Marquette Center Urges Anti-Gun Protest

From the Marquette University Center for Peacemaking:

March For Our Lives - Milwaukee
Saturday, March 24 | 10 am | Milwaukee County Courthouse (901 N. 9th St.)
Optional: Meet with other MU marchers at 9:30 am outside the Brew in the lower level of the AMU

This Saturday, March 24, the kids and families of March For Our Lives will take to the streets around the world to demand that their lives and safety become a priority and that we end gun violence and mass shootings in our schools today.

You are welcome to join the March For Our Lives in Milwaukee from the Milwaukee County Courthouse to City Hall. If you want to march as a group with other Marquette people, please meet at 9:30 am outside of the Brew in the lower level of the AMU.

On Thursday and Friday you are welcome to visit the Schroeder Complex, 146, the Hartman Literacy and Learning Center, or the Center for Peacemaking (1616 W. Wells St.) to make a poster to carry in the march. Poster board, markers, and space to make your sign are provided at both locations.

Marquette University Center for Peacemaking

So what is wrong with this? Students have a right to protest, don’t they?

The problem, which is endemic among the activists, is that students are encouraged to march, but they are not encouraged to think.

Any idiot can make a poster demanding that “the violence stop.” Knowing what to do about it is a different matter. It involves learning. It involves hearing both sides (or sometimes several sides) of the debate. It involves knowing some of the complexities. It involves thinking.

But to the activist mentality, none of this is necessary. There are no complexities, like the bothersome Second Amendment, or the fact that when the U.S. had an assault weapons ban it did nothing to reduce gun violence.

It’s enough to believe that only the U.S. has mass shootings, and that only the machinations of the NRA and the cowardice of politicians allows shootings to continue.

Marquette’s Role

The Center for Peacemaking is a generally independent center established with money from a leftist alumni couple, so this isn’t something the central administration did. But the central Marquette administration did something about as bad: encouraging potential applicants for admission to violate school rules and walk out of class in an anti-gun protest.

Universities are not generally in the business of promoting virtue and discouraging vice. Mostly, that has to be done by family, society and the church. But one kind of virtue universities should promote is intellectual virtue.

Encouraging self-righteous but thoughtless political action flatly contradicts this.

Any Discipline for Students Who Vandalized Anti-Abortion Display?

It was an outrage. A bunch of feminist students, members of the campus group Empowerment vandalized an anti-abortion display on campus.

Even worse, in a huge display of chutzpah, two students bragged about doing it on Facebook, one in her own post, and another in comments to a post from the Young Americans for Freedom. One of the students admitted to a reporter that she had “tagged along” with members of Empowerment when they trashed the display.

Both the College Democrats, and the group Empowerment came out with statements supporting the vandalism.

Had any conservative group supported the vandalism of any leftist display on campus, the group would have been quickly suspended.

But what about the students who actually did the vandalism? Were they punished in any way? We have been trying to find out, and have been stonewalled by Marquette.

Starting on October 24, we have sent three e-mails to Xavier Cole, Vice President for Student Affairs, within whose bureaucracy discipline would be administered. We also sent him one Tweet, and sent an e-mail to Brian Dorrington, Marquette’s official spokesman.

From: John McAdams
Sent: Monday, October 24, 2016 2:52 PM
To: Cole, Xavier
Subject: Investigation of Vandalizing of Anti-Abortion Display

Hi, Xavier,

I’m wondering whether you can tell me anything about the progress of the investigation into the vandalizing of the anti-abortion display of Marquette for Life.

I’m sure you are aware of two students who have confessed to (actually bragged about) taking part in it. And further that one of those students told a local reporter that she “tagged along” with members of Empowerment, who did the vandalizing.

Regardless of whether you can comment on the investigation, I’m assuming you can answer a question of policy: will Marquette announce the results of the investigation and what punishment has been meted out to the guilty parties?

On the record (unless you tell me otherwise).

John McAdams
Political Science
Marquette Warrior Blog

@DrXavierCole Are students who vandalized the anti-abortion display being disciplined in any way?

— jmcadams (@jmcadams) November 18, 2016

From: John McAdams
Sent: Friday, November 18, 2016 4:15 PM
To: Cole, Xavier
Subject: RE: Investigation of Vandalizing of Anti-Abortion Display

Hi, Xavier,

I haven’t heard from you on this, perhaps because when you got it, there was no actual information you could share.

But now, I’m assuming that the case has progressed.

I’m particularly interested in knowing whether any discipline has been imposed on the students who engaged in the vandalism.

