The Aftermath: Consolidating Change

The quick success of the strike was of crucial importance. Nardone and Brennan both noted how important it was that no one on the faculty suffered economically.[134] And Rowe noted how important it was that the students were not forced to face any threats of disciplinary action or delays in receiving their degrees. Thus the self-interest invested in Curran’s case, as well as the larger ideals they fought for, were never faced with a substantive challenge. Instead, the faculty gained quick success, and felt free to press on in larger areas.

Faculty gather to discuss the implementation of reforms at the university. (The Tower)

Due to the intense public attention drawn by the strike, the more progressive members of the faculty were able to establish the values and norms of their subculture at the university. The limited goals that many supported in the strike stood in stark contrast to the sweeping institutional changes implemented after the strike. Reacting to the public humiliation of the Trustees, O’Boyle effectively, though not publicly, fired McDonald and did away with the position of rector magnificus.[135] Within two years the school’s entire institutional structure was reorganized to reflect the faculty’s model of lay leadership and due process. The Academic Senate was restructured to be more representative and democratic, and substantially more powerful in determining university policy and the hiring and firing of faculty. The Trustees accepted representatives from the faculty and student body on the board, and became dominated by lay Catholics within a year. The change in the governing norms of the institution was so thorough that when twenty-one faculty members actively led dissent against Pope Paul VI’s anti-artificial birth control encyclical, Humanae Vitae, the Trustees were obliged to accept due process and a faculty dispensation for the dissenters, despite the efforts of some bishops on the board who wanted to fire the dissenters.[136]

In the midst of the Humanae Vitae controversy, due to further intense public scrutiny and the close attention of the Middle States accrediting association, the Academic Senate and Board of Trustees passed a remarkable revision of the governing statutes, which institutionalized procedures for due process and guarantees of academic freedom.[137] The radical nature of the change is reflected in the revision to the guiding mission of the institution, which declared:

The Catholic University is a community of scholars, both faculty and students, set apart to discover, preserve, and impart truth in all its forms, with particular reference to the needs and opportunities of the nation. As a university, it is essentially a free and autonomous center of study and an agency serving the needs of human society. It welcomes the collaboration of all scholars of good will who, through the process of study and reflection, contribute to these aims of an atmosphere of academic competence where freedom is fostered and where the only constraint upon truth is truth itself.[138]

At the same time, the strike resonated well beyond the Catholic University campus. Citing the strike as precedent, the clerical subculture was swept from a number of other Catholic colleges and universities in the following months and years. It also established a clear model of dissent from Church authority and a more active role for lay Catholics in the Church.[139]

Bibliography

Notes

[134] Nardone stated that “it’s important to remember that no one suffered economically as consequence of this, no one missed a paycheck. There was no strike fund or reserve, so I don’t know what would have happened if it had dragged on.” Nardone interview and Brennan interview.

[135] After the strike ended, O’Boyle clearly was quite upset with McDonald. His correspondence with McAllister, by letter dated 1 May 1967, indicates a concern with McDonald’s inquiries and pressures on Curran before the strike. Further, the Academic Senate minutes for the months after the strike show O’Boyle cutting McDonald out of his leadership roles. The May 18 meeting of the Senate was McDonald’s last as chair. And while he would maintain he left the university due to the natural end of his term (John D. Morris, “Bishop Criticized by Strikers Quitting as Catholic U. Rector,” New York Times, 13 July 1967, 25), the Trustees had made no plans for a replacement and had to quickly hire an interim president, c.f. Minutes, Special Meeting of the Senate, 21 July 1967.

[136] These changes are fully reviewed in the Heald and Hobson report; Self-Evaluation for Middle States, and John Hunt and Terrence Connolly, The Responsibility of Dissent (Kansas City: Sheed and Ward, 1970) esp. chaps. 11 and 13.

[137] Self Evaluation for Middle States, section I, 1–12, and Charles E. Curran, letter to author, October 25, 1990.

[138] Statutes of the Catholic University of America, 1969, Article 1.

[139] C.f. the articles and texts in Neil G. McCluskey, ed., The Catholic University: A Modern Appraisal. Notre Dame (Ind.: University of Notre Dame Press, 1970), Gannon, “Some Aspects of Catholic Higher Education,” 17; and Gordon C. Zahn, “From the Groves Salamanca … to the Shores of Tripoli,” in The Dissenting Academy, ed. Theodore Roszak (New York: Vintage Books, 1968), 243 and Robert Townsend, “Changing Culture, Changing Freedoms at the University,” The Tower, 5 November 1989, 1. For a sharply articulated view from the opponents of these changes see George A. Kelly, The Battle for the American Church (Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1979.