Islam: Europe vs. America

From Jeff Jacoby in the Boston Globe:

LONG BEFORE TUESDAY’S terror attacks in Brussels, it was clear that Belgium had become a breeding ground for Islamist extremists. Hundreds of Belgian Muslims — as many as 500, according to one estimate — have gone to Syria and Iraq to fight for ISIS, making Belgium by far Europe’s leading supplier of foreign jihadists. Last November’s horrific slaughter in Paris was masterminded by a Belgian radical, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, and at least four of the men who carried out those attacks were from the Brussels district of Molenbeek. One of them was Salah Abdeslam, who was captured in Molenbeek, after an intense manhunt, on March 19.

For Islamist imams and terrorist ringleaders, such neighborhoods — heavily Muslim, densely populated, with high unemployment and crime rates — have proved fertile territory for recruiting violent jihadists. “There is almost always a link with Molenbeek. That’s a gigantic problem, of course,” Belgium’s prime minister said after the Paris atrocities.

But it’s only recently that the country’s security officials began confronting that “gigantic problem” with an appropriate sense of urgency. The New York Times reported last fall that weeks before the Paris attacks, Molenbeek’s mayor, Françoise Schepmans, was given a list of more than 80 Islamist terror suspects living in her district. She took no action and was unapologetic even after three of the men on the list took part in the Paris massacre.

“What was I supposed to do about them?” Schepmans told the Times. “It is not my job to track possible terrorists.”

That jaw-dropping complacency helps explain how an ISIS fifth column has been able to operate with such brazenness in Western Europe. But incompetent policing doesn’t explain why Muslims living in neighborhoods like Molenbeek, or in the banlieues outside Paris that have experienced violent riots, should be susceptible to Islamist radicalization in the first place.

Muslim communities are not inherently predisposed to violence. The presence of a sizable Muslim population in a non-Muslim-majority country does not inevitably presage jihadist bloodshed or demands for the imposition of sharia. It is true that some 650,000 Muslims live in Belgium, but five times as many — 3.3 million — live in the United States. Why hasn’t America become a hotbed of Islamic extremism? Why aren’t American Muslims by the thousands flocking to fight for ISIS, Al Qaeda, and other terrorist organizations? Why, despite the efforts of Islamist pressure groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations — a Muslim supremacist operation that masquerades as an advocate for civil rights — are most American Muslims intent on adopting America’s customs and way of life?

The United States has been far more successful at assimilating and integrating Muslim immigrants into American society and culture than has Western Europe. There are no Muslim ghettoes here like those in Molenbeek or the Paris suburbs, where authorities turn a blind eye to antisocial behavior and aggressive incitement by radicals preaching jihad. Of course there have been some heinous exceptions, such as the Tsarnaev brothers, the Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hassan, or the killers in San Bernardino. And mosques in American cities have often been built with funding from Saudi Arabia, which promotes a harsh and puritanical version of Islam.

Nevertheless, at the grass-roots level, Muslims in the United States, like other cultural and religious minorities, have had no problem acclimating to mainstream norms. In a detailed 2011 survey, the Pew Research Center found that Muslim Americans are “highly assimilated into American society and . . . largely content with their lives.” More than 80 percent of US Muslims expressed satisfaction with life in America, and 63 percent said they felt no conflict “between being a devout Muslim and living in a modern society.” The rates at which they participate in various everyday American activities — from following local sports teams to watching entertainment TV — are similar to those of the American public generally. Half of all Muslim immigrants display the US flag at home, in the office, or on their car.

Given America’s wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, the bloody battles with Islamic regimes and insurgents, and the threat to homeland security from “lone wolf” terror attacks, it might seem surprising that Muslims in Detroit or Brooklyn aren’t at least as alienated as those in Molenbeek. But they aren’t. For despite the rise of identity politics and the balkanizing pressures of multicultural correctness, America’s melting pot still works. Generations of Muslim immigrants have come to America to escape repression, poverty, or war in their homelands. The life they have made for themselves here has been freer, safer, more prosperous, and more embracing than the existence they left behind. There are tensions, but not enough to keep most Muslims from fitting themselves comfortably into the American mosaic.