I would also be interested in knowing whether the student group whose members engaged in the vandalism (Empowerment) and a student group which explicitly endorsed the vandalism (College Democrats) have faced any consequences.

Again, on the record unless you tell me otherwise. I’ll most certainly be blogging about this.
John McAdams
Marquette Warrior Blog

Tue 12/6/2016 4:13 PM
From: John McAdams
To: Brian Dorrington

Hi, Brian,

Can you give me an official statement as to whether any discipline was imposed on the Marquette students who vandalized an anti-abortion display on campus?

I’m sure you are aware that Marquette’s silence on this will necessarily lead to the conclusion that nothing was done, and Marquette implicitly condoned the vandalism.

Interestingly, Penn State does take vandalism of a political display seriously.

https://www.campusreform.org/?ID=8468

John McAdams
Political Science
Marquette Warrior Blog

12/14/16
From: John McAdams To: Xavier Cole

Xavier,

I still haven’t heard from you on this.

I’m sure you know that, in the absence of any comment from Marquette to the contrary, it has to be assumed that the students in question were not disciplined at all.

Some universities take attacks on speech seriously.

http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2016/12/05/penn-state-students-fined-for-destroying-pro-trump-signs/

I hope to hear from you by the end of the day.

John McAdams
Political Science
Marquette Warrior Blog

Marquette has failed to provide any response.

The inference is obvious: the students have gotten off scott-free. Even if Marquette refused to reveal the identity of the students, they could explain what punishment has been meted out. But apparently, none has been.

Marquette has been pandering mightily to the campus leftists. One particularly egregious example was when both Michael Lovell (President) and Daniel J. Myers (Provost) demonstrated with students in support of the bullies at the University of Missouri.

As the links above show, Penn State was willing to discipline students who tore up Donald Trump signs. It’s ironic that Marquette, apparently, is unwilling to defend free expression on campus, and even to defend expression of the Catholic position on abortion.

Update

The vandals in fact received a minor, “slap on the wrist” punishment.

Marquette Bureaucrats Trash Catholic Teaching on Gender

From LifeSiteNews:

MILWAUKEE, Wisconsin, November 1, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – Administrators at Marquette University have rebuked an on-campus demonstration held on Thursday opposing the Catholic university’s embrace of gender ideology.

The protesters, from the American TFP’s Student Action, who were on a tour of Wisconsin, held a 14-foot banner with the quote “God made them male and female” from Genesis 5:2. The scripture quote was followed by, “Stop the ravages of transgender ideology.”

Marquette introduced gender-neutral restrooms to accommodate “transgender” students last year. Signage was replaced, and instead of bathrooms being labeled “Men” and “Women,” they became “Bathroom A” or “B,” and “Bathroom 1” or “2.”

The TFP Student Action demonstration included flyers with information on how transgenderism is dangerous to the family, triggering some hostility and at least one faculty member who attempted to block their message.

A counter-protest by students was joined by the university provost, who said the TFP Student Action demonstration consisted of “messages of discrimination” that do not reflect “who” Marquette is.

“Messages of discrimination are completely out of alignment with who we are,” Dan Myers blogged.

Myers also demeaned the TFP Student Action demonstrators and presumed to speak for their intent, terming them “this small group” who “arrived at Marquette University with one goal in mind  —  to show their disdain for our LGBTQ community, particularly its transgender members.”

He joined the counter-protest by students, lending his signature to their banner that stated, “Transphobia, biphobia & homophobia are not Marquette values,” something he glowingly described in his blog, concluding, “I can’t express how proud I was to see our community rally together.”

Myers was not the only Marquette administrator to show disdain for TFP Student Action’s message, with Office of Institutional Diversity and Inclusion Executive Director Dr. William Welburn telling the student news service Marquette Wire, “If you’re going to come to our university, you should respect our position on human dignity and what we teach our students.”

Myers had embedded his tweet in the blog post, “All MU members are welcome, any skin color, sexuality or religion. No outside protest changes that,” linking to the Marquette University Diversity Statement. He also included a tweet from Marquette Vice President of Student Affairs Dr. Xavier Cole on the matter in his blog post. Cole also linked to the diversity statement, saying, “I support this statement as well as diversity and inclusion at Marquette.”

Marquette University did not respond to LifeSiteNews’ inquiry into how the message constituted discrimination or disrespects the university’s position on human dignity, the specifics of Marquette’s position on gender fluidity, and whether the scripture quote conflicts with any Marquette policies.

The reason they did not respond is simple: in the world of the politically correct, to refuse to affirm and pander to sexual deviation is the same as “discrimination.” If some person with a penis and Y chromosomes thinks he’s a woman, it would be actual discrimination to (say) refuse to admit him to Marquette, or withhold a scholarship, or refuse to let him participate in student government.

