EDUCATION AND BIGOTRY AT HARDING COLLEGE
NORMAN L. PARKS

Though the right-wing paranoia of Harding College’s “National Education Program” is too widely advertised to invite further analysis, the folly of trying to yoke education with bigotry is freshly re-exhibited with almost every new issue of the program’s “National Letter.” A recent one passing judgment on the Kent State affair shows a startling disregard for a basic legal standard as old as Blackstone, as well as a remarkable indifference to the political setting of an issue on which it presumed to shed light. Perhaps a note of compassion over so sad a tragedy in a judgmental article is not to be expected, but its absence will escape few thoughtful readers.

The article condemning students and Kent State administrators for the killing of four young people, the wounding of nine others, and the injury to one National Guard member which required medical attention was based entirely on the banned Portege County grand jury report. The author, George Benson, dismissed as lacking in thoroughness the findings of the President’s Commission, the Justice Department, and, remarkably, the FBI, all of which reached conclusions in conflict with the grand jury report.

The purpose of the grand jury in English and American law is to return presentments against particular individuals when the evidence indicates that there are grounds for guilt. It meets in secret, it hears testimony in secret, and it submits its findings to the court to which it is responsible. The publication of a special report by this jury amounted to conviction, not accusation, violated its oath of secrecy standards since the thirteenth century, endangered the selection of an impartial trial jury, threatened “irreparable damage” to the 25 accused persons, leveled unsupported charges “bordering on criminal accusation” against 23 faculty members, and otherwise exceeded its powers, according to Federal Judge William K. Thomas, who ordered the jury report struck from the record.

The utilization of this report by a Christian College discloses a shocking insensitivity to the basic principles of due process, principles belonging to that galaxy of propositions patriots like to call Americanism. The article convicts before a court of law has spoken. It condemns the students and faculty, but finds no flaw in the behavior of the grand jury. Calm objectivity is made to yield its paramountcy to passionate attachment to ideology.

Also missing from the article was any hint that the report could have had significant political motivation. The grand jury was called at the instance of Gov. Rhodes, who had ordered the National Guard to the Kent State campus. His administration was in growing trouble. Every public school in the state had closed early because the funds which would have kept them operating for the full term had been diverted under the leadership of Rhodes to support parochial schools (which flourishingly finished their full session), and there were thousands of angry parents and teachers. Moreover, his administration was struggling against mounting charges of fiscal mismanagement and corruption. He badly needed a whitewash in the Kent State affair. His administration provided the “investigative staffs” for the grand jury, as described in the Harding article. The timing of the release of the grand jury report just three weeks before the Rhodes administration had to go before the electorate in November is worth noting.

The Harding article sub-headlines the cry “Kill, Kill” which the students were said to have raised in attacking the National Guard. Perhaps it is worth asking, who taught the students this language? One wonders if the author ever attended a ROTC session and heard a middle-aged officer bellow “Kill! Kill! Kill!” at a bunch of callow freshman cadets. Truly, the Establishment must learn to read its own acts, and look to its own geese.

What kind of “national education” is such an article promoting? Is the lesson this, that justice appeals to passion rather than compassion, speaks before it hears, convicts when it accuses, condemns before it tries, and absolves tainted means for posited ends?

The Kent State story is one which should bring tears of sorrow to the eyes of a Christian, an infinite sadness over so unnecessary a tragedy. There should be deep regret over the snuffing out of the life of an innocent girl on the way to classes and of an uninvolved boy who deprecated violence. Faced with such an incident, all of us stand to be benefitted by the Puritan reminder that “A is for Adam, who sinned all.”

An article marked more by compassion and less by judgment would be more in keeping with the professed aims of an institution which calls itself Christian. Certainly no secular judge should exceed a religious educator in his concern over the rights of the accused or the protection of the un-accused from criminal smear. Such an approach might bring in fewer corporate dollars, but there are other returns for bread cast upon the waters. — Norman L. Parks is a professor at Middle Tennessee State University, Murfreesboro.

“Not yet, 0 Freedom! close thy lids in slumber,

For thy enemy never sleeps.”