Threatened Incoming Marquette Freshman Conservative: Letter to Admissions Dean

“Brian” here is Brian Troyer, Marquette Dean of Admissions.  Background on this is here.

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Brian:
              You have, in recent days, been subjected to demands from a leftist mob that you cancel the admission to Marquette of a woman named Samantha.  She expressed some political opinions on social media to which the mob objected, and now they want to punish her.

              You, unfortunately, have encouraged this by cancelling another incoming freshman student who likewise made a social media post the mob found unacceptable.

              If you give the mob what it wants this time, you will face a situation where you will be swamped with demands that any conservative student who expressed his or her opinions on social media be cancelled.  It will spiral out of control.  It is time to draw the line.

              The mob, of course, will say it’s not any conservative opinion to which they object, but only “hate speech” directed at “marginalized groups.”  It should be obvious to you that these people are so immersed in identity politics that any conservative opinion is interpreted this way.  Oppose abortion, and you are “sexist.”  Oppose gay marriage and you are “homophobic.”  Oppose tearing down statues (even Lincoln and U.S. Grant) and you are favoring “white supremacy.”

              The mob is intolerant of any and all disagreement.

Your Interrogation

              Samantha says that, during the interrogation to which your office subjected her, she was told that someone with her political opinions on campus would make favored victim groups feel “unsafe.”

              This would be hilarious if it were not so outrageous.

              The mob is essentially taking the position that they feel “unsafe” merely because of the existence of people who disagree with them.  I’m sure you would have no sympathy for a business major who claimed to feel “unsafe” hearing the philosophy of Karl Marx, or a devout Catholic who claimed to feel “unsafe” hearing atheist arguments.

              But those are not politically correct victim groups.  Thus it is fine to subject them to arguments and viewpoints with which they disagree.   Indeed, that should be a key part of a college education.

              It is condescending and paternalistic to believe that favored victim groups should be protected from viewpoints with which they are presumed to disagree.

              Note that I say “presumed” since not all members of victim groups believe what white leftists think they are supposed to believe.  American Indians, for example, don’t mind the athletic nickname “Redskins,” according to a poll in the Washington Post.

              It would be one thing if Samantha had, for example, advocated beating up transgender people.  But she did no such thing.  She simply asserted that if somebody is a biological male, she refuses to believe that they are really female merely because they think they are female.

              She has science on her side.

              She also has the teachings of the Catholic Church on her side.  Pope Francis has spoken out on this.   Do you really want to cancel the admission of a student because she stands with Catholic teaching on gender?  Do you want to reinforce the narrative that says Marquette is no sort of “Catholic university” but just a secular politically correct one?

Unsafe?

              But the claims on behalf of favored victim groups that they feel “unsafe” are simply lies.  The worst thing they might face at Marquette is somebody who disagrees with them, and that happens far too little.

              But they know that claims of being “offended” and feeling “unsafe” are tactics they can use to shut up and stifle opinions of which they are intolerant.

              It speaks very badly of the Marquette administration when they accept – either through naïveté or unprincipled expediency – such claims.

              Ironically, Samantha has been subjected to posts promising or wanting physical violence against her.  So who is “unsafe?”

Litmus Test

              So this issue is a litmus test for the Marquette administration.  Does Marquette care about tolerance and diversity of opinion, or is it just a secular, politically correct reeducation camp, with a rigid orthodoxy.  And indeed an orthodoxy that is not merely heedless of Catholic teaching, but hostile to it.

              A huge amount of evidence supports that latter view.  Do you want to give students, potential students, alumni and the general public yet more evidence that it’s true?

John McAdams

Political Science

Marquette Warrior Blog

Warrior Blogger, Threatened Incoming Marquette Freshman Conservative on Steve Scaffidi

Samantha (the Student) Warrior Blogger

Threatened Incoming Marquette Freshman Conservative on Vicki McKenna

Belling Chews Out Marquette Over Threat to Incoming Freshman Conservative

Marquette Threatens to Cancel Acceptance of Conservative Student / Panders to Leftist Mob

What happens to you if you are a recent high school graduate, just admitted to Marquette, and you go on Tik Toc to boldly affirm that you are a supporter of Donald Trump?

The answer is: some leftist Marquette students demand your offer of admission be rescinded.

And how does Marquette respond to such demands? It calls in the student for an Inquisition about her political beliefs, and tells her she may be kicked out of the Freshman class.

As usual, Marquette panders to the leftist mob.

The Beginning

This particular student, whose identity we will not reveal, is quite outspoken in her support of Donald Trump. She posted on TikTok a video of herself over a hip-hop song with the letters on the screen saying “when people see that I support Trump, they start hating on me.” And further: “Then try to hate on me, and think I’ll change my views.”

