The first session in our graduate program begins this afternoon. There are about ninety students in the three classes, taught by the six worthies: Owens, Moreno, Knott, McDonald, Morel and Schaub.

It so happens that today is the 24th of June, and Jefferson’s last letter is dated this day in 1826. He would die a few days later, on the Fourth to be followed by John Adams five hours later, just as a thunderstorm rolled through Quincy (someone said itsounded like "the artillery of Heaven"). The letter is to Roger Weightman, the mayor of Washington, and is justly famous:

Stanley Fish thinks that the arguments offered by the most bold of our atheists are actually kinda faith-based.

Update: A few weeks ago, I posted a link that enables folks with .edu email addresses to have free access to TimesSelect material.

Here’s a sample of Fish’s argument, for those who can’t get through the firewall:

A very strong assertion is made – we will “undoubtedly discover lawful connections between our states of consciousness [and] our modes of conduct” – but no evidence is offered in support of it; and indeed the absence of evidence becomes a reason for confidence in its eventual emergence. This sounds an awfully lot like faith of the kind Harris and his colleagues deride – expectations based only on a first premise (itself asserted rather than proven), which, if true, demands them, and which, if false, makes nonsense of them.

***

Isn’t that what separates scientific faith from religious faith; one is supported by reasons, the other is irrational and supported by nothing but superstition? Not really. One of the basic homiletic practices in both the Jewish and Christian traditions is the catechism or examination of one’s faith. An early 19th century Jewish catechism is clear on the place of reason in the exercise: “By thinking for himself , let [the pupil] learn the sunny nearness of reason.” Christian catechists regularly cite 1 Peter 3:15: “Be always ready to give an answer to every man that asketh you a reason of the hope that is in you.” In short, and it is often put this way, at every opportunity you must give reasons for your faith.

The reasons you must give, however, do not come from outside your faith, but follow from it and flesh it out. They are not independent of your faith – if they were they would supplant it as a source of authority – but are simultaneously causes of it and products of it; just as Harris’s and Dawkins’s reasons for believing that morality can be naturalized flow from their faith in physical science and loop back to that faith, thereby giving it an enhanced substance.

George F. Will calls our attention to this 9th Circuit decision (district court opinion here). At issue is the right of a group of Christian city employees to publicize their organization as "a forum for people of Faith to express their views on the contemporary issues of the day. With respect for the Natural Family, Marriage and Family Values." This, in a context where gay city employees have publicized their interests in the same way. Here’s Will’s analysis:

The city government said the flier was "determined" to promote harassment based on sexual orientation. The city warned that the flier and communications like it could result in disciplinary action "up to and including termination."

Effectively, the city has proscribed any speech that even one person might say questioned the gay rights agenda and therefore created what that person felt was a "hostile" environment. This, even though gay rights advocates used the city’s communication system to advertise "Happy Coming Out Day." Yet the terms "natural family," "marriage" and "family values" are considered intolerably inflammatory.

The treatment of the GNEA illustrates one technique by which America’s growing ranks of self-appointed speech police expand their reach: They wait until groups they disagree with, such as the GNEA, are provoked to respond to them in public debates, then they persecute them for annoying those to whom they are responding. In Oakland, this dialectic of censorship proceeded on a reasonable premise joined to a preposterous theory.

The premise is that city officials are entitled to maintain workplace order and decorum. The theory is that government supervisors have such unbridled power of prior restraint on speech in the name of protecting order and decorum that they can nullify the First Amendment by declaring that even the mild text of the GNEA flier is inherently disruptive.

This WaPo editorial takes up for the D.C. voucher program against Democratic critics, who are quick to seize on data from this DoE report (executive summary here; press release here).

To be sure, the report shows that, after seven months in their new schools, children taking advantage of the vouchers didn’t perform significantly better on tests than did those in a control group (voucher lottery losers). These results are in line with other studies that show little effect in the first year of a voucher program.

But the report notes that parents are significantly more satisfied with the new schools their childrent are attending, which I guess doesn’t matter to Democratic critics. With respect to education, the Democrats are going to have to decide whether they’re the party of the unions or the party of the parents. So far, they’ve sided with the unions.

One of the pleasures of digging into MSNBC’s story on the political contributions of working journalists is seeing how people who making a living calling up strangers and demanding answers adapt when they’re on the other end of the phone. Bill Dedman of MSNBC combed through Federal Election Commission records to come up with a list of 144 journalists who have made political contributions in the last three years. It appears he attempted to contact nearly every one of them, but roughly a third of the dedicated professionals defending the public’s right to know either didn’t return Dedman’s calls or messages, or refused to speak when he did reach them.

The refusals include some gems:

"I don’t believe I have to answer that question. Goodbye. Thank you for your call."

"I’m not comfortable being included in the story. Do not publish my name."

"I’m not going to comment on this. I’m not going to have a conversation about this. I’m not going to give you a read one way or another."

