Sorry Mike, this isn't the last post I promised, but it will come soon...
Ken West, the guy who organized the Yale/BYU Mormon conference, is a personal friend of mine. We were neighbors at Yale, and I talked to him quite a bit about the conference. Interestingly enough, his experience with Quinn and BYU illustrate a few points that are relevant to this conversation.
1. Getting Quinn to accept a role in the conference was considered a great coup by Ken and by all of the people on the Yale side of the conference. Quinn's work was highly regarded by the people at the Div school, and he was expected to play a prominent role in the event.
2. BYU blackballed Quinn, threatening to withdraw sponsorship of the event all together. This was primarily conveyed via correspondence with Millet.
3. Ken was really depressed about all of this for a long time, and nearly considered dumping the conference all together, knowing that strong-arm tactics were being used by BYU to shape the outcome of the event.
4. Ken finally decided the event was worth pursuing.
5. Today, Ken is teaching philosophy at a small arts college in CT. The conference is listed in his faculty bio, but conspicuously drops any reference to the fact that it was a Mormon studies conference. I haven't talked to Ken in over a year, so I don't know if that gap represents his college's interests or his own, but I personally see it as illustrative of his own conflicting views over the whole Quinn affair.
Anyhow, perhaps this anecdote fleshes out a bit of Quinn's unique situation.
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