Shadow Falls on Campus Freedom

When state Sen. Lucy Killea was banned from receiving Communion in the Roman Catholic Church last year because of her stand in favor of abortion rights, she also seems to have been banished from speaking at her alma mater, the University of San Diego.

Last month, a conference on political campaign skills scheduled to be held on the Catholic university’s campus was canceled because Killea was one of the speakers.

University officials said they feared that having Killea on the program might be an affront to Bishop Leo T. Maher, chairman of the university’s board of trustees and the man who applied the Communion sanction against the former assemblywoman during her race for the Senate.

The university, which has emphasized its independence from the church in recent years, does not want the incident viewed as impugning academic freedom.

But it does, even if the event was outside the classroom. Diversity of viewpoints is the soul of a true university. And censorship such as USD’s can only numb intellectual curiousity.

If USD were still owned and operated by the San Diego Catholic Diocese, the cancellation of the conference might be more understandable, although still regrettable. But USD became an independent Catholic university in 1972. The diocese and the Society of the Sacred Heart, the order of nuns who founded the university, still maintain four seats on the 34-member board of trustees. And Maher has been board chairman since 1972, although he will retire this summer.

But the private university has insisted that it is independent. In 1986, university provost Sister Sally Furay said that Catholic universities have to have autonomy. “Because a university is a place where society does its thinking,” she said. “Scholars have to be free to probe any aspect of a subject.”

We can only hope that Bishop Robert Brom, who will take over the diocese in July, will share Furay’s views, and take steps to ensure greater academic freedom at the University of San Diego.