"It doesn’t sound like this is going to be a positive story. This sort of story could not possibly be positive for me, so I’m not going to respond. Good luck. Goodbye."

Trolling thru old news releases of the King Memorial website, I discovered that back in February a Council of Historians approved the quotations that will adorn the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial scheduled for completion in 2008. (The project is still about $20 million short of their estimated $100 million.) Guess what quotation is apparently not going to be cited among the 14 quotations approved by the Council? Yep, the one from King’s "I Have a Dream" speech: "I have a dream that my four children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin but by the content of their character." This from the very speech of August 28, 1963, that made the D.C. mall famous for mass gatherings and protests is not going to be quoted, despite the location of the King Memorial smack dab between the Jefferson Memorial and the steps of the Lincoln Memorial--the very steps upon which King delivered the most famous speech of the 20th century.

David Brooks reflects on the failure of all moralistic preaching, whether from the left or the right. We are, he contends, "perceivers first, not deciders." He elaborates:

That’s because [preaching] is based on a false model of human nature. It’s based on the idea that human beings are primarily deciders. If you pour them full of moral maxims, they will be more likely to decide properly when temptation arises. If you pour them full of information about the consequences of risky behavior, they will decide to exercise prudence and forswear unwise decisions.

That’s the way we’d like to think we are, but that’s not the way we really are, and it’s certainly not the way teenagers are. There is no central executive zone in the brain where all information is gathered and decisions are made. There is no little homunculus up there watching reality on a screen and then deciding how to proceed. In fact, the mind is a series of parallel processes and loops, bidding for urgency.

We’re not primarily deciders. We’re primarily perceivers. The body receives huge amounts of information from the world, and what we primarily do is turn that data into a series of generalizations, stereotypes and theories that we can use to navigate our way through life. Once we’ve perceived a situation and construed it so that it fits one of the patterns we carry in our memory, we’ve pretty much rigged how we’re going to react, even though we haven’t consciously sat down to make a decision.

After reading this report, our friend Kate offers some thoughts and provokes some liberal responses. Note that the authors are disturbed by the predominance of conservative talkers and assume that government should try to do something about it. In thir view, the predominance of conservative talkers is evidence of market failure, the solution for which is, in effect, to invite members of the local community (read: MoveOn.org and its clones) to participate actively in the renewal of broadcasting licenses.

Scary, no? And a glimpse of what we can expect, should there be a Democratic Administration in 2009, no?

In a column praising John McCain’s political courage, Michael Gerson takes back some of the claims he has made about opponents of the immigration reform proposal:

Not all of the swift Republican current against immigration reform results from nativism -- there are understandable concerns among conservatives about extreme multiculturalism, the strains of illegal immigration on public services, and the numerous flaws of a complicated bill. But McCain has a mature appreciation of the paradox of immigration reform: A tighter border requires a more regular and orderly way for honest laborers to cross it. Controlling that border becomes difficult without a temporary worker system that allows us to distinguish drug dealers from lettuce pickers and hotel maids.

He also calls our attention to a serious immigration reform speech McCain delivered a couple of weeks ago. Here’s what Gerson had to say about it:

After recounting the arguments for reform, he mentioned Maria Hernandez Perez, nearly 2, with "thick brown hair and eyes the color of chocolate," and Kelia Velazquez-Gonzalez, 16, who "carried a Bible in her backpack." Both died terrible deaths in the Arizona desert.

For McCain, they were not "illegals," they were human beings, with names. "We can’t let immigrants break our laws with impunity," he said. "But these people are also God’s children who wanted simply to be Americans."

This is not moral exhibitionism; it is just morality. And my respect for McCain, it turns out, is less and less grudging.

College presidents who make the case for increased state appropriations for their institutions often (probably always) argue that spending on education promotes economic growth and competitiveness. Well, this study, described here, pokes big holes in that argument. There turns out to be a negative correlation between state spending and economic growth. I’d love for someone more competent than I am to look at the equations; my impression is that the negative effect is pretty small. But it is negative.

Now, there can be all sorts of reasons for this. The authors, led by Richard K. Vedder (who wrote this book), argue that there’s an awful lot of college spending that doesn’t contribute directly to education and hence, perhaps, to productivity. All those aspects of college life that increasingly resemble resorts and country clubs--glitzy gyms, posh dorms, shopping mall-like student centers--certainly meet that description. (Of course, a market dominated by middle and upper middle class "consumers" can be said to "demand" these things. All too often, students and parents look at facilities as much as, if not more than, at the quality of the education.) Vedder and his associate also argue that growing administrative expenses (at least some of them devoted to nanny state-style activities, driven either by the proclivities of those of us in higher ed or by the demands of the proverbial helicopter parents) dirve up college costs without contributing to education.