At a time when populist demagogues are doing so much damage to our social fabric, it is well to remember why Molenbeek is a European phenomenon, and not an American one. At the core of the American experience is a conviction that immigrants who come to America can and should become Americans. Patriotic assimilation turns profoundly dissimilar foreigners into proud and happy Americans. “Muslims in the United States,” Pew found, “reject extremism by much larger margins than most Muslim publics” around the world.

Americanization — E Pluribus Unum — is not only a key ingredient in the American Dream. It also keeps us safe.

Bottom line: American culture, with its emphasis on individualism and personal freedom, is more benign than the culture of Europe.

But America has its enclaves of cultural pathology: colleges and universities. Under the tutelage of leftist faculty and campus bureaucrats, Muslim and Arab students are encouraged to nurse a sense of grievance, and especially to hate the state of Israel. Thus we have things like “Israeli Apartheid Week” week at Marquette.

In this, as in other things, academia is an island a cultural pathology in a generally benign national culture.

Warrior Blogger on Charles Syles Insight 2016 / March 23, 2016

Letter to the Editor: Marquette’s Attempt to Fire Warrior Blogger

Dr. McAdams,

I read your post. I’m truly embarrassed to be an alumnus, but then the University has shared they are embarrassed to have me as an alumni before. Well maybe just one member of the administration, but still that’s enough.

Our family has been connected with Marquette for generations and I’m so thankful so many are no longer with us to see the shameful way the university disregards the beacon of ideas that a university is supposed to represent.

I’ve long felt Ms. abate should have been able to defend her decisions. However, her decisions seem to have been based on emotions of what she felt was right or wrong vs. what she knew to be right or wrong. Emotional decisions are often difficult to defend when academic logic is applied.

It is tragic that the University has chosen to place itself in the position of defending the fragile emotional arguments of a student / faculty rather than using these moments to deepen the roots of academic debate and thought. What a joy it would have been in this situation had taken a different turn and you and Ms. Abate or another faculty member that shared her views could have engaged in an academic discussion on the topic of Catholic views and doctrine in the modern academic world.

A discussion such as that would have been worthy of a symposium that Marquette could have been proud to host.

Instead the university looks like Queen Mary I of England; with blood on their hands desperate to quickly silence any opposition, or thoughts of opposition. Mary burned heretics at the stake in the public square thinking it would rally the people around the justice of her cause. It has the opposite effect, she was viewed as a tyrant murdering innocent people for the crime of thought. Like you drawing a parallel in your blog to the inquisition, I can’t help but see this parallel and think the current administration’s end will come much the same as Mary’s: alone, bankrupt, and without allies even in Holy Mother Church. I very much hope you do not end up playing the role of Archbishop Cranmer who Mary burned for refusing to recant the sin of thought.

Feel free to post this, but please do not use my name or email - I fear the inquisition...they can damage me personally and financially and have tried before.

[Name Withheld]

Crucifixion

Warrior Blogger on Marquette’s Attempt to Fire Him

Three radio shows where we discuss Marquette’s attempt to fire us:

On Charlie Sykes show, Friday, March 25, 2016:



On the Vicki McKenna show (hosted by Matt Kittle), Friday, March 25, 2016:

On the Jerry Bader show (Green Bay), Friday, March 25, 2016:

Tango While Rome Burns

Yes, Marquette Wants to Fire Warrior Blogger

It was announced Thursday,  which was (doubtless intentionally) the eve of the Good Friday holiday, and in the middle of March Madness. Marquette has decided how to punish this blogger for a post that revealed how an instructor in the Philosophy Department bullied a student who wanted to express his opposition to gay marriage in class. He was told “you don’t have a right in this class to make homophobic comments,” and further that it would be “offensive” to any gay students in the class if any such opinion was expressed.

Marquette reacted by telling us we would be stripped of tenure and fired.

After more than a year of legal wrangling and delay, Marquette President Michael Lovell, this past Thursday, sent to the Marquette community the following announcement:

Following the faculty statutes, a Faculty Hearing Committee made up of seven of Professor McAdams’ peers conducted a hearing over a period of four days last September. The committee consisted of a diverse set of tenured faculty members from different academic disciplines. After months of deliberations, the committee issued a thorough 123-page report to my office in January regarding Professor McAdams’ actions. It is noteworthy to mention that the report provided a unanimous recommendation on a path forward regarding the issue under consideration.