But in the world of the politically correct, you are required to agree that he’s a woman, reconfigure bathrooms and dorms to suit him, and tell women to junk their desire for privacy when he wants to enter the ladies’ room.

He must, like every other politically correct victim group, be pandered to.

The rhetoric about “diversity” and “inclusion” is stunningly hypocritical, since Marquette is being grossly exclusionary toward people who agree with Catholic teaching on gender.

Catholic teaching is clear enough. According to the National Catholic Reporter:

Pope Francis has strongly criticized modern theories that consider people’s gender identities to exist along a spectrum, saying such theories do not “recognize the order of creation.”

Speaking of gender theory in an interview in a new book released in Italy, the pope even compares such theories to genetic manipulation and nuclear weapons.

Gender theory is a broad term for an academic school of thought that considers how people learn to identify themselves sexually and how they may become typed into certain roles based on societal expectations.

“God has placed man and woman at the summit of creation and has entrusted them with the earth,” Francis says. “The design of the Creator is written in nature.”

According to Marquette Wire, the counter-demonstration was quickly organized by Enrique Tejada III, a staff person at the Student Affairs Intercultural Engagement office. How politically correct are the people in this office? They all list their “preferred pronouns.” While most are happy with the traditional ones (“he,” “she,” etc.) Tejada wants “(They/Them/Their(s)).”

This is yet another way in which the politically correct crowd is demanding, not the lack of discrimination, but rather oppressive impositions on the rest of society. Marquette’s English Department has already signed onto this nonsense.

The smarmy self-righteousness of people like Myers and Welburn can’t conceal the fact that they are fundamentally secular people who want Marquette to be a fundamentally secular university, with the proviso that a bit of Catholic window dressing is fine, so long as it doesn’t interfere with pandering to the secular, politically correct left.

Vandalizing of Anti-Abortion Display at Marquette in the News

It hasn’t been quite the fiasco the Assata Shakur mural was, but the vandalizing of an anti-abortion display (which has been approved by the university through normal channels) by leftist students (including members of the feminist campus group Empowerment) has gotten some attention.

• The Daily Caller. Notes that the College Democrats approved the defacing of the display.
• The Daily Caller. Notes that Empowerment, a recognized student group at Marquette, has applauded the vandalism, and said there is no need to tolerate anti-abortion opinions.
• Campus Reform. Also notes that the College Democrats approved the vandalism.
• Hypeline. Recounts basic facts of the case, and notes numerous other cases of vandalism and harassment directed at pro-life students at various universities.
• LifeNews.com. Also lists cases of vandalism by intolerant feminists at various campuses, and names one student who confessed on Facebook that she participated in the vandalism at Marquette.

More relevant, probably, because they have good penetration of the local market, are two reports on local TV news.

• WTMJ, Channel 4. Basic facts, and good interview with the vice president of Marquette for Life.
• WITI Channel 6. Says that “A group has taken responsibility for the defacement.” Not exactly true, but not exactly wrong either.

The issue now becomes: what will Marquette do in response? Will it discipline those responsible? Marquette’s incessant pandering to the campus left suggests the university will do nothing. But perhaps this case is so egregious that even the über-politically correct administration will have to come down on the side of free expression.

Petition in Support of Vandalized Anti-Abortion Display

From Catholics for Mission @ Marquette: a petition expressing support for the anti-abortion display that was vandalized by campus leftists week before last.

Astonishingly, two students who participated in the vandalism have admitted their actions on Facebook. It’s clear that the vandalizing was done by members of the Feminist group Empowerment, which issued a statement condoning the defacement. And the College Democrats (a group which traditionally has been more moderate than the hard leftists) has endorsed the vandalism.

All of which it is important for people to speak up and condemn the egregious attack on free expression.

Militant Students Defend Vandalism of Pro-Life Display at Marquette

The vandalism of a pro-life display at Marquette, lamented by the Young Americans for Freedom on their Facebook page, has attracted support from several people, who have defended the vandalism, and attacked the Young Americans for Freedom in vile terms in comments following the post.

This is a window into the virulent bigotry of the politically correct left on campus.

Members of Feminist Group “Empowerment” Vandalized Anti-Abortion Display

A Marquette female student has told a reporter that she “tagged along” with members of the feminist group “Empowerment” as they vandalized the anti-abortion display of Marquette For Life last week.

There is no indication that it was any sort of official group activity.

But it does raise the question as to whether the group, which strongly advocates for abortion, should be a recognized student group.