Another set of reasons may have to do with the character of the states that spend relatively more or less on higher education. To the degree that economic growth is occurring above all in the Sunbelt, it’s occurring in places that, for the most part, don’t have a tradition of spending a lot on higher education. (That has changed somewhat in recent years, mostly for bad reasons. For example, virtually every state college in Georgia was relabeled a university. This institutional inflation certainly justifies more spending and hence more money pumped into the local economies, which is what the state reps who called for this sought. Vedder would surely regard this as a distortion of the marketplace.) The places that spend lots--Michigan, for example--may be in slow or no growth parts of the country. At the very least, it’s likely that factors other than spending on higher education--Vedder and his associates point to lower taxes; I’d add a generally business-friendly environment--swamp the effect of higher education spending (negative or positive) on economic growth.

One last point about the study, almost as a footnote: the most expensive part of higher education is research and graduate study. There’s plenty of anecdotal evidence that some of that research can be exploited economically. But it’s less clear that "the private sector" would be willing to fund it all on the assumption that some of it would pay off. Further, it’ of course also true that the "economic benefits" of graduate study turn out to be hard to capture for a particular state. People with Ph.D.’s move, perhaps from Michigan to Texas. States that spend a lot of money on higher education to some degree subsidize those that don’t, training a certain portion of the Ph.D.’s who staff the other states’ universities and research institutions.

The Freedom From Religion Foundation, bold atheists that they are, is at it again, this time filing a lawsuit to prevent the state of North Dakota from poviding funding for the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch, a residential facilty for troubled teens.

The Ranch, a joint ministry of the Luthern Church-Missouri Synod and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America, combines traditionally-accredited treatment services with an array of religious programs. Most of its funding (70%) comes from local, state, and federal sources (the latter are not at issue in the suit), but Carol Olson, executive director of North Dakota’s Human Services Department says that the religious programs are funded privately. According to Gene Kaseman, president of the Dakota Boys and Girls Ranch Association, ‘‘They [the state] audit us pretty carefully,’’ he said. ‘‘None of (that money) is spent on spiritual life programs.’’ State officials agree. The FFRF response:

It would be difficult for the Boys and Girls Ranch to keep public and private money separate, said Annie Laurie Gaylor, co-president of the Freedom From Religion Foundation. Even if that is possible, she said, public money frees up more private money for religious purposes.

‘‘The whole purpose of this ranch is to proselytize and indoctrinate,’’ she said.

The lawsuit is a bold attack on what has been a very traditional mode for providing social services in North Dakota and across the country. The complaint of course doesn’t stress the secular treatment services the Ranch provides, which are lauded in this recent accreditation report. The accrediting agency--the Commission on Accreditation of Rehabilitation Facilities--did not cite any failure to live up to its standard requiring "commitment to diversity," recommending only that the Ranch "develop a written plan on cultural competency and diversity that includes the recruitment of individuals who are representative of the specific cultures the organization serves...." The accreditors found no problems in the Ranch’s financial management and accounting procedures, which certainly weakens the claim that public and private funds aren’t or can’t be kept separate.

Indeed, the real FFRF complaint is that any public money at all goes to such an organization. As FFRF president Annie Laurie Gaylor notes, public money, even if spent on publicly permissible services, frees up private funds for religious ends. If faith-based organizations want to serve the public, they should have to pay for the whole range of services themselves. Not only is this theory out of line with the requirements courts have typically placed on public contracting and cooperation with faith-based social service providers, but it would impose an incredible hardship on folks needing services in a sparsely populated state like North Dakota. Without the public money, the Ranch would probably be able to serve only a small fraction of its current clientele; others whould be compelled to seek assistance out of state. Alternatively, the state could set up its own program, probably offering something of lower quality at greater expense to the taxpayers. Thanks, but no thanks.

Robert Novak explains and Richard Garnett has more.

It turns out that newsrooms may look an awful lot like college campuses, at least when you use to quite inaccurate measure of campaign contributions. Just as those professors who give in recordable amounts contribute overwhelming to Democratic and liberal causes and candidates, so do the men and women who report and analyze our news.

I’m shocked, I say, shocked.

Of course, we can’t conclude anything from this about the propensities of the non-contributors. For all we know, the non-contributors are overwhelmingly Republican and conservative. Right.

Of course, some news organizations either prohibit or discourage campaign contributions, because that behavior lends credence to an argument about bias. But such policies only cover up potential evidence in a discussion of bias and change absolutely nothing in the opinions of those who populate the newsrooms.

We’re told, of course, that journalists respond to professional norms of neutrality, and I’m will to concede that lots of them try. But we are, as Aristotle was one of the first and by no means the last to notice, bad judges in our own cases. All too often, our motives and biases are unself-conscious. In a setting where one family of opinions or general line of argument tends to predominate, what seems neutral, unbiased, and reasonable may not be.

I don’t think that there’s any cure for this unself-conscious bias (or for fully self-conscious agenda journalism). I’m not about to call for affirmative action for conservatives in America’s newsrooms. Still, I can’t help but think that well-documented, well-informed criticism offered on sites like this, and the existence of a multiplicity of news sources provide a kind of counterpoison.