This interview was conducted on Monday, March 29, 2021. We centered our questions around Dr. Rougeau’s disposition towards more orthodox Catholicism and conservatism. The interview as it appears here in print is not a direct transcription. Some content was removed for the sake of brevity, and other minor changes were made to improve clarity. Despite these modifications, we made sure to reflect Dr. Rougeau’s words faithfully. The full, unedited, twenty-five minute audio recording of the interview will be posted on our website. We would like to thank Dr. Rougeau for taking the time to speak with us - it was a wonderful opportunity.
Students might be unaware about the specific role of the President, could you provide us with a brief explanation of your jurisdiction and your responsibilities as you see them?
Sure, though obviously this is a new thing for me too. I think as a general matter, [the college President] is the chief executive officer of the institution. So, he or she is ultimately responsible for everything that happens on campus. As president I report to the Board of Trustees, but they hire me to be responsible for the college. That means every aspect of what happens on campus, ultimately, falls under my jurisdiction. Now, that’s a lot for one person to do, so that’s why we have talented Deans and Vice Presidents, Associate Deans, Vice Provosts, Provosts, all these people who are working with me to make sure the college is executing its mission.
The Holy Cross administration has come into conflict with Bishop McManus of the Diocese of Worcester in the past. We were wondering how you would plan to navigate the Diocesan- Collegiate relationship, and whether you intend to improve the relationship, or try to improve the relationship with the Diocese?
I think it’s really important for the College to have a good relationship with the local ordinary, with the local diocese, and I’ll do my best to come in and build that relationship with a clean slate, as it were. I also think it’s important to recognize the important role that Catholic colleges and universities play in the life of the Church - and it’s a unique role. It’s not the same as, say, a diocesan highschool or another diocesan institution, that fall directly under the aegis of the local bishop. So our mission as a college, that was founded by the Jesuit order, and that ultimately is part of the Jesuits’ charism and the educational mission of the Jesuit order, means that we have a variety of different responsibilities that we have to execute. I want to do that in partnership and cooperation with the bishop, and not in tension with him. But, I also think it’s important that we all recognize the things that we do that are unique and important and don’t necessarily fall into the same kinds of categories that one might ordinarily associate with things that happen in a particular diocese.
Following up on that, is there a particular instance, or any broader experience, where you at Boston College have had to work with the Bishop of Boston?
Well, absolutely. Cardinal Sean O’Malley, in the Archdiocese of Boston, has been an excellent partner with Boston College, and for the Law School in various ways. And, in particular, with the Social Justice activities and mission of the Law School - the work we’ve done as a Law School to make sure the lawyers we educate are sensitive to the roles they play in the legal system, and the fact that many many people do not have access to legal services. So, that’s just one example of the important way that we work with Cardinal Sean. And of course, he’s a participant in a number of activities that we have on campus - not often, but in ways that recognize the important role he plays for the Catholic community in greater Boston.
Students for Life, an RSO at Holy Cross, sent an email this past year, reaching out to see if the administration would make a comment about abortion on the anniversary of Roe v. Wade. The administration turned down this request, and we were wondering, would you consider such a request to make such a statement?
Well, I won’t make a statement as president in terms of what I would do or would not do yet, since I still have another job [laughing]. But I do think I would be open to hearing from you regarding exactly what you would be seeking in a statement from the administration in that regard. So, I hope that we would have a healthy dialogue about what would be the best way for us to communicate in that regard.
There are those on campus who might see Holy Cross as not promoting genuine Catholic ideals, through the struggles with the Diocese, and its tacit support for abortion. Do you have plans, broadly, to revive and promote more orthodox Catholic teaching at Holy Cross, or some even particulars you might have in mind?