The TikTok video was apparently noticed by one Erin Cook, who reposted it on Instagram, with the notation “Shits tacky. Pls watch out for this one, MU.” Yes, you really have to watch out for those Trump supporters.

We can tell how much Cook hates Trump from a meme she posted on Instagram:

The Campaign Begins

But Cook was not content with this. She wrote to Marquette’s Dean of Admissions, apparently demanding the student’s admissions be cancelled. We say “apparently,” since she did not post her message to Bryan Troyer. But she did post his response:

Cook also began a campaign to get fellow leftists to write Marquette. Her Instagram profile has a notation “Email Marquette Admin.” A down arrow leads to a PDF document that is supposed to be slightly customized and sent to a long list of Marquette officials. It outlines the supposed offenses of the student.

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The Supposed Offenses

The document attacks the student for “posting her explicit political views.” Heaven help us if somebody should be “explicit” about their political views.

Further: “she is defending President Trump’s stance on immigration” — something that clearly should not be allowed — and “arguing that undocumented immigrants are ‘illegals’ and ‘only here to commit crime.’” Of course, they are here illegally,  and it’s dishonest to use “undocumented.”

And she in fact never said immigrants are “only here to commit crime.”  She did say that immigrants increase crime, but didn’t say they are more crime prone than other groups.

The student is further accused to mocking transgender individuals in a YouTube video where she is wondering around a thrift store. She points to a pair of of shoes that are a woman’s style, but a very large size. She says “those are cross-dressing shoes.”

This is supposedly an outrage, not withstanding that biological males who cross-dress do, in fact, have feet way larger than the typical woman.

Cook takes offense at another post by the student on transgenderism.

The irony here, of course, is that the student’s position is essentially that of the Catholic Church. Not that Marquette bureaucrats care about that in the least.

Feeling Unsafe

The document ends with the usual claim of the politically correct:  people will feel “unsafe” if allowed to hear political arguments they don’t like.

These comments create and perpetuate an unsafe space for the LGBTQ+ community, first generation students, and Dreamers at Marquette. . . . The University can and should make it their priority to ensure students (specifically LGBTQ+, immigrants, first gen [sic], and POC) feel safe, valued and appreciated on campus.

In the first place, anybody who is too cowardly to hear political arguments they don’t like doesn’t belong on a college campus.

But in the second place, it’s a lie. These leftist students simply don’t feel unsafe. But claiming to be  offended hearing arguments they don’t like, and feeling “unsafe” are claims used to bully into silence people with whom they disagree.

Student Harassed

The student began getting nasty messages and e-mail from leftists. We have included a sampling below.

There are a lot more.

Marquette Responds

Such messages are relatively minor, obviously from idiots, but much worse is what Marquette could do.

The student was subjected to an inquisition by officials from the Admissions Office. The point: was she really the evil conservative that the leftist students claimed.

According to the student:

It did not appear that they were placated. If anything the hostility with which they spoke was made apparent in their questioning as if nothing I said could liberate me from their judgments, only convict me further.

Of course, this being an Inquisition, there is no way to prove your innocence to the Inquisitors. If you are accused, you are guilty.

We will see what they will do. But given Marquette’s pandering to leftist students claiming to represent some victim group, we are not optimistic.

We queried Brian Troyer, Dean of Admissions, and he simply responded that “I cannot discuss matters under review involving future and/or continuing MU students.” We didn’t expect him to.

And we have pretty much given up expecting Marquette to care about free speech, a diversity of opinion, and Catholic thinking.

Or challenging students to consider ideas they might dislike. Unless they are conservative students. But there are going to be many fewer of those.

Update

New, recent messages posted about the student:

All of these, of course, show the deranged hatred leftist students at Marquette have for people who don’t share their political views.

Yet these are the sort of people to whom Marquette panders.

Undate: 7/11/2020

The nasty messages keep coming:

An Honest Conversation on Race: Politically Correct Edition

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What Nations Are Worst Hit By Corona Virus?

From the New York Post and Statista, and obviously subject to change as the pandemic ebbs (hopefully) and some places, and waxes (probably) in others.

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These data are worth seeing because the Trump-hating leftists want to blame COVID deaths on Trump. So of course they report that the US has the largest absolute number of deaths.

But that’s not relevant. Larger countries are going to have more cases, even if the probability of any random person getting the virus is the same. It’s cold comfort that fewer of your countrymen are getting the disease than Americans if more of the people you know are getting it. And if you have a greater chance of getting it.

So if Trump somehow could have reacted earlier and done something to reduce the death count, why didn’t leaders of these European nations act earlier and do something to reduce their death count?

The answer, of course, is that this is all Monday morning quarterbacking, and it took a while for politicians — Democrat and Republican, American and European — to realize the severity of what their countries faced.

