Posted on 02/28/2007 8:17:46 PM PST by kellynla
The decision by the president of the College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, whose chancellor is former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor, to remove a donated brass cross from the historic Wren Chapel may be costing the school a cool $12 million, according to a new report.
It was last fall when WND revealed that university administrator Melissa Engimann circulated an e-mail noting that the cross in Wren Chapel was going to be placed in permanent storage to make the chapel "less of a faith-specific space."
The school president, Gene Nichol, said he'd gotten a complaint about the cross, and although he has admitted he handled the situation incorrectly, he still hasn't restored the cross, despite the nearly 17,000 signatures on a petition assembled seeking that.
Now a report in the Hampton Roads, Va., Daily Press suggested that's going to be a costly position to maintain.
A letter the newspaper obtained reported that former Board of Visitors member James W. McGlothlin wrote to another former board member Feb. 16 that Nichol's decision was "unbelievable."
"This has been so disturbing to me that I have decided to withhold any future contributions to the College," he wrote in the letter, which documented that a "very large contribution was in the making" before President Tim Sullivan retired from William and Mary.
McGlothlin, of Bristol, Va., is a longtime donor to the school, but it couldn't be confirmed immediately whether he is the donor who rescinded a $12 million pledge to the school because of the controversy.
The newspaper said school officials confirmed this week they had been notified that particular donation should no longer be expected. The school declined to discuss individual donors.
McGlothlin had copied his letter, addressed to Linda Skladany, also a former member of the board, to the university's current board, the report said. She told the newspaper she was distressed by Nichol's arbitrary decision, and had signed the petition seeking its restoration.
The cross had been in the chapel for decades; the chapel has been on the campus of the second-oldest university in the U.S. for centuries. Nevertheless, Nichol ruled the cross, because of one written complaint, had to go. He later backtracked when thousands of names starting accumulating on the petition put together by students and alumni hoping to restore the cross.
Nichol, who has actively worked with American Civil Liberties Union chapters in North Carolina and Colorado, e-mailed the "college community" admitting he "acted too quickly and should have consulted more broadly" in the decision to remove the cross. To make up, he dictated, a plaque would be put up in the chapel and the cross would be put on the altar for extended hours on Sunday.
O'Connor, who became chancellor of the college after retiring from the Supreme Court has repeatedly failed to return calls from WND about the cross controversy.
As WND also reported only weeks ago, the college that was launched as a Christian institution of higher education packed out its auditorium with an explicit pornography show.
Some 400 people filled the university center's auditorium and another 300 had to be turned away, according to a report in the Virginia Gazette. The show included a 200-pound-plus performer named Dirty Martini who did a striptease, finishing her routine in only a G-string and pasties.
"It's just so out there and expressive," Josh Campbell, a member of Lamba Alliance, one of six student groups to sponsor the event, told the local paper. "It's hip, it's in your face, and it's exciting."
At least two professors objected to the show citing studies that pornography incites sexual violence. But Nichol issued a statement the next day defending it in the name of free expression.
"I don't like this kind of show and I don't like having it here," he said. "But it's not the practice and province of universities to censor or cancel performances because they are controversial."
Most of the money for the event came out of mandatory student fees collected by the college.
Trying to imagine exactly how geeky the student body at W&M is to find an over 200 pounder all that entertaining when it comes to stripping.
So fat butts getting naked on a stage is alright because it's labeled freedom of expression, but a cross has to go because of one complaint.
Once again the left shows their rampant hypocrisy.
What a horrible world.
A classic case of "hit 'em where it hurts"! This is one of the few ways to get the attention of those in the ivory tower.
Publicizing this kind of PC behavior so that alumni and donors know about it is one of the benefits of the new media, because it sure won't show up in the official alumni newsletters...
One complaint to remove the cross and 17,000 to keep it, and he does not know what's right.
And someone put him in charge of something?
My parents were married in the chapel, on Columbia Univirsity.
Wonder if they still have one?
ping
That's all you need to know.
No way will any kid of mine ever go to a decadent, athiest, perverse college like William and Mary.
Coward.
Liberals have the same moral compass that the rest of us do. That is the only way to explain how they can act in a manner so perfectly opposed to it at every juncture.
Nichol, who has actively worked with American Civil Liberties Union chapters in North Carolina and Colorado, e-mailed the "college community" admitting he "acted too quickly and should have consulted more broadly" in the decision to remove the cross. To make up, he dictated, a plaque would be put up in the chapel and the cross would be put on the altar for extended hours on Sunday.
Is this the same ACLU guy who got busted for Child porn? Or was that different ACLU member?
It is getting more difficult to tell "who is who" in the ACLU nowadays...
Anyone doubt there is a culture war on?
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How the hell was he ever even hired?
It's common knowledge among us Virginia college students that the social life at WM is terrible and the workload is atrocious. WM folks looking for parties and such usually come here to U.Va., so I can understand how they would get crazy so easily for Nichols' little X-rated freak show.
I must be missing something here? Don't crosses belong in chapels? Maybe this story is about North Korea, Saudi Arabia, or Iran?
it also shows something else that should encourage
Attacks on the Cross and Christ only come because the Dark Side knows there is Power in the Symbology of the Cross
and the words and truth of Christ.
W
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