a left-wing partisan. In the course of writing his biography of George H.W. Bush, Meacham became so close to the Bushes that he was asked by both George and Barbara to give eulogies at their funerals.
In addition, Meacham is a person of faith and an avid churchman, something ostensibly at the core of Samford’s identity. A cradle Episcopalian, Meacham has served on the vestry of St. Thomas Church in New York City and on the board of directors for his alma mater, University of the South.
None of those credentials, however, impressed the antiabortion contingent at Samford. In the face of student resistance, Taylor, the new president, initially offered a mild defense. “Some in our community have assumed erroneously that Samford’s invitation by extension endorses any perspectives or viewpoints Mr. Meacham may have about the sanctity of life and abortion rights,” he wrote.
As pressure intensified, however, Taylor caved. “Unexpectedly, Mr. Meacham’s planned lecture has become a divisive issue,” he said, “one that takes attention away from our opportunity to celebrate Samford.” The university characterized the rescinded invitation as a postponement, promising to bring Meacham to campus another time.
We’ll see. I’ve never met Beck Taylor, and I expect that he’s a fine fellow, but his capitulation can hardly be described as a profile in courage. Faculty and students at the school might be pardoned for wondering whether their new president has had spinal bypass surgery.
How might the situation be handled differently? It’s always easy to snipe from the sidelines, of course, but I put that question to my dear friend Robert Oden, president emeritus of both Kenyon and Carleton colleges.
He replied that he would have met with the members of the student council, supply some quotations from Meacham’s writings and then “argue that in our great diversity, all of us have some views, have signed some petition, with which others will disagree. But the larger issue is our willingness to listen to and entertain the thoughts of a distinguished historian and biographer.”
And if that did not mollify the dissenters? “I hope I would have the integrity and courage to resign my position — not in a great huff or with multiple examples of unpleasant vocabulary, but straightforwardly, politely and also resolutely.”
Plans for the inauguration at Samford — without Jon Meacham — steamed ahead. One of my colleagues there, who apparently had some role in organizing the festivities, asked for suggestions for the closing song. Should it be Charles Hubert Hastings Parry’s I Was Glad When They Said Unto Me, or something else?
With no disrespect to my colleague or to the many fine people at Samford, I suggested Send in the Clowns.
Randall Balmer teaches at Dartmouth College. His most recent book is Bad Faith: Race and the Rise of the Religious Right. He wrote about David Horowitz’s visit to Dartmouth in the Nov. 2, 2018, edition of the Valley News.