Today, I want you to know that after significant personal deliberation, I have decided to formally implement the Faculty Hearing Committee’s unanimous recommendation. While I cannot provide specific details of the recommendation because it relates to a personnel matter, I can assure you that my decision has been guided by Marquette University’s values and is solely based on Professor McAdams’ actions, and not political or ideological views expressed in his blog.

The same day, he announced our punishment in a letter to us:

I have decided to accept your fellow faculty members’ recommendation to suspend you without pay. Your suspension without pay will begin April 1, 2016, and continue through the Fall 2016 semester.

This was bad enough, but what follows is actually worse:

In addition, your return to the faculty on January 17, 2017, for the Spring 2017 semester is conditioned upon you delivering a written statement to the President’s Office by April 4, 2016, the details of which are contained later in this letter.

What statement is demanded?

• Your acknowledgement and acceptance of the unanimous judgment of the peers who served on the Faculty Hearing Committee.
• Your affirmation and commitment that your future actions and behavior will adhere to the standards of higher education as defined in the Marquette University Faculty Handbook, Mission Statement and Guiding Values.
• Your acknowledgement that your November 9, 2014, blog post was reckless and incompatible with the mission and values of Marquette University and you express deep regret for the harm suffered by our former graduate student and instructor, Ms. Abbate.

These demands are reminiscent of the Inquisition, in which victims who “confessed” they had been consorting with Satan and spreading heresy would be spared execution.

It is bizarre that Lovell can invoke Marquette’s “guiding values” to contravene the black letter guarantees of academic freedom embodied in University Statues.

Is free speech a “guiding value” of Marquette? Apparently not. Is protecting students who want to argue for Catholic teaching about marriage from bullying a “guiding value” of Marquette? Apparently, it’s not either. The Philosophy Department treated the student with hostility when he complained. Marquette had no problem with that. Not only was Abbate not even admonished that she had erred, it was conveyed to her that she had done nothing wrong. 

Dishonesty

But Lovell is downright dishonest in implying that he’s merely implementing the recommendations of the Faculty Hearing Committee. Their report (which is confidential) mentioned nothing about demanding any apology. It only recommended we be suspended without pay for one or two semesters.

It is disappointing that a faculty committee would not side with our academic freedom. But given the amount of politically correct intolerance among faculty these days, the committee’s refusal to go along with our firing was the most that could be expected.

One member of the committee, for example, had signed a statement attacking us. This member refused to recuse himself or herself. Two other members of the committee were overtly hostile during committee hearings.

Then there is the “toady factor.” A lot of faculty are inclined to give a university administration what it wants, since administrators have all kinds of goodies to hand out.

Thus the committee’s “unanimous” report is rather a mess, admitting that we have a right to blog about fellow faculty, and to blog about students, but then recommending that we be suspended for doing so! It bears all the marks of a long series of incoherent compromises between some members who wanted us fired, and others who didn’t.

Marquette’s Agenda

The addition of a demand that we abase ourself and issue an apology and sign a loyalty oath to vaguely defined “guiding values” and to the University’s “mission” is obviously a ploy by Marquette to give the administration an excuse to fire us. They have calculated, correctly, that we will do no such thing.

But the ploy is absolutely transparent, and won’t mitigate the realization that Marquette is an intolerant, politically correct institution whose “Catholic mission” is nothing but a marketing gimmick.

And an institution whose administrators have badly miscalculated the costs of trying to silence a tenured faculty member who has caused them embarrassment by revealing misconduct at the institution.

Attempt to Fire Warrior Blogger: Media React

It was largely eclipsed by March Madness, and the fact that it was revealed on the day before Good Friday (and too late in the day to make the 5:00 p.m. news), something that was doubtless intentional on Marquette’s part.   But the punishment the university wants to mete out to this blogger did get some media attention. Here is a short list of a few of the articles, and the “money quote” from each of them.

First, the local daily paper:

Marquette suspends John McAdams through the fall 2016 semester

Marquette Provost Daniel Myers said Thursday that the case was about upholding Marquette’s mission and values.