Empowerment, in the wake of the vandalism, issued an official statement essentially condoning the vandalism, and making it clear that they had tried, through official university channels, to shut down the display. Apparently, in frustration, they resorted to direct action.

Marquette Student Activist on the Intolerant Left, Campus Free Speech

Again, it’s Allison Kazalski, President of the Marquette Chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom, discussing intolerance in academia, and especially the vandalizing of an anti-abortion display on campus. This from the Vicki McKenna show on WIBA, Madison.

Vandalized Anti-Abortion Display at Marquette: Student Activist Speaks

On the Mitch Henck show out of Madison: Allison Kazalski, President of the Marquette Chapter of the Young Americans for Freedom, discussing the recent vandalism of an anti-abortion display on campus.

“Empowerment:” Intolerant Marquette Feminists Want to Ban Anti-Abortion Speech

As a Political Science student and the Marquette College Democrats went to Facebook to endorse the vandalizing of an anti-abortion display at the university, the feminist group Empowerment issued a statement on the incident.

At first, it seemed to reject the vandalism. It stated:

Firstly, Empowerment does not condone the defacement of property and acknowledges the need for respectful discussion wherever such polarizing opinions are expressed.

OK, fair enough. But then it goes on:

Secondly, Empowerment stands in support of women’s right to choose and access to safe and legal abortion free from violence and intimidation. . . . Empowerment works to create and uplift a community of students that support one another in their personal and academic growth. At the core of this community is a deep respect and appreciation for our differing beliefs, backgrounds, and cultures. Empowerment is devoted to listening and amplifying narratives, especially those which have been strategically marginalized by oppressive institutions. We work to understand what this system has done (and continues to do) to the structures we inhabit, how we can make a difference, and ultimately, how we can heal together.

The hypocrisy here is stunning. As we will see, a “narrative” these women do not respect is opposition to abortion. As for “those which have been strategically marginalized by oppressive institutions,” it has been those who oppose abortion that have been marginalized by powerful institutions such as government, the mass media, the educational system, and organizations like Empowerment.

It goes on:

The “Memorial of the Unborn” is a display which directly undermines this healing by further stigmatizing abortion. Rather than fostering discussion and understanding, the display is damaging to the mental health of students and a disturbing act of public shaming.

So “healing” means coming to accept that abortion is OK. In other words, for Empowerment, “healing” means that people who disagree with them need to shut up.

The rhetoric about “shaming” is equally hypocritical. The leftists will happily shame people for any expression they think is racist, shame males for being part of a “rape culture” (regardless of whether a particular male would even think of raping any woman) and shame whites for their “white privilege.”

But don’t dare shame women who might have an abortion.

And of course, facing different opinions about abortion damages women’s “mental health!” Obviously, college needs to protect students from different opinions, in order to protect their mental health.

But it then gets downright bizarre:

In the past, students at Marquette have complained to university administration regarding the harmful nature of the display, which, until this year, employed crosses to emulate a “fetus graveyard.” The shift to pink and blue-gendered flags offers no recompense to those interested in human rights and, rather, demonstrates the harmful and misguided conflation of sex and gender and promotion of the gender binary.

That’s right. Marquette For Life is not on board with the transgender agenda! But then, neither is the Catholic Church. Heaven help us if students at a Catholic university should agree with the Church on gender theory.

Complaining About Speech

But note the “complained to the university” statement. Students at Marquette have complained that a student group is allowed to promote a political position with which they disagree.

But it goes further:

This year, several students submitted official complaints through university avenues. Student activists also demonstrated briefly in front of the display on Thursday, mounting their own signs on top of Marquette for Life’s. To these activists and all those dissenters of policies and institutional stances that privilege oppressive narratives over your very existence, Empowerment says:

Your pain and anger is valid. We are here for you. We support you.

Do not listen when people tell you to be more tolerant of other’s intolerance.

Thus they are condoning the vandalism, by supporting the covering over of the anti-abortion message of Marquette for Life. It seems “defacement of property” is something they really don’t mind.

The notion that one should be “intolerant of intolerance” is a staple on the politically correct left. Of course, the entire formulation is oxymoronic, since the people who say it are themselves admittedly intolerant, and thus have no right to expect tolerance from others.

Just as bad is their notion that they are the only ones authorized to decide who is “intolerant,” and shut up those they believe to be so.

Likewise, the notion that one’s “existence” is threatened if somebody disapproves of your opinions or actions is also part of the repertoire of politically correct leftists. Do they actually think they will disappear in a cloud of smoke if they hear opinions they disagree with?

