Where are the Leftist “Diversity” Faculty at Marquette?

Whenever Marquette does something contrary to the desires or interests of the politically correct leftist faction of faculty, some petition will doubtless follow.

For example, when Marquette refused to hire aggressively lesbian Arts & Science Dean candidate Jodi O’Brien, a petition attacking Marquette for the decision appeared in the Journal-Sentinel.

More recently, “about 60” Marquette faculty and staff signed a petition protesting the removal of a mural of cop killer Assata Shakur from the wall of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center. (The identities of the signers are apparently secret.)

And now, when a group of Marquette students blocked traffic on Wisconsin Avenue to protest a supposed “lack of diversity,” yet another faculty petition has emerged.

We won’t discuss the claims in the petition in this post. They are pretty much the usual politically correct cant. But we will discuss who signed the petition.

Politically correct attitudes (and the intolerance that comes with them) are not evenly distributed across the faculty. Rather, they are concentrated in certain departments and schools. The signers of the most recent petition are distributed as follows:

Education / 4
Counseling Center / 2
Communications / 2
Business and Management / 6
English / 16
Foreign Languages and Literatures / 4
History / 2
Information Technology / 1
Libraries / 6
Philosophy / 6
Political Science / 1
Psychology / 7
Social and Cultural Sciences / 14
Theology / 2

What is missing? All the “hard” disciplines with well-defined theoretical constructs, actual data that prevents their going too far off into wild flights of politically correct fancy, and/or some real-world application that constrains the discipline to care about what works in practice.

In other words, no natural science, math, economics, engineering. The representation from business might seem odd, but indeed the Business School has been found to be inflicting a leftist video called “The Story of Stuff” on its students.

Of course, other departments, not represented among signers, certainly have some leftist (as opposed to, say, moderately liberal) faculty, and indeed perhaps some who would be sympathetic to the petition. But they must be fairly sparse, or they would show up among the signers.

And context matters. In any department, even a few conservatives (if they have the courage to speak up) and some additional traditional liberals (you know, the kind who believed in free speech and liked to debate) can temper the intolerance of politically correct faculty and create some space for diverse opinions.

But in some departments, a hothouse atmosphere prevails, and it is possible for a graduate instructor to tell a student that any opposition to gay marriage would be homophobic and can’t be expressed since it would be offensive to gay students. This is the sort of department where a professor might try to silence a student presenting a cops’ perspective on “racial profiling” and then force him to apologize for doing so. This, of course, would be Marquette’s Philosophy Department.

Not all departments at Marquette are like that. But it’s an outrage that any are.

The Faculty?

Of course, a handful of faculty in the most politically correct departments are going to claim to be “the faculty” and they are going to claim that a handful of their leftist students are “the students” at Marquette. Thus, any failure to give them what they want will be claimed to show disrespect for  “the faculty” and “the students.”  That claim will be bogus.

But Marquette’s administration will lack the courage to say that publicly. And they will feel the need to pander to the minority of politically correct leftists.

More from Leftist Marquette Faculty on Cop Killer Mural: Whine, Moan, Bitch

Very few people have been willing to defend the mural, in Marquette’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, honoring convicted cop killer and fugitive from justice in Castro’s Cuba Assata Shakur. But predictably, a few dozen leftist Marquette faculty have done so.

There were two petitions urging Marquette not to fire Susannah Bartlow, the Director of the Center who approved the mural.

Then there was a petition, signed by “about 60” faculty and staff protesting the removal of the mural.

Then there was a meeting of aggrieved Arts and Sciences faculty (and some who were merely interested) with Dean Rick Holz, where objections to the removal of the mural were aired.

And now we have yet another statement, with further objections to the removal of the mural. It is as bad as all the others, but it offers further insight into the mentality of the hard core politically correct faculty at Marquette.

Just to deal with a few excerpts:

This most recent incident is another in a pattern (see the firing of Jodi O’Brien and the FemSex controversy) of non-consultative decision-making that has caused the university public notoriety and significantly deteriorated both student and faculty morale.

And what is the evidence that student and faculty morale has deteriorated? Apparently just that the leftist faculty (and a few of their student sycophants) are unhappy. Only a few dozen of several hundred Marquette faculty and staff have signed these petitions. And the only body with any claim to represent students (Marquette University Student Government) has supported the university’s decision to remove the mural.

But apparently for these leftist professors, they are “the faculty” and their student acolytes are “the students.”

Student Opinion

First and foremost, the decision not to engage the leadership and members of the sponsoring sorority, Alpha Kappa Alpha, sends the very clear message to students that their opinions and concerns are irrelevant to the administration.

Just how should the women of Alpha Kappa Alpha have been engaged?

They should have been confronted and asked “what were you thinking?” But that’s not what these leftist faculty have in mind.

And the message that “students” in Student Government apparently got was that Marquette had acted responsibly. Since student government tends to be dominated by more liberal and politically activist students, the message from the entire student body would have been an even more emphatic “what kind of idiots thought this was a good idea?”

Expertise?

Second, we find it deeply troubling that in a university—a societal institution explicitly designated to exchanging ideas and advancing knowledge—no efforts were made to consult faculty or staff with expertise in the area in order to understand the context and content of the mural itself from intellectual, cultural and historical perspectives. Instead, the reactionary rhetoric of a single faculty member who is currently suspended by the University took precedence over the knowledge of faculty in Africana Studies, Women’s and Gender Studies, History, Sociology, Criminology and Psychology, to cite only a few relevant academic disciplines, who possess years of training and valuable insights into the complexities surrounding race and gender studies generally, and the case of Assata Shakur specifically.

Translation: we leftist faculty were pretty much ignored.

And they should have been ignored.

Here is the dirty secret of academia: disciplines and subdisciplines are not merely repositories of expertise. They are little cottage industries where people tend to think alike. Sometimes there is genuine expertise: astrophysicists can tell you a lot about the universe. But often they are dominated by narrow ideological biases, the result of both self-selection (only feminists go into Women’s and Gender studies) and group think. And if you think independently, you’ll have trouble getting tenure.

So this statement is asserting that Marquette should have gone to the most narrow and biased centers of politically correct thinking to ask for advice about the mural. