Battle Lines

BACKGROUND

As UT president, William Battle was at the center of an intense, emotionally charged controversy between the school’s administration and the office of Governor James Ferguson. Juicy anecdotes from this conflict abound in the Battle archives; in fact, Battle wrote a book-length memoir of the entire episode (sealed for 10 years after his death), complete with newspaper clippings, speech transcripts, stories, and assorted insults (including ribald limericks and songs) from both sides.

Although the ostensible flash point was the use of funds for questionable travel expenses, the rhetoric of both parties makes it clear that much deeper values were at play. The Governor (who frequently compared himself to Jesus) wasn’t just attacking specific financial decisions; he was attacking an academic culture that he saw as elitist, discriminatory, and undemocratic. Furthermore, he believed that the university was unfairly insulated from accountability to state lawmakers and taxpayers by the intercession of highly placed, powerful alumni.

Battle, on the other hand, believed that education was the foundation of our political system and, indeed, of freedom itself. As a professor of Classics, he traced the privileged position of universities to precedents in antiquity, and he defended UT’s special status— in effect, its separation from governmental interference— by appealing to democratic values: Only education, he argued, could make the world safe for democracy.

So what is really outlined in Battle’s typed and handwritten notes is a timely controversy: How should the University be funded? Who should be in charge of its curriculum? How accountable should teachers and the administration be to larger public opinion? Through our game, students can engage with and debate these real-world issues through the lens of a past controversy and the fictional frame of an alternate reality game.

THE STORY

A UT graduate student has gone underground after discovering the existence of two secret societies: The first, of which Battle was a member, is dedicated to protecting the autonomy of educational institutions from outside interference. Its philosophy is encapsulated in the UT motto Battle himself chose and which appears in a shortened form on the UT seal that he designed: "A cultivated mind is the guardian genius of democracy."

The second society, of which Ferguson was a member, holds the opposite position: The University is a fundamentally undemocratic institution that must be brought under the sway of state government. Its insulation from public opinion does not protect freedom—it flies in the face of it.

The missing graduate student became aware of these two societies after discovering a manuscript written in Battle’s own hand. This mysterious document is actually the sacred mission statement of the first secret society. After doing more research, she discovered another secret, one which she knew both sides would be highly desirous of obtaining, as it would give either the advantage over the other.

This left the student in a moral quandary: On the one hand, she felt that this secret should continue to be protected, preserving the University’s special status. But, on the other hand, she didn’t feel qualified to make such an important decision by herself. As a student and Assistant Instructor, perhaps she was too close to UT to argue responsibly. She needed informed judges who cared enough about both the school and about democratic values to make a legitimate call. But how could she find them?

She came up with the idea of a game: If players were intelligent, informed, and dedicated enough to reason through her series of clues, they would prove themselves worthy of deciding the fate of Battle’s secret and of the University it protected.

Along the way, players will have to deal not only with the legitimate obstacles presented by the grad student’s ―real‖ clues, but also with red herrings and misdirection by parties that don’t want to see this controversy resolved. These villains (scandal-mongering yellow journalists, unethical business interests, lobbyists, etc.) will stop at nothing to prevent the two sides from achieving stasis and engaging in meaningful debate.

DETAILS AND THE ENDGAME

For obvious reasons, we cannot reveal further information about the game's inner workings or plot on this website. However, Assistant Instructors with legitimate security clearance can learn more by reading the confidential "Battle Lines Proposal" available through the Immersive Environments wiki.