“We’re here to nurture and grow students in a way that hews to our Jesuit values,” he said. “In the end, these kinds of cases, for us, are really about making sure we live up to those values.”

WILL PRESS RELEASE | MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY DECISION ON PROFESSOR MCADAMS

Today, the University ignored that its almost sixteen-month suspension of Dr. McAdams was improper. While it followed the recommendation that he be suspended, it also imposed a requirement that, within two weeks, he admit his “guilt.” If he refuses to do so, he will not be reinstated. Such a requirement of self-abasement and compelled speech was not recommended by the Faculty Hearing Committee.

The Committee found that Marquette had improperly suspended Dr. McAdams in violation of his due process rights under the Faculty Statutes and disagreed with the University’s desire to terminate him. It did recommend that he be suspended for one to two semesters, with benefits, but without pay.

In its lengthy report, the Faculty Hearing Committee gave lip service to academic freedom but made it subject to a multi-factor after-the-fact balancing test that would leave members of the university with no real guidance or protection other than the sufferance of their colleagues. In other words, University faculty retain freedom of speech only so far as their colleagues are willing to tolerate it.

McAdams: ‘Academic freedom means nothing at Marquette’

If McAdams doesn’t admit his “guilt” within the next two weeks, he will not be reinstated.

He remains defiant, saying he will not apologize.

“Marquette’s administration appears to believe that they can simply ignore the guarantee of academic freedom contained in faculty contracts, and get rid of a professor who has created problems for them by blowing the whistle on various kinds of misconduct at the institution,” McAdams told Wisconsin Watchdog.

“I didn’t violate any rule that they have. They have just concocted a claim based on vague rhetoric about Marquette’s values. In the face of such actions, academic freedom means nothing at Marquette,” the professor added.

Marquette Continues to Earn ‘Worst School’ for Free Speech Label With New Punishments for McAdams

This development comes as the result of recommendations made to Marquette President Michael Lovell by a faculty hearing committee in January. However, according to a report today from Inside Higher Ed, a lawyer for McAdams claims that the faculty panel never recommended, in its confidential 123-page report, that McAdams apologize as a condition for his return to work—a condition that amounts to an age-old inquisitorial tactic used to violate freedom of conscience through compelled speech. That condition, it appears, was apparently imposed by the administration.

. . .

As a result of Marquette’s complete disregard for McAdams’ right to free speech and academic freedom, FIRE placed the university on its list of the worst colleges for free speech in each of the last two years. With Marquette’s latest unjust actions against McAdams, the university seems to be angling for permanent residence on our list.

Historic Détente

Andrew Klavan: I’m Angry, So I’m Going to Vote for Donald Trump

Had to Happen: College Snowflake Whines about “Cultural Appropriation” on St. Patrick’s Day

Yes, in The Concordian (student paper of Concordia College in Moorhead, Minnesota): a politically correct student complaining about the “cultural appropriation” of St. Patrick’s day.

First, the student, one Johnny Wagner, admits that:

Some of the greatest features of living in the United States come from the vast diversity of cultures. Many Americans are proud to live in a place where one store sells both Chinese food and pizza — both good foods, both from different cultures.

But then he turns to an arcane feminist source to get really politically correct:

Everyday Feminism Magazine offers a deeper understanding of cultural appropriation: “a particular power dynamic in which members of a dominant culture take elements from a culture of people who have been systematically oppressed by that dominant group.” Basically, for there to be cultural appropriation, there must be a majority party that is taking important, celebrated aspects of another, more oppressed party. . . . When Irish people first came to the United States, especially after the potato famine, they were oppressed and marginalized by the other people who already lived here. Furthermore, most of the people who celebrate St. Patrick’s Day now do not understand its cultural significance. Thus, St. Patrick’s Day is, in fact, an example of subtle cultural appropriation.

So it doesn’t matter that the Irish have done well in America, and in no way approximate an “oppressed group.” Since they once were, they always are.

This standard, of course, makes virtually the entire population of the United States is oppressed. Everybody has ancestors who lived under oppression somewhere. Even the Pilgrims lived under religious oppression in England, so if your ancestors came over on the Mayflower, you can claim to be oppressed!

Other common examples of cultural appropriation include white people wearing cornrows or dreadlocks, and schools and football teams having offensive Native American mascots.