Gross Intolerance

Submitting “official complains through university avenues” means, quite simply, they were asking Marquette to shut up the pro-life demonstration. Empowerment, in fact, is every bit as intolerant as the students who vandalized the display (or perhaps, some of their members were the people who vandalized the display).

A substantial number of students (and faculty) at this “Catholic university” are not only hostile to the Catholic position on abortion, they are actively trying to shut up its expression.

Vandalized Pro-Life Display: Student Group Speaks Out

Reacting to the defacing of an anti-abortion display on campus, a campus student group (Young Americans for Freedom) has issued this statement:

---

Self-proclaimed Feminist Students Deface Pro-Life Memorial at Marquette

College Democrats of Marquette condone act, Conservative students respond

Milwaukee, WI - Self-proclaimed feminist students sabotaged a display on Marquette University’s campus memorializing the millions of babies killed through abortion. The culprits placed several signs covering the information about the memorial. The signs stated things such as: “My Body, My Freedom”, “Stop the hypocrisy, care for women’s reproductive rights”, “68,000 women die from unsafe abortions every year”, and other variations of pro-choice arguments. Coat hangers were also scattered around the memorial.

The Young Americans for Freedom chapter at Marquette responded with the following statement: Young Americans for Freedom at Marquette University is extremely saddened that the Students for Life memorial was defaced by certain students intolerant of an opinion that they do not agree with. It is extremely hypocritical to claim that you are exercising your free speech rights through defacement while simultaneously trying to shut down the free speech of a student organization.

The act was so egregious, Vice President of Student Affairs, Dr. Xavier Cole, sent an email to the Marquette community condemning the defacement. He wrote, “Let me be extremely clear. Defacement is not dialogue.” He then goes on to say that Marquette values all opinions on specific matters, but that there needs to be dialogue and productive discussion on such differences.

For its part, the Catholic university refused to defend the pro-life students and the dignity of the unborn. As Dr. Cole wrote, Marquette’s mission requires the respect and dignity of all individuals. The Young Americans for Freedom – Marquette call on President Michael Lovell and the University to stand up to both the vandalism and the unborn. With this act, liberals made clear: conservatives and the unborn are not safe in the space of a university.

While many students are upset over the defacement of the memorial and infringement of Marquette for Life’s freedom of speech, a student organization took to social media to praise the vandalism committed by the students. Marquette University College Democrats tweeted and posted on their Facebook page that they were proud of the feminists. “We love and support you!” they wrote.

# # #
About the pro-life memorial:

Every year, Marquette for Life celebrates “pro-life week” by creating a memorial for the millions of the unborn killed in America each year. Flags are planted in the ground to represent the lives lost through abortion every year (1 flag = 1,000 babies aborted). The memorial was approved by the school. On Thursday, students defaced the memorial by vandalizing the sign which explains what the flags represent.

Contact:

Young Americans for Freedom at Marquette University
Youngamericans4freedom@gmail.com

Anti-Abortion Display Defaced at Marquette

It’s the sort of thing we have seen on a lot of campuses, and now it has come to Marquette. An anti-abortion display, approved by Marquette Student Affairs officials, has been defaced. From Facebook:



The Marquette Wire (official student online paper) covered the story here.

Notice a blatant example of journalistic bias: a defacing of a display is described as a “counter demonstration.”

Marquette issued a statement condemning the defacing of the display. It says (in part):

Let me be extremely clear. Defacement is not dialogue.

Respectful discussion and even dissent is best done face to face. Our issue does not lie in the expression of varying viewpoints, but rather in the way that this was handled. Our mission is grounded in respecting the dignity of all individuals and being inclusive of multiple perspectives. Inclusivity by its very nature begins with respect.

The Marquette For Life group’s display was submitted and approved in advance, as is standard procedure for any display that appears on university property. We are working with our students to make sure their promotions on campus continue.

Brazen Intolerance

What is stunning about this is not merely that it was done (which is bad enough), but that campus leftists are bragging about having done it, and voicing their approval on Facebook.

One student (in Political Science) posted an apparent confession, calling it “our response” to the display, and lauding her “feminist peers.” At the moment, her post has 88 “likes.”

Worse, the College Democrats approved of the vandalism, saying “Keep fighting the good fight, Marquette feminists.”

But the issue is: will Marquette discipline the students who did this?

Given the craven way that Marquette has reacted to the Social Justice Warriors in the past, we have our doubts. The people who did this have probably calculated, correctly, that they will receive a slap on the wrist, at most. But this is a direct attack on free expression on campus.

