After spending the better part of 2026 working on a political campaign which ended last Tuesday, 18 minutes after the polls closed, I wondered if it was time to build a shrine to Saint Jude the Apostle in my office. Why? Saint Jude is traditionally recognized by Catholics as the patron saint of lost causes to whom the faithful pray for solace when they face seemingly impossible odds. Yet, St. Jude’s legacy is one of optimism, not despair. Rather than accepting a seemingly inevitable negative outcome, St. Jude never gave up hope, which explains why Danny Thomas chose this apostle as the namesake for the Children’s Research Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee that the entertainer founded and endowed.
As followers of this blog know too well, I created it to promote counter-intuitive thinking, a goal which often requires taking a contrarian view of a situation. And in most cases, it is a position counter to the prevailing sentiment of society at large. There are times I wish there was a peer support group called “contrarians anonymous,” though I doubt I would enroll in it. Not that I question the value of 12-step programs for a variety of addictions. I know my DNA would not permit me to “stay on the wagon.” My natural tendency, regardless of the topic, is to look for the fallacy in the argument put forth regardless of which side an opiner takes.
Case in point, David French’s op-ed in today’s New York Times titled, “Go Ahead, Sean Duffy. Let Your Daughter Go to Harvard.” The essay was triggered by a clip from the transportation secretary’s reality television show (a topic for another day) in which his wife is “prohibiting their daughter (Paloma) from going to Harvard as an undergraduate.” French quotes Rachel Campos-Duffy’s explanation.
We spent a lot of time nurturing and providing formation for our kids, giving them an environment where they are steeped in faith and values…If I send you there, I think what happens is they have professionalized figuring out how they can take good young girls like you and I think corrupt their minds.
French’s response comes in the form of his own, similar experience many years previously and discussions he had with other parents who echoed the Duffys’ concern.
I’ve also had different versions of this same conversation with Christian and conservative parents for decades — they look at the news of campus censorship, they see the left-wing monoculture (especially at elite universities), and they wonder if they’re sending their kids into the lion’s den. The concern seems especially acute with young women — that they’ll leave home as Laura Ingalls and come back as Lady Gaga.
I expected French, whose writing I greatly admire, to acknowledge there may be legitimate issues related to free speech on college campuses, but this was a bit extreme. Instead, he encourages us to take it seriously and lays blame on institutions of higher learning.
Before you laugh at that idea, please realize that this perception is almost entirely the fault of elite educational institutions.
My contrarian spidey-sense immediately kicked in. But before I started constructing the counter argument, French made most of it for me. Speaking of his own experience as a professor:
…not once did I perceive my students as little lumps of clay, ready to be molded however I pleased. Instead, my students are people of conviction. The best students are full of both conviction and curiosity. They’re eager to learn. The worst have conviction without curiosity. They’re eager to tell me exactly what they think I’m doing wrong.
Yet, French fails to sees the argument he has made to counter his own assertion that the current situation “is almost entirely the fault of elite educational institutions.” The operative words are “conviction and curiosity.” Which brings me back to secretary Duffy and his wife. If their dinner table discussion emphasizes conviction about a set of political and cultural values, how is that any different from the barrage of indoctrination they fear their daughter will face at Harvard? Conviction without curiosity is not conviction backed by reason. It is conviction because that is how I was raised.
In other words, Mr. and Mrs. Duffy should worry about Paloma going off to a liberal, elite university. Not because of what Harvard might do to her. Rather because of what they have failed to do. They would be sending her to an institution of higher learning where she will be exposed to Socratic dialogue, in class, in her dorm, in the dining halls and other social settings. Expecting her to defend her parents’ view of the world without building her own basis for that shared perspective does not bode well.
Sean Duffy and his wife Rachel Campos-Duffy are devout Roman Catholics. Let me suggest that when it comes to the odds of their daughter graduating from Harvard unchanged in her world view, they need St. Jude the Apostle much more than I do.
For what it’s worth.
Dr. ESP
Thanks, Jay. I, too, appreciate David French’s articles but thought this one was way over the top. I recently read an article by a guy who attended a liberal school after growing up in a conservative Christian home. He realized he subscribed to the beliefs because “that’s what my parents told me.” What followed was several years of study and research. He’s still a believer, but at least now he knows why.
My dad loved to use the saying “Don’t bother me with the facts, I’ve made up my mind” which was his way of being sarcastic about the notion of conviction without curiosity i.e., he was telling us “think for yourself.”