Marquette’s Climate Survey: Conservatives Get a Voice

We were naturally suspicious of the Marquette “Climate Survey,” since such exercises usually have a politically correct “diversity” agenda, and are designed to allow campus victim groups to air their grievances which in turn allows campus bureaucrats to expand their empires with more “diversity” initiatives.

The survey had its limitations (only about 30% of eligible students, faculty and staff participated), but the results were not as the campus race, gender and sexual orientation hustlers would have liked (although they can be expected to ignore that fact). And the analysis from Rankin and Associates was fair enough.

One politically incorrect finding was that there is considerable unhappiness among conservative and Catholic members of the Marquette community with the secular, liberal and often intolerant climate on campus.

To quote a few of the findings:

Pg. 86: “Many respondents cited their Catholic or conservative values being marginalized, saying ‘Conservative Catholic views on the expression of human sexuality are not respected – not even room for dialogue.’ And that ‘There is an ongoing sense of disrespect, anger and assumptions related to the Catholic identity of our university.’”

Pg. 135: “Fifty-four respondents discussed Catholic and conservative views when discussing unfair or unjust employment-related discipline or action. Several discussed John McAdams’ suspension and dismissal, noting that ‘His only crime, sin, whatever you want to call it was telling the truth’ and that ‘A professor was fired for being critical of the University.’ People believed that ‘It seems MU protects liberal views (they can say and do anything) more than conservative ones (they will get fired if they speak out)’ and ‘If you are a conservative, you are not welcome at MU.’”

Pg. 294: “However, numerous other respondents noted that ‘this university has become Catholic and Jesuit in its name alone.’ And ‘ I don’t want to see . . . the Catholic and Jesuit tradition watered down or discounted in an effort to make others feel welcome.’ One such respondent wrote ‘Stop having Catholic students feel condemned for their CATHOLIC BELIEFS,’ and another noted that ‘As someone strong in my Catholic faith, I have been very disappointed with how little influence the Catholic Church seems to have here.’ The general sentiment from these respondents was that ‘MU has divorced the idea of social justice from Catholicism and, as a result, has embraced radical ideas … The Jesuit tradition has been secularized and that is a shame.’”

One section of the survey ask respondents whether they “personally had experienced exclusionary, intimidating, offensive, and/or hostile conduct” and if so on what basis. The report notes that:

19% (n = 791) of respondents indicated that they personally had experienced [such conduct]. Of those respondents who reported having experienced such conduct, 22% (n = 171) indicated that the conduct was based on their gender/gender identity, 19% (n = 146) on their racial identity, 18% (n = 142) on their position, and 17% (n = 138) on their political views; 15% each felt that it was based on their age (n = 119) and on their religious/spiritual views (n = 116). (pp. viii-ix)

It seems that relatively few members of the Marquette community (about one fifth) had experienced any such conduct, and no particular group was the target. It is impossible to tell, from the published tabulations, what percentage of those who experienced exclusionary, intimidating, offensive, and/or hostile conduct because of their political views were conservative, or what percentage experiencing such conduct because of their religious views were orthodox Catholic or evangelical Protestants. But terms like “many” and “numerous” clearly imply a substantial number of people.

What the survey appears to have done is to give “voice” to the voiceless, allowing students who don’t rant about “white privilege” or demonstrate blocking traffic on Wisconsin Avenue to register their views. The same goes for faculty and staff who didn’t complain when a mural of murderer and terrorist Assata Shakur was painted over.

Unfortunately, these are not the voices Marquette wants to hear, and therefore they will likely be ignored.