Supposedly Racist Tweets at Claremont College Aren’t

A bunch of black students staged a “black lives matter die-in” at Claremont College, apparently taking over a public space and inconveniencing students who just wanted to get some food or get some studying done.

A fair number of students were unimpressed with the demonstration, and said so on Yik Yak.

How did the black students respond? By calling the tweets “racist” and making a video reading some of them.

Of course, there was nothing racist about the tweets unless you think that any dissent or failure to be supportive is racist. Check out the supposedly racist statements.



This, of course, exactly parallels tweets Marquette students posted in response to a “diversity” demonstration that blocked traffic on Wisconsin Avenue. In that case also, a lot of Marquette students were unsympathetic, and said so on Yik Yak (Facebook login required to view page). Good for those Marquette students.

Note to leftist students: get out of your little politically correct bubble and face the fact that a lot of people disagree with you. And the vast majority of people who disagree with you are not racist, they just don’t buy your arguments.

The little world you live in, pampered and coddled by university bureaucrats and leftist faculty, isn’t the real world that exists off college campuses. Your college experience is teaching you things that don’t transfer well into the real world. The tweets responding to your antics are a dose of that real world, and if you stubbornly insist on demonizing the people who post them, you are marginalizing yourself.

Student Support for Marquette Warrior

We are rather gratified that, in our dispute with Marquette and politically correct leftists on campus (and across the nation) we have gotten support for a fair number of Marquette students.

First, there is a petition supporting us.

https://www.change.org/p/students-reinstate-john-mcadams

Second, Turning Point USA is sponsoring a demonstration supporting us, scheduled for Monday at 11:00 a.m. at Zilber Hall on the Marquette campus.

We expect to be there. It’s not a great day for a demonstration (cold, and with students gone for Christmas break), so we will greatly appreciate the folks who show up.

Marquette Center for Peacemaking: Demonstrate at NATO Meeting

Marquette’s Center for Peacemaking has never pretended to be any sort of academic enterprise. Rather, it has simply been a center for left-wing activism.

Nothing illustrates this better than an e-mail from the Center, received today.

Peace Action Organizing Bus to Chicago

The NATO Summit is just days away! Fifty heads of state will be meeting in Chicago to potentially pledge billions in funding to the ongoing war in Afghanistan as well as to make important decisions that will affect the peace and stability of our entire planet. In response to the NATO Summit, Peace Action-WI is organizing a bus from Milwaukee to the Counter Summit in Chicago.

Bus pick-up is Sunday, May 20, 8:00 a.m, outside Peace Action (1001 E. Keefe Ave.) Tickets are $20 roundtrip.

Call Peace Action 414-964-5158 or stop in their office to purchase your tickets and more information.

Among those scheduled to appear at the rally...

Reiner Braun - ICC No to War - No to NATO, Germany
Malik Mujahid - Muslim Peace Council
Kathy Kelly - Voices for Creative Nonviolence
Vijay Prashad - author of Arab Spring, Libyan Winter
Leah Bolger - President, Veterans For Peace
Carlos Montes - Committee Stop FBI Repression
Kari Fulton - Environmental Justice Network
Larry Holmes - International Action Center


Center for Peacemaking

The Marquette University Center for Peacemaking strives to empower the University and the wider community to explore together the necessary skills to become informed, spiritually-centered, nonviolent peacemakers. Rooted in the Ignatian charism, the Center works with a spirit of confidence and joy to achieve an awakening to the complementary relationship of scholarship, spirituality, non-violent living, and the active struggle for peace and justice.

Of course, there is plenty of room to debate the war in Afghanistan. But the Center for Peacemaking isn’t interested in debate. Their assumption is that any U.S. military action is evil and imperialistic, and that demonstrating against it is the obvious response.

The Center is, in other words, anti-intellectual. They don’t believe there are any intellectually challenging policy questions to be addressed, rather there is only the “struggle for peace and justice” with it always being obvious that peace and justice are on the left side of any issue.

Protesting Against Something That Everybody’s Against

[Updated to correct identity of organizers.]

Yes, just a couple of hours ago, we walked across campus and found a demonstration against rape. It was organized by students. On the scene: Prof. Nancy Snow, the lesbian philosopher with the bullhorn very much in view a year ago, protesting Marquette’s refusal to hire lesbian Arts & Science Dean candidate Jodi O’Brien.

A few photos (not our best work, since we were using a cell phone):





Why protest against something that everybody is against?

It’s a kind of superstition on the politically-correct left: all problems can be solved by “raising awareness.” If any social problems persist, it’s just because not enough people have had their “awareness” raised.

