Editorial: Self-righteous covenant

When Divinity School officials approved a "conduct covenant" for the school's small, intimate community last month, they intended to forge a bond among students, faculty and staff that ensures adherence to the school's Christian roots. Instead, they overstepped their roles to create a system that promotes isolation, alienation and even harassment of Divinity community members.

Much of the covenant is innocent enough, imploring students, faculty and staff to live up to a degree of integrity in their academic lives; incidents of cheating, for example, should be matters of great concern, and the school is right to set forth expectations of proper behavior.

Where the convenant goes wrong is in extending these expectations to other areas of community members' lives, areas in which the school need not have any say or influence for the creation of a secure and responsible academic community. The code appeals to students to pursue, among other things, "chastity," "justice" and "mercy," seemingly innocuous goals that become troublesome when open to interpretation by Divinity administrators. Quite simply, the code leaves open the possibility of punishing a community member for committing homosexual acts or not being faithful to his or her spouse, and this is unacceptable--both morally and practically--for a serious academic institution.

That the school's mission is in part ministerial training is not relevant. It is the place of a school to pass on knowledge that is relevant to a student; it is not a school's place to impart a specific moral agenda. The latter is the realm of religion itself, or of individuals. But officials are even more confused if they think they can clearly and objectively define "the ministry of Jesus Christ" or "truth in every aspect of our lives." The Divinity School comprises people of a broad range of religions, and even within Christianity reasonable individuals and sects differ on the definition of such ambiguous words as "chastity."

But it gets worse. The covenant, like many other honor codes, encourages individuals to seek out fellow sinners and, through the art of persuasion, embolden peers to rid themselves of vice. Community members should be responsible for themselves only, not for other individuals, and doing otherwise can only create a climate of fear in which people police each other's sins. It is not difficult to imagine such a system being used to justify the harassment of others, particularly gays and lesbians.

Many students have spoken against the covenant due to the process by which it was approved, and they have a point. Although students did have opportunities to offer input during the covenant's writing, the creation of such an important document should not be the sole jurisdiction of administrative working groups. Covenants are agreements between people and a higher power, and as such they should be subject to the direct judgment of the people. Community members should have the opportunity to vote on the agreement.

And if and when they do vote, they should dismiss the covenant for the self-righteous, dangerous document that it is.