Last Wednesday night, Vice President for Student Affairs Juan Gonzalez indefinitely postponed a progressive career fair that was scheduled to take place the following day in the Leavey Program Room. The Student Activities Commission-approved fair was organized by GU Pride and H*yas for Choice, a group not recognized by the University, and was to feature organizations such as Catholics for Free Choice, Amnesty International and Choice USA. According to Assistant Vice President for Communications Julie Green Bataille, Gonzalez’ reason for postponing the fair was that he had not had adequate time to review the program and determine if any of the invitees advocated issues which conflicted with Catholic teachings.
According to the Speech and Expression Policy, however, the viewpoints advocated by the career fair guests shouldn’t have mattered. The policy states that “an individual member or group of members of the academic community may invite any person to address the community … an event is any public meeting organized by such an individual or group primarily for the dissemination or exchange of ideas.”
Students come to Georgetown realizing that there will be certain limitations placed on them in conjunction with the school’s Catholic identity?condoms will not be available in the student health center and pro-choice groups will not receive University funding?but they also come because our Jesuit heritage encourages and espouses intellectual discourse. “Georgetown’s identification with the Catholic and Jesuit tradition,” the Speech and Expression Policy states, “far from limiting or compromising the ideal of free discourse, requires that we live up to that ideal.”
Administrators might ask whether a career fair is an event covered by the Speech and Expression Policy. Speakers such as Larry Flynt and Bill Maher have been allowed to come to campus and have expressed sentiments incompatible with Catholic doctrine. Possibly, the administration is drawing a distinction between a speech and an event providing job information. If so, they shouldn’t. Both are here to “address the community;” both are designed to circulate ideas which contribute to our intellectual community. If the progressive career fair is not expressly covered by the Speech and Expression Policy, it is certainly in keeping with the spirit of it.
Georgetown is grounded in its Catholic identity, but it’s also grounded in a tradition of free exchange of ideas, even if those ideas sometimes go against Catholic beliefs. If the administration wishes to uphold its Jesuit heritage, it should keep in mind that only by keeping the lines of intellectual discourse open and uninhibited will students be able to determine, clarify and understand their personal beliefs, Catholic or otherwise. As the Speech and Expression Policy says, “the remedy for silly or extreme or offensive ideas is not less free speech but more.”