Holy Cross is a liberal arts college and our mission is one that is rooted primarily in our role as an institution of higher education. We of course have a distinct role as a Catholic, Jesuit institution and we want to make sure we aren’t doing anything to undermine that mission. In the pursuit of knowledge at the highest level, in the pursuit of excellence and rigor in intellectual endeavor, there will be debates, disagreements, challenges. If I am to educate students to be the best at what they do, they need to understand and engage with disputes, with difference, with conflict. We can’t hide from conflict, that doesn’t mean that we try to promote conflict that undermines things that are important to our identity as a Catholic institution, but at the same time we need to be prepared for discussion and debate. I don’t think that we can understand Catholic orthodoxy around one specific issue. It is a network of issues that make up Catholic identity. And I do think there has been a tendency, in this country in particular, for the abortion issue to be seen as a sine qua non of what it means to be Catholic. And I would hate to see that happen at an institution of higher education, where we are teaching students in the traditional liberal arts model. Of course the abortion issue is one that needs to be thought about and discussed. The Church is very clear in its view, and it is not my intention to undermine that view, but at the same time, it is an issue that is causing deep conflict within this country, so we just have to be aware of that - it’s not an issue that is settled in American life. It’s a highly contested issue - as are many others, where the Church has strong opinions and views that don’t often get the same level of scrutiny, and the same level of engagement. I want all those issues to be discussed in a way that respects the role we play as an elite liberal arts college.
Could you provide a few examples of some of these ideas that you think might need more attention.
Absolutely. We have a crisis in this country around economic justice. We have a crisis in this country around racial justice. The Church speaks very clearly about the sin of racism - we need to be a part of that conversation. The wealth gap in this nation and the increasing distress of those at the bottom of the economic scale is something that the Church has spoken to for centuries. The immigration issue in this country is a crisis, and it goes directly to the state of human life - people are dying and children are being subjected to inhumane conditions at the border. The reasons for this are complex, but Catholics have been present in these discussions. What are we calling for in terms of addressing these issues at the highest levels in our nation’s government? Are we demanding change, are we asking people “why?,” in the the same way we are doing so around the question of abortion? I’m not saying that we’re not, but I’m saying that this is something that needs to happen. We need to be present on all these questions. And it’s a very complex set of questions. But they all go to the basic question, the basic issue, of human dignity. The Church is very clear about the person being made in the image and likeness of God. And, if we’re not present across a range of issues on that, then we’re not playing our role appropriately, and we’re picking and choosing based on other commitments we may have.
In the same regard, what do you think Holy Cross can do to help integrate these issues into the conversation?
What I see at Holy Cross is a real attention to a rich Catholic intellectual life, that, you know, we [inaudible] these issues together based on core themes, core intellectual and faith commitments, like the dignity of the human person, like the person made in the image and likeness of God, the idea that we need to be present with the poor and the marginalized. I think if you start at those foundational commitments, these other issues start to come together in a more coherent way. I mean, you can make a more coherent claim about why you need to be on this or that side of, say, a legal question or a policy question because you are promoting some core value in the Catholic intellectual tradition that makes this all come together in a way that is sensible and coherent to, perhaps, people who aren’t Catholic. The other thing that we have to do, if we are promoting a sort of high level, highly intellectual Catholic approach to learning, is that we have to recognize that we are not just speaking to Catholics. Just saying something is wrong or that we don’t believe in it, isn’t necessarily going to get real traction in that kind of conversation. So we need to be able to unpack our arguments, think carefully about what others who disagree with us are thinking and why they are thinking that. What I want to see us doing at Holy Cross is training students to think in the most rigorous way about these issues. And I hope, and I would expect that people trained at Holy Cross would do better.
In 2019 protestors prevented their fellow students from attending and engaging with Heather Mac Donald, a speaker that the Fenwick Review had invited to campus. Further, there have been ongoing talks in the administration of implementing a “Free Speech Philosophy Statement” which might restrict certain speakers from being welcomed on campus. So how would you ensure that students are able to hear speakers, regardless of their political persuasions, as Chapter 8 of the Statutes of the Faculty details: “As an institution of higher learning, dedicated to the pursuit of truth wherever it may be found, the College encourages free access to ideas, as a matter of policy. Accordingly, the College shall extend its hospitality to any speaker invited by a recognized student organization or department.”?
