Jewish Students Go Public About Marquette’s Anti-Israel Bias

In yesterday’s Marquette Tribune, an Op-Ed piece by two Jewish Marquette Law School students taking the University to task for a consistently pro-Palestinian anti-Israel position:

This issue hasn’t been what speakers have been allowed to come to campus and speak. The issue has been the programs set up and/or cosponsored by Marquette itself.

The examples they give have been covered extensively right here.

First was the 2005 Arab Heritage Celebration. The events, many sponsored by the University Ministry, MUSG and the Office of Student Development, demonized Israel and made excuses for Palestinian terrorism.

The second was a September 2005 program sponsored by Manresa titled “Jews of Conscience.” Again, the panel was virulently anti-Israel. The implicit definition of “Jews of Conscience” was “Jews who are anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian.” Pro-Israel Jews, apparently, are thought not to have a conscience.

Finally, on March 2 Soup With Substance featured a hard-left anti-Israel speaker named Julie Enslow to talk about how “The Israeli Occupation Intensifies.” Enslow is a hard leftist who helped organize an event in honor of Cindy Sheehan on the Milwaukee lakefront. She doesn’t see Iran’s nuclear program as any sort of real problem. But she does want the U.S. to give up all nuclear weapons.

What do the two Jewish students, David Cherner and Brenda Yaskal, think of all this?

Our concern is not that Arab Awareness or Islam Heritage should be banned from campus. Students have a right to promote certain viewpoints, and while we may disagree with them, our interest in having an open-minded campus outweighs our disagreement. However, as Jewish students and members of the greater-Milwaukee Jewish community, we are truly disappointed with the Marquette administration for endorsing those viewpoints.

We feel that the university is marginalizing Jewish students by endorsing such one-sided events and future sponsorship of such events will only reinforce our concern that Marquette chooses not to abide by its own mission statement. More importantly, we believe that sponsorship of such extreme events will isolate the student body from being properly informed about the Israeli-Arab conflict.

Good points, all.

This issue gives one the distinct impression that key people in Manresa, the Office of Student Development and the University Ministry are:

1. Hard leftists, who have to be careful when they deal with issues like abortion and “gay rights,” but who can give their leftist attitudes free rein when the Palestinian issue is concerned, or . . .
2. Politically correct “diversity” advocates who want to placate Muslim students (and somehow don’t care about Jewish students), or . . .
3. Anti-Semites who are hostile toward Israel and the Jews.

If somebody has a better explanation, we would like to hear it.

It’s clear that some explanation is needed for the consistent hard-left anti-Israel bias that Marquette has shown.