In the first place, real world American Indians don’t mind Indian team names. And we have seen no evidence that black people generally (as opposed to campus race hustlers) mind whites wearing dreadlocks.  In fact, real white racists would carefully avoid anything associated with black people.

Some examples of cultural appropriation had lasting, positive effects on one culture, while negatively affecting another. The best example of this is the way African American music has been taken over by white people. Many Americans mistakenly believe that Elvis Presley, “The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll,” was the first person to produce that style of music. Rock ‘n’ Roll music, one of the most appreciated musical revolutions in history, was not invented by Elvis, though. Actually, Rock ‘n’ Roll comes originally from African American artists. Even the term “Rock ‘n’ Roll” is appropriated from African American culture — originally existing as black slang for having sex. When white people claimed Rock ‘n’ Roll, the effect on black culture was devastating in that an entire art form was stolen, and future profits went to white people instead of African Americans. The same has occurred recently with hip-hop, in that white rappers like Eminem, Macklemore, and Iggy Azalea have gained success and fame from a style of music created by black culture. In some cases, white rappers have had more success than the African American rappers who created the genre. While cultural appropriation of these genres of music has negatively affected the African Americans who were the original producers of the music, consumers of the two genres gained immense amounts of quality material.

The ignorance of history here is appalling. When Rock and Roll because wildly popular in the 1950s, it made black stars such as Fats Domino, Chuck Barry and Little Richard famous and rich. With black artists having become mainstream, music empires such as Motown and Stax Records (Memphis) blossomed.

Then there is the fact that a lot of “black music” was recorded and promoted by whites — Sam Phillips of Sun Records being the most famous example.

And some “black music” was written by whites. Elvis’ “Hound Dog” was first recorded by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton, but it was written by two white guys (Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller). Leiber and Stoller also wrote several classics for The Coasters, a black group.

Notice the irony. Traditional liberals would love the idea that blacks and whites could collaborate to produce great things. The new style politically correct leftists want racial purity — so long as it’s black racial purity.

For Wagner, it would apparently have been better if black music had been isolated on black-oriented radio stations and in venues that catered to black audiences.

Of course, when black artists perform “white music,” that might seem to be equally objectionable. Thus a black opera singer, or symphony musician, would seem to be an offender. But Wagner has an answer for that:

It is impossible for a person from an oppressed culture to practice cultural appropriation because, more times than not, oppressed people have to adopt aspects of the majority culture whether they want to or not.

Thus when whites adopt artifacts of black culture, blacks are the victim. When blacks adopt aspects of white culture, blacks are the victim.

Write that down. Whites are always the oppressor. Blacks are always the victim.

Wagner concludes:

Overall, whether one’s cultural appropriation is acceptable or not comes down to one simple question: is somebody from the culture you are appropriating offended by what you are wearing, doing or saying? If the answer is yes, then you are wrong.

But suppose the person who claims offense is a silly twit? Is any member of a supposed oppressed group (even if, like the Irish, they are not oppressed) authorized to shut up any expression they don’t like?

But then Wagner says something offensive:

St. Patrick was known for going to Ireland and converting the entire country to Catholicism, but not everybody wants to thank him for the way Catholicism controls the government and the morality of the people.

So Wagner, who has sternly lectured people about not saying things that are offensive, says something offensive to Catholics (or at least to loyal Catholics who follow Church teaching).

But that’s OK, since in the world of the politically correct, Catholics are on oppressor group, not an oppressed group. Never mind that, in the real world, Catholics have often been oppressed.

Wagner, quite simply, shows the bone-headed illogic and the nasty prejudices that characterize modern academia.

Together Again

Hall of Shame: University of Illinois Chicago Faculty and Staff Who Wanted Trump Rally Banned

People who have been following this blog know that we are no fan of Donald Trump. But leftists who have tried to shut down his rallies are simply fascists.

Case in point: a bunch of faculty and staff from the University of Illinois, Chicago who demanded that the institution not allow the Donald Trump campaign to use a university venue for a rally.

At all public universities, the First Amendment prevails, and any limits on speech must be “viewpoint neutral.” In other words, you can’t refuse somebody the use of a venue simply because you disagree with him.

