Marquette Backing Away From Inflammatory Anti-Israel Program

We blogged about this a month ago: a rather virulent program on the Marquette campus that labelled Israel an “apartheid state.”

It was not particularly surprising that Marquette’s Palestinian student association would sponsor such a program — although it certainly doesn’t speak well for the students that they would want to use such inflammatory rhetoric.

More surprising was the announcement that two offices at Marquette — Intercultural Engagement in the Office of Student Development and the Office of International Education — were cosponsoring the program.

Is it now Marquette’s position that Israel is an “apartheid state?”

It seems, however, that the university has now backed off its support for this program.

We queried Vice President for Student Affairs Chris Miller about this, and he responded “Student Development is not sponsoring the event. It is purely student sponsored.”

Terence Miller, of the Office of International Education, was not immediately available for comment. But it appears that they too have withdrawn their sponsorship.

The issue here is “what were they thinking?”  What kind of bureaucratic culture prevails among mid-level bureaucrats at Marquette such that declaring Israel an “apartheid state” seems like a good idea?

We have seen this before, most recently with the Femsex seminar, which was approved by the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center. When the true nature of the program was revealed here, Marquette’s top administrators withdrew support.

But the fact that things like this can happen at all is terribly revealing.