Conservative Liberal Arts
Hanna Rosin’s
God’s Harvard describes life at Patrick Henry College.
By Steven White, Hampshire College
October 1, 2007
Tomorrow’s prominent conservative campaign managers, chiefs of staff, and lobbyists may come from a college you’ve never heard of. Graduates of Patrick Henry College, located 50 miles outside of Washington in Purcellville, Virginia, have worked for nearly every conservative congressman and senator, and the 300-student college sends as many interns to the White House as Georgetown does. The students at Patrick Henry aren’t your typical frat-boy conservatives; they are driven by ideas and activism. “Every week mini-culture wars broke out in class, on the campus online network, in the newspaper, at a lunch table, or in the gym,” Hanna Rosin writes in a new book, God’s Harvard: A Christian College on a Mission to Save America. One student wrote an op-ed in the campus newspaper chiding U2 because they “drink, smoke, and curse at their concerts.” Students at Patrick Henry boycott Wal-Mart not for its union-busting but because it joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce. Rosin cites an endorsement from President Bush that is printed on brochures for prospective students, “[Patrick Henry] College holds a vision for the future of America, a vision which, when fully realized, will have a profound impact upon the course of our nation.”
Rosin’s book follows her 2005 New Yorker profile of the college. She is critical, but ultimately fair. Rosin’s depiction is a sharp and insightful portrayal of a politicized, religious subculture that seeks to change politics at the highest level.
Nearly all Patrick Henry students were home-schooled as children, an act of political rebellion for families who disapprove of the secular teachings of public schools. Michael Farris, founder of Patrick Henry, also started the Home School Legal Defense Association in 1983. Politics pervade every aspect of life at the college. Campaigns for student governance are particularly intense, mimicking real life elections as students prepare themselves for professional careers in electoral politics. Some student candidates conduct weekly opinion polls.
With such a connection between politicized religious belief and education, certain problems are bound to arise, including debates over the place of critical and inquisitive humanities classes in the college’s curriculum. Farris “viewed curriculum much as a general might view a battle plan,” Rosin explains.
He wanted his students to study Kant in the same way the army wanted soldiers to study a map of Baghdad and learn a few words of Arabic. Knowing the enemy would make them better soldiers and ultimately win more converts to the American way. There was neither truth nor beauty to be found in Kant, Nietzsche, or most of the philosophers taught at Patrick Henry. They were the equivalent of bombed-out cities crawling with insurgents, or giant oil spills: messes left behind that had to be mopped up before they spread any farther.
Some dissident professors at Patrick Henry—and in this case, dissident is a relative term—were considered heretics for making an insufficiently specific connection between God and government. These professors “spent a lot of time huddled in [Patrick Henry government professor Erik] Root’s glass office with the shutters down, talking about academic freedom,” Rosin writes. Sometimes they moved the discussion to a cigar bar, harking to historic old boys’ clubs. “Shh, don’t tell anyone,” Rosin quotes one professor as saying. “We’re going to a bar.”
Because of the suppression of their academic freedom, a number of popular professors turned in letters of resignation in 2006. They accused Farris of creating “an environment hostile to the teaching of liberal arts.” At the graduation ceremony last May, Farris took the opportunity to lash out at those professors in front of the graduating class, making the event more like an “excommunication,” as Rosin puts it, than a celebration. “Thank you for ruining what was supposed to have been the best day of my life,” one student shouted when Farris hit his planned applause line. Such anti-administration rebellion clashes with the stereotype of subservient, credulous evangelical students, and Rosin nicely brings the roots and expressions of such rebellions to light. Some students even dyed their hair in protest of Farris’ anti-liberal arts policies.
Women’s rights is another area where Patrick Henry is different from many other campuses. The college emphasizes Christian marriage as the defining institution of women’s lives, even as it encourages female students to become effective political activists. Rosin weaves a particularly complex examination of conflicting understandings of Christian womanhood, often within the same individual. The college encourages students to practice “courting” instead of dating. Young men are supposed to express interest in young women by reaching out to a girl’s father and receiving his permission.
One student described her ideal future to Rosin as, “If I were to wake up one day and find myself a wife and mother.” Other women students want to change the world—conservative Christians know few things are more politically effective than a female anti-abortion activist—but in the end, Patrick Henry’s particular reading of the Bible emphasizes traditional gender roles and the value of marriage. When female professors get pregnant, they tend to resign; no childcare is provided on campus.
Rosin presents a balanced picture of Patrick Henry College. Farris talked to her and allowed her on campus to do further research for the book, even after the publication of her New Yorker exposé, an admirable action on his part. Thanks in no small part to that special access, Rosin’s book provides a highly original, thoughtful, and informative portrait of a complex institution that is easy to stereotype but difficult to fully comprehend. While progressives will find little common ground with the students at Patrick Henry, reading Rosin’s book will at least lead toward a more nuanced understanding of Christian conservatism.
Steven White blogs at stevenwhite.typepad.com.
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— patty - Oct 4, 05:51 PM - #Thank you for your review, Steven. I am actually reading the book now so I can better “know the enemy.” Reading about the thinking of conservatives is a rather fascinating endeavor, albeit often with a worrisome outcome.
— Bob New - Oct 4, 08:00 PM - #