These countries are all advanced industrial democracies, so one might ask about less developed nations. The simple answer is that the virus has spread in places with high population density, and places where there is a lot of travel with the outside world. That’s why New York was hit so early and so hard. It’s also why states in the northern Great Plains have been hit less hard.

And, of course, outside the politicized world of Trump hatred — and Trump support — the key decisions have been made by governors and mayors who imposed lock-downs, closed businesses, imposed rules on social distancing, and so on.

Whether those rules have been too strict in some cases — or indeed whether America is opening up too soon — will be a source of continual debate.

The Politically Incorrect Truth About Race and Policing

From Jason Riley in the Wall Street Journal

The Full Truth About Race and Policing

Chicago has long been one of the nation’s most dangerous big cities, and it seems determined to keep that distinction.

The Chicago Sun-Times reports that 18 people were killed on one Sunday, May 31, “making it the single most violent day in Chicago in six decades.” Over the full weekend, “25 people were killed in the city, with another 85 wounded by gunfire.” None of these deaths or shootings involved police, so there will be no massive protests over them, no tearful commentary on cable news and social media, no white politicians wrapped in Kente cloth taking a knee for photographers.

Sadly, the only thing remarkable about the episode is that it occurred in the middle of a national discussion about policing. The political left, with a great deal of assistance from the mainstream media, has convinced many Americans that George Floyd’s death in police custody is an everyday occurrence for black people in this country, and that racism permeates law enforcement. The reality is that the carnage we witness in Chicago is what’s typical, law enforcement has next to nothing to do with black homicides, and the number of interactions between police and low-income blacks is driven by crime rates, not bias. According to the Sun-Times, there were 492 homicides in Chicago last year, and only three of them involved police.

So long as blacks are committing more than half of all murders and robberies while making up only 13% of the population, and so long as almost all of their victims are their neighbors, these communities will draw the lion’s share of police attention. Defunding the police, or making it easier to prosecute officers, will only result in more lives lost in those neighborhoods that most need protecting.

There’s nothing wrong with having a debate about better policing strategies, how to root out bad cops, the role of police unions and so forth. But that conversation needs perspective and context, and the press rarely provides it. People are protesting because the public has been led to believe that racist cops are gunning for blacks, yet the available evidence shows that police use of deadly force has plunged in recent decades, including in big cities with large populations of low-income minorities. In the early 1970s, New York City police officers shot more than 300 people a year. By 2019 that number had fallen to 34.

Part of the confusion stems from attempts to equate any racial disparities with racism, which is as mistaken as equating age and gender disparities with systemic discrimination. Young people are incarcerated at higher rates than older people, and men draw more police attention than women. Is something fishy going on here, or do such outcomes simply reflect the fact that young men are behind most violent crimes? When journalists break down police behavior by race but don’t do the same for criminal behavior, you’re not getting the whole story.

A recent New York Times report, for example, tells us that the racial makeup of Minneapolis is 20% black and 60% white, and that police there “used force against black people at a rate at least seven times that of white people during the past five years.” Left out of the story are the rates at which blacks and whites in Minneapolis commit crime in general and violent crime in particular. Nor are we told whether there is any evidence that white and black suspects of similar offenses are treated differently. Minneapolis may in fact have issues with police bias, but drawing conclusions about the extent of the problem or even whether one exists would be premature based on the information provided.

Reports about race and policing that omit relevant facts to push a predetermined narrative are not only misleading but harmful, especially to blacks. We know from decades of experience that when police pull back, criminals gain the advantage and black communities suffer, both physically and economically. A common assumption among liberals is that the movement of inner-city jobs to the suburbs in the late 1960s is what led to the higher rates of crime, violence and other social pathologies associated with ghetto life. But this gets the order wrong. The business flight took place after the rioting, not before. Will history repeat itself?

The Walmart and Target stores in Chicago that were looted last week are two of the city’s largest retailers. They employ a disproportionate number of low-skilled workers, and they haven’t decided whether to reopen. If they don’t, it could mean fewer jobs and higher prices for underserved minorities. Before we divert resources away from policing, maybe we should consider the effect it would have on the willingness and ability of businesses to operate in places where they’re most needed.

All of this is just more evidence that people on the left fundamentally don’t care about the welfare of black people. They simply view them as a client group that serves their political purposes.

Oh, they have convinced themselves they care. But when push comes to shove, they side with (mostly white) teacher’s unions rather than black families that would benefit from school choice. When riots are tearing up neighborhoods, they side with the rioters, seeming not to have noticed that it’s mostly black neighborhoods being torn up.

On issues of policing, they see cops in black neighborhoods as an “occupying army” and call for “defunding the police,” implicitly, but clearly, siding with black criminals rather than law-abiding black citizens.

