Responding to the controversy over a conservative speaker’s comments about race and privilege, Saint Vincent College has unveiled a new policy requiring all speakers sponsored by its academic centers to be approved by the college president and top leadership.

“The hurtful, divisive statements were a stark contrast to our mission,” the Rev. Paul Taylor, college president, said Tuesday in announcing the policy designed to make sure “that the message to be delivered is one that abides with the spirit and mission of the college.”

Saint Vincent College, founded in 1846 in Unity, is the nation’s first Benedictine college, emphasizing the values of monastic life — including love, stability, humility and stewardship — as part of its core values, according to the college’s website.

Taylor characterized the action to have a speakers’ policy that requires prior approval by the president and his cabinet of executive leaders as one taken to “rebuild trust, heal our community and at the same time protect the diversity of opinion critical to our students’ educational growth.”

Saint Vincent said it is commonplace for colleges to vet speakers.

College leadership will not institute prior censorship of a speaker’s remarks, said Zachary Flock, a Saint Vincent College spokesman.

Controversy erupted this month over remarks by David Azerrad, an assistant professor and research fellow at Hillsdale College government school in Washington, D.C. He spoke on “Black Privilege and Racial Hysteria in Contemporary America” on April 8 as part of a program sponsored by the Center for Political and Economic Thought titled “Politics, Policy and Panic: Governing in Times of Crisis.”

The speech contained “divisive remarks” that the college said in its statement that “diminished the accomplishments of American Black leaders, among other strong opinions that contradicted the college’s high standards for human dignity, respect and inclusivity.”

Azerrad could not be reached for comment. Formerly at the conservative Heritage Foundation, where he was director of its Simon Center for Principles and Politics, he focuses his research and writing on classical liberalism, conservative political thought and identity politics, according to his Hillsdale College biography.

The co-directors of the Center for Political and Economic Thought — Gary Quinlivan, dean of the Alex G. McKenna School of Business, Economics and Government; and Bradley Watson, a political science professor — could not be reached for comment Tuesday.

The two will remain co-directors of the center, but the college will place the center under the direction of Jeff Mallory, executive vice president. Mallory also will conduct a review and assessment of the center’s policies and procedures.

A public forum is planned Friday at the college, in which Taylor and other leaders will listen to the student community in a manner that will invite “transparent discourse related to the lecture and related issues of equity and inclusion,” the college stated. Virtual listening sessions will be held to engage the faculty, alumni and donor communities during the next several weeks.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)