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The ban on interracial dating at Bob Jones is unjust, but change needs to come jrom within
Meet Bob Jones.
The university.
Bob Jones is in Greenville, S.C. It
was foundedby Bob Jones. His grand
son, Bob Jones El, runs it now. Bob
Jones is a Christian, a fundamentalist
Christian to be exact, the kind of
Christian who considers Catholicism a
satanic cult. He says so in his presi
dent’s message, which can be found on
the university’s Web site, www.bju.edu.
What this Web site did not say, until
a few days ago, is that Bob Jones has a
ban on interracial dating. This ban,
along with the anti-Catholic rhetoric,
has presidential hopeful George W.
Bush in boiling water.
During his primary campaign in
South Carolina, Bush spoke at Bob
Jones. Bush never brought up that he
opposed these policies. He acted as if
they didn’t exist. Sen. John McCain,
who calls the policy “idiotic,” was not
invited. Bob Jones’ Web site calls
McCain one of the “political tenors”
along with Bill Bradley and A1 Gore.
1 he Web site heading, Ihe I ruth
About Bob Jones University,” serves as
the university’s official response to any
questions media or curious surfers
might have. About the “political
tenors,” the “Truth” says:
“Isn’t it really a compliment to Bob
Jones University that the likes of John
McCain, A1 Gore and Bill Bradley ful
minate against us? Would we not be
embarrassed if they, with their philoso
phies, spoke well of us?”
Bush won South Carolina. And he
may lose the entire election because of
his one stop at Bob Jones University.
On Sunday, he was forced to write a
letter of apology to Catholic leaders.
Minority groups are not pleased. It will
likely cost him significant Republican
moderate votes down the road. Gary
Hart had his Donna Rice; Bush has his
Virgin Mary. To each downfall his own.
But it’s not an issue the national media
will or should let go.
Bob Jones hates the publicity and
the media. When the gold foil of its rep
utation was unwrapped, few liked what
they saw. A backlash was imminent
Now only one individual — public
relations director Jonathan Pait — is
allowed to talk about the issue at all,,
and he’s not talking. Instead we get the
elaborate Web site response.
/\s mucn as me umversny wouia
like to shrink into obscurity, its values -
or lack thereof— transcend its privacy.
God, government, money, race and tra
dition are all wrapped up in this tiny
temple of learning.
Let us begin the descent southward.
*********
In this comer is the university. In
another, its opponents. Its students and
alumni, somewhere in between.
Bob Jones is 73 years old. Its teach
ings are based firmly in the teachings
of Christ; more fundamental than fun
damentalist It does not believe simply
in believing in God, but a way of life
beyond most of our concepts of conser
vative. A liberal arts school with more '
than 110 majors, Bob Jones sets forth
some strict guidelines.
You have to gain permission to live
off campus. There is no drinking. No
smoking. Girls wear skirts. Boys;
pants. Girls and boys are not allowed to
touch each other. They are kept sepa
rate most of the time. And few com
plain about any of it.
This information was relayed in an
interview with Terry Haskins, Bob
Jones graduate and current Speaker Pro
Tempore of the South Carolina House.
“It’s a strict, fundamentalist educa
tion,” Haskins said. “Students who go
there know exactly what they’re getting
into.”
Bob Jones is upfront about its stan
dards, Haskins said. And it includes a
ban on interracial dating. It’s not a poli
cy with which Haskins agrees. Nor do
a lot of the students that go there, he
said. Nor do they care that it’s in place.
“Nobody ever talked about it,”
Haskins said. “It just wasn’t an issue.
Nobody has the right to take away or
criticize
One thing is clear: God wanted a divid
ed world, not a federalized world.”
Religious beliefs aside, consider
the ramifications of the above state
ment. Bob Jones would rather have
some people oppose its ideas than a
unilateral agreement, because that
would be unification.
And if language was God’s tool for
separation, couldn’t the argument be
made that it’s too late? Clearly, Bob
Jones would not be a World Trade
Organization supporter, yet it draws its
students from many different countries.
One wonders where the university’s
principle ends and the manipulation of
its own policies begin — at what point
Bob Jones simply crafts the Tower of
Babel analogy to whatever ideas it can
legitimately hold onto.
At one time, Bob Jones could legit
stood that interracial marriage was best
avoided.”
Back then, the Tower of Babel argu
ment must have been one hell of pitch.
Of course, it easily could have been
racism, too, because blacks weren’t
even allowed to attend in the 1950s.
The principle is only one plank.
The execution of such a policy is
entirely another.
*********
It’s a finely delineated outline that
Bob Jones uses to differentiate one race
from another.
Three races: White, black, yellow.
Or as Haskins put it, Caucasian,
Negroid and Mongoloid.
So Bob Jones bases its entire policy
op a pair of eyes.
According to UNL Associate
Anthropology Professor Dr. Robert
Hitchcock, Bob Jones
isn’t getting too
close to achieving
its goal if black,
white and yellow
is its standard.
“Those cate
gories are essen
tially the 19th
Century standard of
racist anthropology,”
Hitchcock said. “If
you look at the biology
of it, race is more
than just a look, more
than just the color of
someone’s skin. Bob
Jones isn’t separating
race very well with
those three categories.”
What about genetics,
Hitchcock asked. And
what about mixed races?