Stephanie Rapkin, Who Spat on a Leftist Protester, Is Herself a Leftist

Shorewood lawyer Stephanie Rapkin spat on a black leftist protester while she was being verbally assaulted by other protesters. The person she spat on was rushing at her, with his hands cupped at his mouth, presumably to shout at her.

This, of course, because yet another racial grievance, leading officials in Shorewood to huff and puff about how there is festering racism in their own, absurdly liberal, suburb.

And also to demand that Rapkin, a lawyer, be disbarred.

Rapkin is a Leftist

How Rapkin votes is, of course, secret. Being Jewish, the odds are strongly in favor of her voting for Democrats.

And in Shorewood which in 2016 voted 77% for Hillary Clinton, and 17% for Donald Trump, a Republican voting Jewish lawyer would be odd.

But it turns out that contributions to ideological political action committees are public, available on the Federal Election Commission website.

She hasn’t contributed much. In fact only one $5 contribution in the last 12 years (although there may have been more not reported to the Federal Elections Commission). But it was to the leftist group ActBlue, which advertises itself as “Powering Democratic candidates, committees, parties, organizations, and c4s around the country.”

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One might be inclined to ask “is this really the same Stephanie Rapkin?” Clicking through on the FEC web page, we can see that the person who made the contribution is a lawyer from Shorewood, Wisconsin, and that the contribution was earmarked for “Warren for President.”

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Searching the state database for contributions shows only three relatively small ones: $10 to liberal Marquette Law School professor Ed Fallone, running for state Supreme Court in 2013, $25 to Lindsay Grady running for Milwaukee Circuit Court Judge in 2012, and $10 to Sandy Pasch, running for State Assembly in 2011.

While she has made only these political contribution (that we can find), she also signed the Scott Walker Recall Petition.

It would be tempting for conservatives to gloat, saying this is an example of the revolution eating its own. But what we really have is an elderly woman who tried to go shopping one day, found herself in the middle of a mob at the Shorewood Metro-Mart, and when she was verbally assaulted struck out at one person who was charging at her.

This was, like the much more significant cases of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, the media and elites imposing their favored racial narrative on an incident that didn’t really fit.

But then, you can make it fit if you ignore the evidence. And you can then engage in an orgy of virtue signalling.

[Hat Tip:] Louis Mankiewicz and Cameron Ausen on Facebook, who knew about the Walker Recall.

[Update]

Mark Belling posted the following:

Stephanie Rapkin, the Shorewood attorney arrested twice over the weekend after confrontations with protesters, is an activist liberal in the community who signed the Scott Walker recall petition and donated to liberal Supreme Court candidate JoAnn Kloppenburg and Shorewood Village President Allison Rozek.

Rapkin, when applying for a vacant seat on the Shorewood Village Board two years ago, bragged that she co-hosted a fundraiser for Kloppenburg, the twice unsuccessful candidate for the Supreme Court and a Madison liberal. Rapkin, at the same meeting, bragged to Village President Rozek “I got you elected,” pointing out the fundraiser was jointly held for Kloppenburg and Rozek.

Rapkin is also a signer of the 2012 recall petition aimed at ousting former Governor Scott Walker.

[Note]

Updated 6/10 to reflect state campaign contributions, and information from Belling.

Shorewood, Wisconsin, Racist Hellhole?

The small, very liberal suburb of Shorewood has been in the news recently, as a resident has been charged with spitting on a black Shorewood High student during a recent protest.

You can read the details at the link.

What is interesting, however, is that the article in the Journal-Sentinel makes Shorewood out to be a rather racist place.

The School Superintendent, one Bryan Davis, denounced the behavior of the woman who spit on the student, saying it “exposed the horrific, overt racism that still exists in our community” and the incident was an “appalling display of racial hatred.”

And then we have:

Shorewood School Board President Paru Shah said the school board has heard from many students over the years that discrimination is a problem within the Shorewood community.

“We know from listening to our students over the last five years that what happened to Eric was not an isolated incident in our community,” Shah said. “They have told us that they feel fearful, unwelcome and unwanted in Shorewood.”

Of course, in 2016 Shorewood voted 77% for Hillary Clinton, and 17% for Donald Trump, with the rest of the votes scattered.

So is this liberal suburb a hotbed of hypocrisy, voting liberally and masking racist attitudes. Or are these virtue signalling leftists, who demean their own schools and their own community in order to be politically correct?

More Complicated

The actual video of the spitting incident shows the woman, Stephanie Rapkin, was being harassed and intimidated by a mob of protesters, and that the young man she spat on was charging her.  He put his hands together to scream at her.

The young man, one Eric Patrick Lucas, was portrayed as a hero in the Journal-Sentinel story.

Rapkin is also seen being manhandled by the mob after the spitting incident.

Is this, perhaps, another case like Trayvon Martin or Michael Brown where the mainstream have latched onto a preferred racial narrative, and omitted key facts?