Marquette’s Hypocritical Claim to Care For Students

From Rick Esenberg, on Right Wisconsin:

Cura Personalis is a Latin phrase that translates as “Care for the Whole Person.” Marquette uses the term to claim that it will support each student based on their unique talents, challenges, needs and possibilities. But does Marquette practice what it preaches?

This question brings us to the controversy surrounding Marquette’s suspension and termination of Professor John McAdams. Little attention has been paid to the heart of the story: a complaint by a Marquette undergraduate about his Marquette Instructor. How did cura personalis apply to this student?

The student came to Professor McAdams with a complaint about the way he was treated by his philosophy instructor and the way his complaint was handled by Marquette administrators. His instructor, Cheryl Abbate, made it clear to him that expressing opposition to gay marriage was not just mistaken but “homophobic” and “offensive.” As such his views would not be tolerated. There is no dispute about this. The exchange was recorded. The Instructor informed her student that his traditional Catholic beliefs were beyond the pale.

Although the University refers to Ms. Abbate as a “student,” she was a paid employee of the University responsible for delivering a required philosophy course and grading the students who took it. In fact, she invoked her authority as a “professor of ethics” when talking to this student. Her treatment of her student was anything but an exercise of cura personalis.

The student complained to Dr. Susanne Foster in the College of Arts & Sciences, and was sent to the Philosophy Department where he spoke with then-chair Dr. Nancy Snow and Dr. Sebastian Luft. Neither Dr. Snow nor Dr. Luft took any action on behalf of the student. In fact, Dr. Snow referred to him as an “insolent little twerp” in a communication with the College of Arts & Sciences. What Dr. Snow did do was communicate immediately with Ms. Abbate to tell her, in essence, that they had her back. Dr. Snow reported to Ms. Abbate that she told the student that he “needed to change his attitude” and that she would be “monitoring” the situation. Dr. Snow told Ms. Abbate to let her know if the student did anything that Ms. Abbate found objectionable. Ms. Abbate thanked Dr. Snow and said that hopefully the student learned that “oppressive discourse is not acceptable.”

So what we have thus far is the administration at the university calling an undergraduate student names behind his back and circling the wagons against the undergraduate.

But it gets worse. The student returned to Arts and Sciences and spoke to Associate Dean James South. Dr. South recorded the interview without the student’s knowledge or consent. The recording shows that Dr. South lied to the student, telling him he had not listened to the student’s recording of the conversation with Ms. Abbate even though he had. Subsequently, in explaining why he did not tell the truth, Dr. South said that he had “used [his] prudential judgment to try to keep him [the student] at ease.” In other words, he could dismiss the student’s concerns if he pretended not to know the facts.

No one in the University Administration has ever addressed the student’s complaint or publicly (or privately to the student) expressed any concern for the way the student was treated. Dean of Arts & Sciences Richard Holz and President Lovell are both aware of all of these facts and have done nothing. The only person at Marquette who did stand up for the student was Professor McAdams. For this he was suspended, banished from campus and is going to be fired.

And that brings us back to academic freedom. This demonstrates why robust protection of free expression is required. The student has conservative Catholic views that are unpopular with many. Ms. Abbate was part of the faculty with contrary views. Marquette believes that an instructor was entitled to be protected from accurate criticism. It apparently believes the undergraduate student deserved to be told that his views could not be expressed in polite society.

Freedom of speech is an essential remedy for hypocrisy. Sadly, Marquette does not understand that.

Esenberg is the President and General Counsel of the Wisconsin Institute for Law and Liberty, and head of the legal team representing us in our battle with Marquette.

Chicago Tribune on Marquette Attempt to Fire Warrior Blogger

Another column in a major media outlet, The Chicago Tribune. The author, Diana Sroka Rickert, outlines the facts of the case, and then draws some larger conclusions.

So a student disagreed with an instructor’s views on a polarizing issue. The instructor silenced the student. McAdams blogged about the incident, and after his blog post gained regional and national attention, Marquette silenced him too.

The fact that the university would revoke tenure from McAdams has sent shock waves through academia. Tenure is a treasured tenet of higher education, and revoking tenure usually is reserved for the most egregious of offenses.

. . .

“It’s left us with a lot of concern,” said Peter Bonilla of the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education. “If Marquette will do this to someone like McAdams, there’s no reason to expect they won’t do it to some other faculty member if they became a headache or PR disaster for the university.”

This isn’t just a campus problem. It’s exemplary of a dangerous societal movement underway: Instead of debating the merits of our ideas, those who hold unpopular opinions are publicly shamed, and then silenced. Their livelihoods are destroyed, often in coordinated, mob-like efforts. Lest anyone else ever think of speaking out or lending support to a cause, be forewarned — the price is steep.

Remember Brendan Eich? He resigned as CEO of Mozilla after just 10 days on the job because it was revealed that he donated to a California Proposition 8 campaign.

Just the other week, the Chicago Teachers Union threatened to kick out of the union any teachers who attempted to teach on April 1 instead of joining the union’s citywide walkout. The union intimidated teachers by pledging severe peer pressure: “No CTU member is to cross a picket line, and each school should designate a small crew to record any such activity,” an email to teachers warned. How’s that for congeniality among peers?

We’d like to think reasonable people can disagree on a variety of controversial topics. In reality, the costs associated with sharing or acting on your opinion are quickly beginning to outweigh the benefits.

It’s no wonder people are holding back more than before. Even the sharing of personal stories on Facebook has dropped 21 percent in the past year, according to The Information, a tech news website.

The fact that certain opinions are being suppressed means that somewhere, someone gets to decide what is socially and culturally acceptable and what is not. When does free speech cross the line to hate speech, and who makes that call? Instead of allowing our different views to compete in a marketplace of ideas, some entity — be it a university administrator, a government official or a powerbroker — is calling the shots on whose voice gets heard and who gets shut up.

“Popular views do not need protection,” McAdams wrote in a letter to Marquette. He’s right.

We need to reject this cultural shift, and that’s why the McAdams case matters so much. Every new idea, every major social movement, starts out as a minority opinion. If the majority of people gets to decide which ideas or opinions are acceptable and the consequences of speaking out are too painful, we may someday reach a point in which no minority opinion exists.

But that, of course, is what a lot of people want.

In response to Rickert’s column a certain Aaron Ledesma wrote an article explicitly insisting that any opposition to gay marriage should be silenced and shut up at Marquette.

And proponents of man-made global warming have a long history of trying to punish and stifle dissenting views.

So the idea that someone gets to decide what is socially and culturally acceptable and what is not is attractive to people who think that they and their friends will be the people who get to do the deciding.

Rickert, by the way, is a former student of ours, and part of a cohort of outstanding conservative students who started an alternative campus paper at Marquette, The Warrior. Competing with official campus papers, it bested them in journalistic awards.