UNM needs safeguards to collaborate with church

Editor,

I was initially excited when I read that the UNM regents had approved an arrangement with the Archdiocese of Santa Fe to co-sponsor a new faculty chairperson in religious studies focused on Roman Catholicism. The prospect of the University getting financial support to hire a first-rate scholar of religion seemed like an important addition to our curriculum.

But, could there be complications due to the fact that the archdiocese will be providing some of the funding and, we are told, the archbishop and the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences will jointly decide who gets this high-profile job?

For instance, UNM has a policy forbidding discrimination on the basis of religion, sex, sexual orientation and gender identity, among other categories. Does the archbishop understand this? Would he really be comfortable considering a well-qualified candidate who is not a Catholic or who is "inherently disordered" (as the official doctrine of the church describes gay and lesbian people)? Will candidates be queried or investigated for their public positions on issues such as abortion, celibacy for priests, ordination of women, etc.? The University also has very strong protections for academic freedom for faculty members. Would a professor selected by and dependent upon the archdiocese for financial support really feel free to take positions contrary to church doctrines - for example, supporting gay marriage, stem cell research or the death penalty? Would he or she risk funding by suggesting to gay students that they might not be "inherently disordered?"

Even if our archbishop is comfortable with nondiscrimination and academic freedom, would his superiors approve of him spending church money in this way? Catholic doctrine is now strictly enforced in many church-supported colleges in the United States and around the world. We are a public university with strongly held values of openness, academic freedom and tolerance for dissent. I would like to hear from the Board of Regents, the UNM administration and the archdiocese about what specific safeguards are built into the agreement to ensure that the University's nondiscrimination and academic freedom policies are to be fully respected in law and in spirit.

Ken Carpenter

UNM staff