To the Editor:
Two institutions vital to a flourishing democracy suffer today from deepening loss of confidence and trust: universities and journalism. A recent column written by Ball State University Professor of Business, Michael Hicks, provides ample evidence why this is the case. In a column brimming with slanderous falsehoods, Hicks brings shame on himself, his academic institution, and this newspaper.
In a column titled “Indiana is Ground Zero for Anti-American Ideologies,” Hicks specifically charged me of being “the intellectual leader of Catholic integralism” and of advancing a “theocratic vision.” He provides no evidence for these claims, but points to my most recent book, Regime Change, as the main source of his claims. Neglecting legitimate scholarly practice, Hicks provides no actual citations from that book in support of these claims. His academic malpractice is unsurprising, however, since neither in that book, nor anywhere else, have I ever written about nor endorsed the school of thought known as “Catholic integralism,” nor have I argued on behalf of theocracy. Though I am indeed a Catholic, the word “Catholic” does not even appear in that book. Hicks’s charges seem to be born out of his own fevered imagination and perhaps some dose of anti-Catholicism.
What’s worse, based on these false claims, he further argues that I am a “modern heir” to two earlier movements, Naziism and the Ku Klux Klan. Putting aside that both these movements were anti-Catholic – the Klan, in particular, whose antipathy to Notre Dame’s Catholicism earned students who confronted them the nickname “The Fighting Irish” – such a charge is not only baseless and false, but slanderous. Hicks rather ironically fancies that I am heir to the Klan’s hatred, while his false claims against me eerily resemble those once made against Catholics by the Ku Klux Klan.
A responsible newspaper editor would have required evidence before publishing such defamatory statements. A column written by an author who completely fabricates libelous claims should never have been approved for publication by a responsible editor.
Institutions like the press and universities should be strongholds of truth-telling based on evidence and reason, not falsehood and bias. Citizens rely on the integrity of individuals in such institutions for guidance in our thinking, deliberation, and ultimately our votes. It is both deeply saddening and offensive to personally have been the victim of the decay of these institutions – ones that we, the public, support with our tax dollars and subscriptions. If we are mutually concerned for the fate of democracy, we need not look solely toward Washington D.C., but at institutions much closer to home that we together should demand should better serve their public.
Patrick J. Deneen
Professor of Political Science
University of Notre Dame
