Lovell’s Falsehood: Linked to Abbate’s Contact Information
Marquette President Michael Lovell has repeatedly claimed that we, in a November 9, 2104 blog post, linked to the “contact information” of one Cherly Abbate, the philosophy instructor who told an undergraduate that he was not allowed to voice opposition to gay marriage in her class since it would be “homophobic” and “offensive.”
He made this claim most recently in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, and in an “FAQ” posted on Marquette’s website in April of 2016.
This is important because Marquette wants to claim that we somehow encouraged or incited the unkind e-mails Abbate got when the story went national.
When our case was being argued before the District Court, Marquette’s lawyer (Ralph Weber) told the judge that we had “linked to Abbate’s contact information.” The judge, David A. Hansher, asked why we would do that. Weber responded “because he wanted to hurt her.”
Unfortunately, the claim that we linked to her contact information is flatly untrue.
Here is the link. As you can see, there is nothing there now.
But courtesy of archive.org, this is what it looked like in November 2014. Is there any contact information there? No, there is not.
But suppose, on that page, you go to Abbate’s toxic feminist essay “Yes All Men… Contribute to the Prevalence of Rape” at the bottom left of the page. You end up here.
Still no contact information.
But then you might click on “Cheryl E Abbate” at the bottom of the page, and you end up here. This is promising. At the top right-hand part of the page, it says “How to contact Cheryl.” When you click on that, and then go back to the December 2013 version of the page, you finally find her e-mail address.
If we want to be generous, we might say Marquette has been stretching the truth. If we want to be less generous, Marquette has been out and out lying.
He made this claim most recently in a letter to the Wall Street Journal, and in an “FAQ” posted on Marquette’s website in April of 2016.
This is important because Marquette wants to claim that we somehow encouraged or incited the unkind e-mails Abbate got when the story went national.
When our case was being argued before the District Court, Marquette’s lawyer (Ralph Weber) told the judge that we had “linked to Abbate’s contact information.” The judge, David A. Hansher, asked why we would do that. Weber responded “because he wanted to hurt her.”
Unfortunately, the claim that we linked to her contact information is flatly untrue.
Linking to Her Blog
We linked to Abbate’s blog twice, once in the original November 9, 2014 post, and again in a November 13, 2014 post.Here is the link. As you can see, there is nothing there now.
But courtesy of archive.org, this is what it looked like in November 2014. Is there any contact information there? No, there is not.
But suppose, on that page, you go to Abbate’s toxic feminist essay “Yes All Men… Contribute to the Prevalence of Rape” at the bottom left of the page. You end up here.
Still no contact information.
But then you might click on “Cheryl E Abbate” at the bottom of the page, and you end up here. This is promising. At the top right-hand part of the page, it says “How to contact Cheryl.” When you click on that, and then go back to the December 2013 version of the page, you finally find her e-mail address.
Did Anybody Actually Do That?
So if somebody dug hard enough, they could have found her e-mail address on her blog. But suppose they just Googled up a list of Marquette Philosophy graduate students? There Abbate is, along with her e-mail.If we want to be generous, we might say Marquette has been stretching the truth. If we want to be less generous, Marquette has been out and out lying.
Labels: Academic Freedom, Cheryl Abbate, John McAdams, Leftist Intolerance, Liberal Intolerance, Marquette University, Michael Lovell, Political Correctness, Warrior Blogger
posted by John McAdams at 7:22 PM
1 Comments:
First off, your victory last week is great and very important news.
As to your "linking" to the contact information, I just got around to seeing this post. I need to scour the SCOWIS opinion to determine if it put your rebuttal/refutation information on the record.
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