It's amazing how quickly the school changed it's mind about having the cross displayed when the president found out the school would lose major dollars from alumni.
Cross back on display in historic college chapelAllie Martinwww.OneNewsNow.comMarch 8, 2007
A compromise has been reached that will return to public view a cross that had previously been removed from display at historic Wren Chapel on the campus of The College of William & Mary, one of the oldest colleges in the United States. A leader in the organized protest over the cross's removal is among those who are hailing the compromise as a big victory.
Late last year, Gene Nichol, president of The College of William & Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia, announced that an 18-inch brass cross was to be removed from Wren Chapel, where it had been on display since 1940. Nichol claimed the cross would be put in storage to make people of other faiths feel more comfortable using the chapel.
The announcement of the cross's removal sparked an outcry from students and alumni, who said the cross represented the unique history of the college. Furor over the college's decision resulted in a petition drive to keep the Christian emblem in place -- as well as last week's announcement that a longtime donor had backed out of a $12 million pledge in response to the controversy. Other alumni and donors threatened to withhold support as well.
Now, however, a compromise has been reached that will allow the cross to be displayed in the chapel once again, only now it will be enclosed in a glass case. Dennis DiMauro, an organizer of the campaign to save the cross, says public pressure along with numerous media inquiries helped bring about the compromise.
"The press coverage of this has been pretty tremendous," DiMauro notes. Credit for the reinstatement of the cross is due to "that constant negative press ... from a number of organizations," he says, "where most people doing op-eds and doing responses were for bringing the cross back. So I think it was an overwhelming popular pressure and press pressure."
DiMauro feels the compromise was a major victory, especially since President Nichol has a long history as a member of the American Civil Liberties Union, serving on numerous boards of state ACLUs both in North Carolina and Colorado.
The attempt to keep the cross off permanent public display was "a consistent effort ... a calculated ACLU effort," the "Save the Wren Cross" campaign organizer says. "And the people won," he adds. "Thank God for that."
The March 6 Washington Times reported that, on that date, administrators at William & Mary ordered the immediate return of the cross to public display in Wren Chapel, where it is to be placed in a glass case as opposed to its previous position on the altar. President Nichol announced the return of the cross at a press conference along with the co-chairs of the 14-member special presidential committee that recommended the compromise.
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