Sara Russo

     Administrators at Bloomsburg University in Pennsylvania have banned all Christmas Music, including Christmas carols, from being played by the school's Carver Hall bell tower. They claim that the proscription against Christian songs will be lifted once music pertaining to other religious celebrations such as Hanukah, Kwanzaa, and Ramadan can be incorporated into the bell's repertoire.

     According to Bob Wislock, Interim Director of Social Equity on the campus, the decision was prompted by concerns brought to University President Jessica Kozloff by students and faculty members who charged that the music played by the bells contained religious overtones that were offensive to their beliefs.

     "This has come about because a few years ago, a number of faculty and students very appropriately objected to religious Christmas music that was played at the end of the fall semester. We agreed to not only cease Christmas music, but to prohibit any religious music at all," Kozloff told the Bloomsburg Voice, a weekly campus paper.

     Wislock agreed with Kozloff’s characterization of the complaints as "highly appropriate." "We simply can’t impose certain beliefs on individuals," Wislock told the Voice, defending the University’s decision to ban songs such as "O Holy Night" from being played on the bells, until corresponding songs from other religions are added.

     Another concern cited was that because Bloomsburg is a public university, the playing of Christian music from the bell tower might constitute a violation of church and state. "If there was a choir singing some religious tune, as an individual, I have the right to go to the performance or to not go. But something as public as carillon, I don’t have that discretion, so we have to bring in that type of respect and balance to the University, and that is what we are trying to achieve," argued Wislock.

     But Jim Hollister, University spokesman, asserts that the decision to temporarily eliminate Christian songs has nothing to do with issues of church and state. He argues instead that concerns over Bloomsburg’s "inclusiveness" of its "diverse community" were the only factor leading to the decision, and that Bloomsburg’s status as a public university had no bearing on the issue.

     "We had people concerned that the religious music in the Carver Bell Tower was not inclusive; it was Christian music only," explained Hollister. "We tried to go out and find more inclusive music and were not able to do it as quickly as we wanted to in the format we need for the carillon. So for the time being we took Christian music off, and just played classical, secular music," Hollister told Campus Report.

     The ban on Christian music is quite broad, prohibiting all "familiar" sacred music including "any hymns from church that people would recognize." The fact that the music played by the bell tower contains no words and consists only of "bell tones" or "chimes" had no bearing on the conclusion that all Christian music played by the bells might be deemed offensive. Wislock explained, "We will only allow some types of secular Christmas tunes .… Any Christian Christmas or religious tunes will not be played." Hollister seconded this conclusion, reiterating, "‘Jingle Bells,’ that type of thing, would probably not have been removed. ‘Silent Night’ was removed."

     When asked by Campus Report why it was necessary to cease playing Christian music until music representing other religions could be obtained, Hollister simply responded that the university thought that the decision was appropriate and would ensure that no one felt left out.

     The controversy over Carver Hall bell tower is not the first dispute over religion to erupt at Bloomsburg this semester. When a drug and alcohol awareness group on campus erected crosses on the university quad to commemorate the college students who have died due to alcohol related incidents, the campus was beset by protests that placing a religious symbol such as a cross on public grounds was inappropriate.

     In this incident, too, faculty vehemently denounced the presence of Christianity on the campus. "[The crosses] shove it in the face of every minority that we are a Christian campus," said Dr. Walter Brasch, professor of mass communications and the instigator of criticism. Dr. Wendy Lee-Lampshire, professor of philosophy, added, "Crosses are narrowly Christian symbols. If the only way we can think to represent death is by Christian crosses, then that is … monumentally offensive .…We are not all Christian …. Did they mean to imply the only lives that have value are those that end with crosses on their graves?"

     Representatives from the Drug, Alcohol and Wellness Network (DAWN), who helped arrange the display of crosses, argue that their actions in no way violated the principle of separation between church and state. Dr. Barry Jackson, the director of DAWN asserted, "The cross is used as an international symbol of death, and is not in any way religiously connected."

     Jackson’s claim that the cross lacks religious symbolism may not be entirely accurate, but defenders of the demonstration argue that it is difficult to deny that several hundred white crosses, arranged in rows, call to mind the image of a graveyard and do not represent religious tyranny. Several world-famous cemeteries draw their emotive power from their careful arrangement of nearly identical white crosses—precisely the image DAWN was trying to invoke.

     Ultimately, it remains unclear if the most fervent proponents of "tolerance" on campus are Bloomsburg’s students, or the faculty members from whom they take their cues. It was a student group that set up the crosses on the campus quad, yet professors provided the harshest criticism of the display. Spokesman Hollister claims that student concerns with the Christian music played by the bell tower did not even rise to the level of "complaints," yet University administrators gave the order to suspend the playing of all Christian music indefinitely, until music from other religions could be added.

     Regardless of whose concerns are influencing Bloomsburg’s decisions on matters of religion, the mandate for the campus is clear. As Hollister told Campus Report, "Our ultimate goal is inclusiveness, and it’s going to happen."