Of course, sometimes the simple fact is that there are evil people who will do evil things, and the way to deal with them is to deter them with the threat of punishment if possible, and if that doesn’t work lock them up for an extended period.

There is another reality that campus leftists don’t want to face, but before we get to that we need a reality check about the supposed 25% of college women who have been raped.

During the 1980s, feminist researchers committed to the rape-culture theory had discovered that asking women directly if they had been raped yielded disappointing results—very few women said that they had been. So Ms. [Magazine] commissioned University of Arizona public health professor Mary Koss to develop a different way of measuring the prevalence of rape. Rather than asking female students about rape per se, Koss asked them if they had experienced actions that she then classified as rape. Koss’s method produced the 25 percent rate, which Ms. then published.

Koss’s study had serious flaws. Her survey instrument was highly ambiguous, as University of California at Berkeley social-welfare professor Neil Gilbert has pointed out. But the most powerful refutation of Koss’s research came from her own subjects: 73 percent of the women whom she characterized as rape victims said that they hadn’t been raped. Further—though it is inconceivable that a raped woman would voluntarily have sex again with the fiend who attacked her—42 percent of Koss’s supposed victims had intercourse again with their alleged assailants.

All subsequent feminist rape studies have resulted in this discrepancy between the researchers’ conclusions and the subjects’ own views. A survey of sorority girls at the University of Virginia found that only 23 percent of the subjects whom the survey characterized as rape victims felt that they had been raped—a result that the university’s director of Sexual and Domestic Violence Services calls “discouraging.” Equally damning was a 2000 campus rape study conducted under the aegis of the Department of Justice. Sixty-five percent of what the feminist researchers called “completed rape” victims and three-quarters of “attempted rape” victims said that they did not think that their experiences were “serious enough to report.” The “victims” in the study, moreover, “generally did not state that their victimization resulted in physical or emotional injuries,” report the researchers.

So what is going on here? Why the discrepancy between what the feminists consider rape and real, clear cases of rape? According to Heather McDonald of the Urban Institute:

So what reality does lie behind the campus rape industry? A booze-fueled hookup culture of one-night, or sometimes just partial-night, stands. Students in the sixties demanded that college administrators stop setting rules for fraternization. “We’re adults,” the students shouted. “We can manage our own lives. If we want to have members of the opposite sex in our rooms at any hour of the day or night, that’s our right.” The colleges meekly complied and opened a Pandora’s box of boorish, sluttish behavior that gets cruder each year. Do the boys, riding the testosterone wave, act thuggishly toward the girls? You bet! Do the girls try to match their insensitivity? Indisputably.

But of course, one is not supposed to pass judgment on any sexual behavior. Unless you call it “rape.” Saying that one should exercise some sexual restraint is just so old-fashioned. But that attitude doesn’t help women who were not raped, but did things they were profoundly unhappy about in the morning.

Madison Union Supporters Given Fake Doctor’s Notes

From Media Trackers, an account of how a reporter got a fake doctor’s note, given (apparently) so that a teacher who abandoned her class and called in sick would have an excuse.

At the Madison rally on 2/19/11, doctors were signing fake excuses for teachers. I am not a teacher, but I managed to get a note. They did not ask for any identification or where I might teach. They were literally handing these out to anyone and everyone.

The actual note is reproduced with the story.

The name on the note (Dr. Hannah Keevil) is that of a real Madison physician.

With only this evidence, it’s possible that somebody was impersonating Dr. Keevil.

However, a source (we will only call her “Susan”) at the Nurse Triage Center at the University of Wisconsin confirms that it was in fact Dr. Keevil.

This is a serious example of medical fraud.

Dean Search Fiasco: Demonstration in Support Catholic Identity

The demonstration that we blogged about Saturday came off today, in front of Gesu Church.

It was orderly and sedate, actually. The small crowd was heavy on staff and administrators, but included one family of four (with a Marquette mom) who drove an hour to participate.

They numbered 17 people at the peak (near 12:15). Not a huge number, but probably more grown-ups than have taken part in any of the pro-Jodi O’Brien demonstrations, which have overwhelmingly consisted of students.

Students, of course, have largely left town (the semester is over) and faculty are under the gun to get grades in (tomorrow noon is the deadline).

The gathering broke up promptly at 12:15 p.m.

As we have said before this, combined with several manifestos from various faculty members, may not show a “silent majority” opposed to Jodi O’Brien being Arts & Science Dean, but it does show considerable resistance.

It’s also the case that a fair number of people who think she should not be Dean were also disturbed at the way Marquette first offered her the job and then rescended the offer. Marketing Professor Gene Lacniak is one of them.

