Not Reading

Some incoming first-year students at Duke University deserve half a pat on the back for their decision to skip their school's summer reading entry.

Duke, like many universities, assigns its incoming students a book to read and schedules discussions for the new students during their first days on campus. These books are rarely burdened with actual deep content and frequently represent some idea or theme that's trending among college administrators.

This year, Duke picked Fun Home, a long comic book (which is all a "graphic novel" is, and I say that as a fan of comic books) written and drawn by Allison Bechdel. Bechdel chronicles her difficult relationship with her closeted gay father and her experiences discovering her own sexuality as a lesbian woman. I've never read it, so I don't have much to say about it.

Incoming Duke first-year student Brian Grasso made clear and public his choice to skip the novel. He said that reading and viewing the graphic depictions of sexual situations would compromise his religious and moral beliefs (Full disclosure: Duke is affiliated with my own denomination, the United Methodist Church, but that probably doesn't mean much to a significant percentage of its faculty, staff and students).

The reason I give Mr. Grasso and his fellow skippers only half a pat on the back is that they should be saying they won't read the book because there's no reason for them to do so. Colleges choose this pseudo-intellectual exercise supposedly as a way to introduce their new students to the concept of the life of the mind which is a feature of their university communities.

But the books are almost always shallow, rarely offer anything but sentimentalism or empathy mining and carry absolutely no consequences if ignored. Students receive no grades for their discussions or projects and can't be expelled if they skip the book, show up to whatever session the college drags them to, sit quietly and leave when it's all done. I may be misremembering my own 18-year-old thinking, but I didn't exactly need lessons in how to ignore assigned reading.

So fight the power, Mr. Grasso, but don't stop halfway. Reject the idea you have to read this comic book, not because it has some pictures that might compromise your faith journey, but because the whole project is lame and requires someone to put a stake in its heart.

(Note: I selected the USA Today story because it came closest to the middle in the reporting on this matter -- it lacked the full-throated cheerleading for the protesting students I saw on several more conservative sites and the snarky mockery in most of the more left-leaning coverage. Nevertheless, it's not perfect, as writer Alexandra Samuels seems to think that the students' faith requires the label "alleged" when their willingness to buck their school's system and listen to the snickering put-downs of many of their opponents would indicate that faith is actually there and not merely allegedly so.)