The mainstream media (and Trump’s Republican opponents) have largely blamed Trump’s own inflammatory rhetoric. But one evil doesn’t justify another. And leftists who want to call Trump a fascist should not step on their own narrative by acting like fascists themselves.

Here is the list of people who should be ashamed of themselves because of their intolerance of speech they disapprove.

Republican Debate: Cop Killer Honored by Marquette Mentioned

That’s right. Marco Rubio is talking about Assata Shakur, a black militant who killed a cop in New Jersey, was sent to prison, broken out by her cohorts, and is now in Cuba, under the protection of the Communist government.

This is the same woman who was honored by a mural in Marquette’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center.

When we outed the mural, Marquette had it painted over, and fired the Director of the Center (who had approved the mural, knowing full well who Shakur was).

In a bizarre twist, several dozen leftist faulty leaped to the defense of the mural.

Beware the Ides (and All the Rest Of) March

The New Shame of (Democratic) Cities

Marquette Theology Professor Critiques University’s Gender Regime

From First Things, Marquette Theology Professor Mickey L. Mattox on the “gender regime” of this supposedly Catholic university:

Working in my Marquette office one afternoon in the spring of 2010, I heard unusual sounds coming from the normally quiet lawns outside my window. I was surprised to see a modest assembly of students and professors preparing to march in protest. Against what? Minutes later, an email arrived informing me that the university’s then-president, Robert Wild, S.J., had voided a contract extended to Jodi O’Brien to join us as Dean of the College of Arts and Sciences. Though the contract had already been signed, Fr. Wild—perhaps under external pressure—decided that O’Brien, a partnered lesbian whose research included queer studies, was not an appropriate choice to represent our mission and identity.

Although an ordinary person with a passing knowledge of the moral teachings of the Catholic Church would think such a decision obvious, the department chairs in the college soon gathered and voted almost unanimously to censure Wild’s decision. The press, meanwhile, demanded an explanation. On the ­defensive, the university allegedly paid a considerable sum in order to break the contract. Officials were soon exercising themselves to demonstrate their concern for equitable treatment of gays and lesbians. The university would initiate projects, courses, conferences, and the like to explore issues of sex and gender! The clear implication was that change would come, though slowly. Marquette would get with the sexual-liberation program so that something like the O’Brien affair would never happen again.

And that, indeed, is what has happened.

Since 2010, the campaign for sexual diversity at Marquette has advanced rapidly. Last year, the university announced the expansion of the former Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (established in the wake of the O’Brien dustup) into two new initiatives: a Center for Gender and Sexualities Studies and an LGBTQ Resource Center. How much funding has been increased has not been disclosed. We also now have an Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion, which offers faculty and staff awards for excellence in, yes, “diversity and inclusion.” Again, how much this will cost hasn’t been revealed. We do know, however, that funds have been promised to support the development of new courses that advance the cause. A faculty fellows program in diversity is also in the works.

“Diversity” and “inclusion” are vague and uncertain terms that can mean almost anything. Here at Marquette they have become code for challenging Catholic sexual morality and pushing forward a gender ideology that denies that human beings were created as male and female in the image of God. Attempting to ­instill communal meaning through the new quest for diversity, Marquette news releases breathlessly announce that the struggle for civil rights begun by Martin Luther King Jr. is now being fulfilled here by the campaign for the inclusion of sexual minorities.

. . .

Meanwhile, recent announcements from university leaders indicate that they are increasingly comfortable affirming LGBTQ ideology. Their language remains cautious about explicitly endorsing revisionist accounts of sexuality and the human person. It is nevertheless clear that Marquette’s leaders do not share the grave concerns about LGBTQ ­theory expressed by the United States ­Conference of Catholic Bishops and other representatives of the Church’s magisterium.

Senior officials endorse LGBTQ programs without qualification, casting doubt on their readiness to affirm Church teaching. In fact, the level of enthusiasm for LGBTQ causes casts doubt on their willingness to tolerate anyone who thinks otherwise.

Imagine, for example, a new freshman who has recently completed an invigorating course on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body in her parish. After orientation week at Marquette, will she feel free to express her newfound understanding of the nuptial meaning of the body? Or will she fear that her words will be treated as exclusionary and hateful?

