Student Rejects Marquette Because of Politically Incorrect Intolerance

Via e-mail:

Professor McAdams,

My son was offered admission to Marquette. It had been his first choice, in part because of my family’s roots in Wisconsin, but in part because of the idea of a Jesuit education being academically rigorous, service oriented, and values oriented. He is neither Catholic nor particularly conservative, but he does hold a number of libertarian leaning views. After reading about your treatment, and the vilification of “incorrect” views, he has decided to attend a different university in another state. He was afraid that, if he went to Marquette, he might be ostracized, or even punished, for speaking his mind. He was horrified about your situation and frankly did not believe me at first. He had other wonderful choices, so we leave Marquette in the the rear view mirror.

Best of luck to you, [Name Redacted]

P.S. Although my email reflects my actual name, I would prefer that you not publish my name. I live and work in an environment that is even less forgiving than yours and would like to keep working so we can get this young man through college with no debt.

We doubt that Marquette minds losing a student who might make trouble by voicing politically incorrect views.

But did he make the right choice?

Student Body

The Marquette student body is not particularly leftist, intolerant and politically correct. In the 2014 Wisconsin Governor’s election, the Marquette Tribune claimed “Marquette polling locations solidly support Mary Burke.” In fact, those “Marquette polling locations” included wards that voted at the Marquette Union and the Public Library, and those wards contain a lot of voters who are not Marquette students. Indeed, they include a lot of black voters. Burke won those wards over Scott Walker by 58 to 42 percent, and thus it’s not clear that even a bare majority of Marquette students voted for liberal Democrat Burke, and obvious that no lopsided majority did.

Of course, the leftist students sometimes make a lot of noise, as they did during a “diversity” protest a few days ago. But, depending on who a student hangs around with, the culture is not oppressively leftist.

Faculty

Marquette faculty, like professors at most schools, lean left. Very few these days are Catholic, and those are likely to be liberal Catholics. As with faculty elsewhere, tolerant liberals are fewer and fewer, and intolerant politically correct leftists are more and more common. But they are distributed unequally across the departments. The humanities are particularly politically correct, and often quite intolerant, with faculty sometimes willing to shut up and demean students with conservative views. Sociology, and the schools of Communications and Education are similar. Students majoring in other fields will find a more tolerant environment, with the proviso that they will be required to take some humanities courses, and a “diversity” course. Most of these latter are politically correct victim studies, although a student picking carefully can find, on the list, some legitimate offerings.

Arts and Science Dean Rick Holz, in order to improve the competitive position of the Arts and Science College relative to other schools and colleges, has substantially watered down the College curriculum. In principle Holz is selling out the entire notion of a liberal arts education. But in practice, it will free students from some of the oppressive political correctness of Marquette’s humanities departments.

The Administration

Here is the best reason to avoid Marquette. Institutions become stupid as they become bureaucratized, because as they become more bureaucratized administrators talk more and more to each other, and less and less to people outside their narrow circle. Marquette has become massively bureaucratized. The university’s attempt to fire this blogger has been the epitome of institutional stupidity, but it goes far deeper than that.

As a typically over-bureaucratized university, Marquette has been unwilling to oppose any fashionable initiative found in higher education. Marquette imposed on all employees a “training module” that basically said “shut up” about anything that any excessively sensitive and intolerant person might object to. It has consistently catered to the demands of the campus gay lobby, including mounting a “climate survey” contracted out to an LGBT activist.

Is Marquette worse than other institutions? That depends on the institution, but Marquette claims to provide an “academically rigorous, service oriented, and values oriented” education and to serve a “Catholic mission.” It is difficult to see how this can be so if the university seeks to silence disfavored views and to ostracize what are still orthodox Catholic positions.

No student should come to Marquette thinking that the institution is anything more than a standard, secular, politically correct generic university.