Marquette’s Stunning Hypocrisy on “Hard to Hear” Opinions

From an article by Jerry Bader in Media Trackers:

The Winter Edition of Marquette University’s “Marquette Magazine” includes what appears to be a self-congratulatory piece where open expression on campus is concerned, through its yearlong Marquette Forum series. The column chronicles the university’s fall semester efforts to generate discourse on the topic of racial justice and inequality:

During the fall semester the university seized the moment when issues of racial justice and inequality were central in the national and local consciousnesses to launch a conversation format designed to inspire thinking — together. Those efforts included hosting a conversation with Sam Pollard about his film Two Trains Runnin’, which was featured at the Milwaukee Film Festival and a panel discussion “Segregation in Milwaukee: A Conversation with Leaders on the Near West Side.”

The sub-headline for the article was:

This is about talking and listening even when opinions may be hard to hear. This is about being a university.

The irony of that sentiment was not lost on suspended MU professor John McAdams. McAdams, you may recall, was suspended for a blog post about an instructor who wouldn’t allow debate over same sex marriage in her philosophy class. In January, McAdams received a letter telling him his suspension would continue until he apologized. Media Trackers asked McAdams for his opinion on the Marquette Magazine piece:

It’s absurdly ironic, since Marquette only wants to hear opinions from the hard left.

There are plenty of voices who would dissent from the uniform leftist slant of these programs. One thinks of Walter Williams and Thomas Sowell. On criminal justice issues, there is Heather McDonald. I could name a dozen more. But nobody who at all dissents from the notion of blacks as entirely innocent victims of white oppression is allowed to speak.

The notion that any of these issues should be debated seems never to have crossed the minds of the Marquette bureaucrats. There is only one “social justice” position, and every person of good will agrees on it, and only evil people refuse to sign on.

This is radically at odds with what discourse at any university should be, but it’s all too typical of academia today. There is no “engagement” with diverse ideas, but only one-sided indoctrination.

The only saving grace is that few people who don’t already think this way will attend. That is unless their instructors bribe students with extra credit or require attendance.

It is not “hard to hear” opinions you agree with. Marquette is happy to serve up ideas “hard to hear” for conservatives (typically “hard to hear” because they are absurd) but unwilling to allow anything that the politically correct liberals would find “hard to hear.”

In fact, the whole year of Marquette-sponsored programs has been entirely devoid of anything but standard leftist indoctrination.

Infrastructure of Indoctrination

Consider, for example, a faculty program “Faculty Conversations on Learning: Sparking Curiosity in our Students.” The point, as we have noted, was not at all to spark curiosity, but rather to encourage faculty to indoctrinate students into the standard politically correct view of racial issues.

Then there is the Center for Intercultural Engagement. How politically correct are they? Each staff member lists his or her “preferred pronoun” on the assumption that some “transgender” or “gender queer” or such person might dislike “he” or “she.” One of the staff (Enrique Tejada III) wants to be referred to as “they,” even though there is only one of him.

Not surprisingly, the list of events sponsored or supported by this office is a smorgasbord of politically-correct identity politics, with lots of gay and lesbian events, “dreamers” (read: young illegals) events, and a “Dining in Drag” event.

Catholic teaching on homosexuality is nowhere to be found. Why? That opinion is “hard to hear.” So is the opinion that we should control the border and stop illegal immigration. Those opinions aren’t allowed at Marquette, at least so long as campus bureaucrats are controlling the discourse.

Mission Week

Marquette’s Mission week is merely more of the same. Titled “Black, White and the Call of the Church,” there is not the slightest mention of the problems that most afflict the black community: illegitimacy, a high crime rate, drug use and poor urban schools.

Rather, it’s all about white racism. The video about the event gives the full flavor:

Angela Davis

And of course, Marquette is bringing Angela Davis to campus. Of course, having extremist speakers (and Davis is a communist) as part of a diverse menu of provocative and even extremist opinions is perfectly fine at any university. But there is no diversity in the events Marquette has scheduled. It’s all about leftist indoctrination, with Davis merely being the most extreme of a uniform slate of leftists.