I’m afraid the questions answer themselves. The problem with the new inclusion, of course, is that it’s not inclusive, nor can it be. It is simply a new way of defining sexual morality that masquerades as a bureaucratic, therapeutic project of “inclusion.” At Marquette, it’s clear that this project seeks to displace traditional Catholic accounts of sexual morality.

By all means read the entire essay.

Aside from the bureaucratic motives of University officials, one might think that the new gender regime is just the result of “tolerance.” Why be unkind to people who are gay or lesbian, or transgender, or even gender queer?

The problem with this is that tolerance is a two way street. Gays and lesbians, for example, have a right not to be demeaned or derided. But they don’t have a right to demand affirmation of their sexual activity from anybody else. Such a demand is itself intolerant.

In a genuinely Catholic university, gays and lesbians should hear Church teaching about sexuality taught. It should be taught respectfully, and nobody has to agree with it, but wanting it censored is intolerant.

For example, the National Catholic Register reported that at Marquette:

At least one theology faculty member teaching about Genesis in his classroom received a [harassment] complaint, after a student who had two fathers objected to the classroom presentation of the Church’s teaching of marriage.

It’s clear who was intolerant here.

Inclusion for Only Some

Of course, for the inclusion crowd, challenging the faith of Catholic students is fine. Late last semester, one member of a group of Concerned Catholics reported “a student who told him of a professor who has made slurs against the Church e.g. mocking the idea of Mary’s virginity etc. in class.”

Actual mocking should be out of bounds at Marquette, although dissent from Catholic teaching is protected by academic freedom. But if a majority of the faculty overtly dissent from Catholic teaching, Marquette should cease calling itself Catholic.

Likewise, saying things to which black students might take exception is forbidden, but berating white students about their “white privilege” is just fine. So is bashing white males.

Thus the use of words like “tolerance” and “inclusion” by the campus left is downright Orwellian. Genuine tolerance would mean tolerating Catholic views on sexuality (and indeed criticism of such views). Genuine tolerance would require that gays have no more right to demand affirmation of their sexual activity than Republicans have to demand that all Democrats convert to Republican political views.

Genuine “inclusion” would demand acceptance of the idea that Marquette has a right to be genuinely Catholic, just as this or that private liberal arts college has a right to be secular.

It is, in fact, the campus left that is most intolerant and exclusionary.

Campus Free Speech Discussed at CPAC

An interesting panel, hosted by Milwukee’s Charlie Sykes, about free speech on campus, at the meeting of the Conservative Political Action Conference.

And yes, we make a very brief cameo appearance.

Not Scary

Marquette Warrior at CPAC

This coming weekend, we will be on the program at the Conservative Political Action Conference in Washington. Here is the official description:

Panel Objective

The objective of this panel is to show how liberals in the federal government, state government and private institutions are manipulating the laws, regulations, and rules to prevent conservatives from having a voice.

Panel Title

● Locking You Up, Shutting You Up & Shutting You Down: The Left’s End Game

Participants

● Janet Riorden, Bradley Foundation (Moderator)
● Catherine Engelbrecht, True the Vote
● John McAdams, Marquette University and Marquette Warrior Blog
● Rick Esenberg, Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty

Event Location

● Chesapeake 3-4, Gaylord National Resort
● Saturday, March 5th, 10:15 AM – 11:15 AM

Engelbrecht, of True the Vote, heads one of those organizations which was the target of the IRS, which refused to give it tax exempt status, part of a partisan attack on conservative organizations.

We, of course, will talk about the attempt of Marquette to fire us, and therefore shut up our criticism of political correctness at Marquette.

Esenburg, in addition to being our lawyer in dealing with Marquette, will talk about Milwaukee District Attorney John T. Chisholm’s John Doe “investigation.” In fact, the “investigation” was a campaign of harassment aimed at Wisconsin conservative organizations, based on a legal theory that was not merely questionable, but downright nonexistent.

As the program shows, pretty much everybody who is anybody in the world of conservative politics will be there. Our somewhat skeptical political scientist’s view is that CPAC is just a big conservative pep rally. But why not be a cultural anthropologist, and scope out the culture?

We, in fact, are very much looking forward to it.

Desperate for a Different Outcome