What all sides can agree on is that the Marquette administration performed very badly.

Mainstream Media: Protests Were Great When They Were Anti-Bush

From the Media Research Center, an account of how the Mainstream Media, which is having a conniption fit about protesters coming out to oppose ObamaCare, sung a very different tune when the left was protesting Bush.

Some examples:

“When those who dissent are told time and time again — as we will be, if not tonight by the President, then tomorrow by his portable public chorus — that he is preserving our freedom, but that if we use any of that freedom, we are somehow un-American; when we are scolded, that if we merely question, we have ‘forgotten the lessons of 9/11;’ look into this empty space behind me and the bipartisanship upon which this administration also did not build, and tell me this: Who has left this hole in the ground? We have not forgotten, Mr. President. You have. May this country forgive you.”

— MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann on September 11, 2006, ending his Countdown with a commentary from the site of the World Trade Center.

CBS anchor Katie Couric: “I think it’s one of the most embarrassing chapters in American journalism. And I think there was a sense of pressure from corporations who own where we work and from the government itself to really squash any kinds of dissent or any kind of questioning of it. I think it was extremely subtle but very, very effective. And I think Scott McClellan has a really good point.”

— CBS’s The Early Show, May 28, 2008.

“This has been a year in which dissent, especially taking an unpopular or minority political opinion, has been attacked by people like Mr. O’Reilly. In the last year, it has not been enough just to disagree with dissenters. Many of us have decided it is necessary to silence them. Which is really kind of ironic since it is political dissent that created this country and sustained it and improved it. But ask the Dixie Chicks about how well this year we Americans kept our pledge to be tolerant of dissent, our delight in disagreeing with your opinion but being willing to fight to the death to protect your right to express it.”

– Keith Olbermann on MSNBC’s Countdown, September 29, 2003.

Actor Tim Robbins: “A chill wind is blowing in this nation.”
Jim Wooten: “In Washington this week, Robbins criticized the political climate in which his right to express his views has come under attack....All this has reminded some of the McCarthy era’s blacklists that barred those even accused of communist sympathies from working in films or on television.”

— ABC’s World News Tonight, April 16, 2003.

“Across the country, citizens have been coming out to voice their opposition, all calling for the same things. They want government accountability, they want environmental justice, and most of all, they’re calling for peace....While protesters like today are a statistical minority, in American history protests like this have been prescient indicators of the national mood. So the government may do well to listen to what’s said today.”

– ABC correspondent Chris Cuomo previewing an afternoon protest rally planned for Times Square, on a special five-hour Saturday edition of Good Morning America, March 22, 2003, three days after the war in Iraq began.

“I decided to put on my flag pin tonight...I put it on to take it back. The flag’s been hijacked and turned into a logo — the trademark of a monopoly on patriotism. On those Sunday morning talk shows, official chests appear adorned with the flag as if it is the Good Housekeeping Seal of Approval, and during the State of the Union did you notice Bush and Cheney wearing the flag?...More galling than anything are all those moralistic ideologues in Washington sporting the flag in their lapels while writing books and running Web sites and publishing magazines attacking dissenters as un-American.”

— Bill Moyers on PBS’s Now, February 28, 2003.

“It’s an obscene comparison, and I’m not sure I like it, but there was a time, in South Africa, where people would put flaming tires around peoples’ necks if they dissented. And in some ways, the fear is that you’ll be necklaced here, you’ll have the flaming tire of lack of patriotism put around your neck. Now it’s that fear that keeps journalists from asking the toughest of the tough questions and to continue to bore in on the tough questions so often. And again, I’m humbled to say, I do not except myself from this criticism.”

– Dan Rather on the BBC’s Newsnight program, May 16, 2002.

As always, it depends on whose ox is gored.

Gaggle of Aging Leftists Demonstrates Against Marquette ROTC

Check out a first person account from Brian Collar here.

An interesting observation: Muslim students were not in evidence. We have confirmation from Asmah Mallick, President of the Muslim Student Association, that an announcement of the demonstration was sent to the membership.

But apparently Muslim students at Marquette aren’t that interested in attacking ROTC.

That’s good news.

[Update]

Joe Kastner took photos of both the protest and the counter protest. He left the protest fairly early, however, so things might have looked different 30 or 45 minutes later.

Kastner also reports seeing no Muslim students.

[Further Update]

Milwaukee’s Channel 12 reported on this protest, although the photo on their web site casts doubt on the newsworthiness of the event.

A very small, forlorn group of protesters stood on the steps on the old gym, in which the ROTC is housed.