So I am, obviously, very supportive of the notion and the value of free speech, and as a lawyer I understand the constitutional commitment we make in this country to free speech. Now, of course, at a private institution there can be limits on what we think of in terms of the kinds of speakers we have on our campus. But I don’t want to think of it in terms of why we would limit things, I want to think about how we can have the broadest possible selection of speakers on our campus as possible in service of the goal that you just mentioned: the highest level of intellectual inquiry. That said, I do think there are going to be some times when speakers are promoting things or representing things that are undermining our core values, like the dignity of the human person, and if someone has a reputation for stoking hate or for fomenting violence, or they have associated themselves repeatedly with people like that, I think we have to look very carefully at what is gained by allowing that person a platform on our campus. We may have some very controversial speakers on campus from time to time, because it’s important to have that conversation. But, as a general matter, I think we have to be wary of people who are trying to use free speech as a platform for stoking hate, division, and violence. That’s just one example of where you might have to draw the line, but as a general rule, I want to make sure that we can have a lively intellectual debate on our campus, and I want to work with all constituencies on campus to make sure that we do that, while making sure that everyone on this campus can feel safe and a part of this community without feeling that they have to run some kind of gauntlet around racist, or antisemitic, or some other hate filled rhetoric.
As a follow up for that, would someone be allowed to [or] would you support someone coming to campus to speak about the intricacies of the issue of abortion itself, would that be something you would be supportive of?
Well, I mean, as a general matter, I don’t know specifically, I am not going to speak specifically to any speaker, but as a general matter I would think we would want to be able to have a conversation on our campus about abortion - as a public policy matter, as a legal matter, as a moral matter, and all of those things in the context which I described, where we are promoting the highest level of intellectual inquiry on our campus. And so, if people are going to have debates about public issues, they need to be informed of all of the sides of the argument.
Even more than speakers, how will you ensure that students of all political persuasions feel welcome at Holy Cross? And what value do you think conservative students bring to Holy Cross?
It’s critical that people of different beliefs can share a community at Holy Cross, because if we can’t do it at Holy Cross, God help us, we are not going to be able to do it in our country. Now, unfortunately, our country is not doing it very well. We can’t be naive and pretend that we are going to have highly charged political debates on the Holy Cross campus that are highly charged in other contexts outside of campus, and that they won’t create tension and conflict. One of the things we have to be thinking about as a community at Holy Cross is looking more broadly at what is going on in our country. If we are talking about conservative and liberal views sharing a space on our campus and being in respectful dialogue, we may have to spend some time thinking about how that looks - how do we make that happen in the context of our community. We don’t really see a healthy dialogue, for instance, in Congress, in public policy discussions in the United States right now. There is a huge divide, politically, between conservatives and liberals, left/right, in this nation, and the issues are not minor. If we are talking about something like voting rights for instance, people are going to be very passionate about that issue, for all kinds of reasons both historical, personal, and political. So I think that the best way to avoid the kind of dysfunction we are seeing politically in our nation, on campus is to remember that we are a community, and we need to build relationships with trust and respect across difference. So, what can we be doing, initially, to support and to encourage the kind of community where we respect one another as human persons, as people who come from different backgrounds, as people who have different ideas, as people who are joined together in the life of this community for a particular purpose? From that [we can] start to explore and engage difficult topics from a perspective of mutual respect. So, I absolutely agree that we need to have people who have different beliefs, because those beliefs are meaningful and important - they’re the reality of the world we live in, and if we are hiding from them, we are not doing our work as a great liberal arts college.
What is something important that you have learned from engaging with conservative thinkers? Who is a conservative intellectual or commentator you especially respect, and why?
Well, I’ve learned a lot from talking to people who have different ideas from mine. I am trying to think, I have a lot of different perspectives in terms of conservative thinkers who I’ve engaged with over the years. John Finnis was my colleague at Notre Dame for many many years, and I think he is one of the greatest minds of our era when it comes to being a thoughtful, deep thinker, a conservative, in the political sense for many, and in the religious sense. I have gained so much knowledge from my interactions with him, from reading his work - that’s just one example. I don’t think that there is ever a reason not to be in dialogue with people who are [different], engaging in topics from the appropriate position of respect.
One more quick question: Who is your favorite saint and why?
My favorite saint! Well, I got to shout out St. Vincent de Paul, since that’s who I was named for!