These are questions Bob
Jones has no answers to. If
the policy was so serious, so
based in firm biblical belief,
an anthropological certainty
ought to be part of the rules.
But at Bob Jones, nobody
seems to know just how
they’re categorized, when they
were categorized and why they
might be categorized the way
they are. No one asks. No one
tells. No one cares.
Haskins, who attended in
the 1970s, does not
remember how
it was
deter
mined he
was
Caucasian.
“It
might
have been
on the
applica
tion,” he
lor exercising their religious oeiieis.
*********
The ban, not surprisingly, emanates
from Scripture — a principle, more so
than an exacting law. It’s based on the
Tower of Babel allegory, found in
Genesis 10 and 11. The tower was built
by humans as a direct route to heaven.
God struck down this tower to make
sure that humanity never tried such an
action again.
And God spread humanity across
the land, giving diem different races,
different cultures and different lan
guages, to prevent such a satanic unity
from ever occurring again.
From the Web site:
“At the Tower of Babel, God used
language to disrupt man’s plans for a
one-world government. As a result of
this disruption, the people were scat
tered, and the races were polarized.
imately keep out blacks altogether, all
the way until the 1970s. Bob Jones is
quick to point out that its 1998 Alumni
Appreciation Award recipient was a
black B JU graduate and the student
body current president is an Asian
American. The Web site asks the ques
tion: “Would that happen at a racist uni
versity?”
Let’s examine this from the oppo
site end: Would a non-racist university
disallow interracial dating? Bob Jones
will land on a philosophical conun
drum every time. And it will sink itself
with the very statement that follows its
big question on the Web site:
“Did the University’s dating policy
originate to regulate black/white rela
tionships? No. It was first stated in the
mid-1950s when dealing with an
Asian-Caucasian dating couple. At that
time, Christians nation-wide under
saia. l don t Know.
He also doesn’t remember how the
policy was enforced, or even if it was
enforced at all. In fact, he never
remembers ever hearing anyone trying
to break the rule.
In today’s Bob Jones setting, aware
ness seems just about the same.
I talked to a staff writer of the
Collegian, Bob Jones’ bi-weekly news
paper. She had little idea how people
had their race determined. Or what
happened if someone was of mixed
race. Or if anyone did anything, ever,
that might have violated the rule.
“We just don’t focus on that,” she
said. “No one ever talks about that. I
don’t understand the big deal. It’s just a
rule of the school.”
Apparently she was befuddled that
anyone could find any offense at such a
policy. When asked about Bob Jones’
Samuel McKewon is a junior political science major and a Daily Nebraskan senior editor.
pre-’70s non-black policy, she
answered, “Well, that’s the way it was
back then.”
Yes, it was. And this is how things
are today.
Haskins has a Colombian wife,
also a graduate of Bob Jones. And
thank the sweet Lord she was white like
him. Otherwise, who knows?
“I don’t see it that way,” Haskins
said. “She was Hispanic, which is a
nationality. White is a race. Hispanic is
a nationality.”
So a Christian marriage from Bob
Jones University isn’t based on science,
but word play. English professors
everywhere should be proud. So should
staunch defenders of the First
Amendment.
± 3fc * ± ± * * * *
Intolerance in America has one
indestructible out clause: religion. It
comes from the First Amendment in
the separation of church and state.
Often, religious organizations get
burned by this rule when prayer in
school and the posting of the Ten
Commandments are shot down by
Constitutional gurus.
How quickly the tables turn. By all
logical, humanist and ethical standards
in today’s society, Bob Jones should
end its ban on interracial dating. But
the school answers to a higher power.
And thus is protected because it is not a
state institution. It could discriminate
against anyone, as long as it can be
found in the Good Book.
I would hope it stays that way. As
strong as my belief is against BJU’s
policy, First Amendment protection »
must exist. Otherwise, rivers flow the
other way and with it the bag of horrors
we never want to open on this nation.
Faith, in the 21 st Century, cannot
be allowed to become a producer of
fear. Rather, change can only come
from within — the Bob Jones students
and alumni, many of whom disagree
with the overall policy. But signs don’t
point toward any significant movement
toward tolerance.
For one thing, the school’s tuition
runs under $ 10,000, far less than most
Christian universities of its type. Fact of
the matter is, ban or no ban, the school
is a good buy.
And think about it: Just how many
fundamentalist Christian families really
want their white/black child dating
other races? Is that a stereotype? You
betcha. Am I right? I’m almost positive.
oy an accounts, siuuems auu
employees see nothing wrong with the
school or its policy.
Nearly all of them want the media
to leave the school alone, as several of
the Web site responses border on the
petulant tone of, “Why is everybody
picking on us?”
It’s not how society works.
Perceived injustice, whether real or not,
has been fought since the creation of
man. And Bob Jones’ policy of banning
interracial dating is unjust, rooted in a
belief system bom of the segregation
age. It is not even accurate by scientific
standards, then or now, thus nullifying
any certainty of the policy.
Beyond that, the belief has been
transformed into a clause against uni
versalism that is contradicted every
time a BJU student surfs the Web.
If the students don’t agree, they
ought to stand up. But nobody there
seems to care. Because they think that
if a ban on interracial dating can sort of
be justified through some Bible
hokum, then it’s OK. Personal beliefs,
humanist beliefs and good-natured
beliefs can all go to hell.
God bless them for their faith.
God help them, too.
(
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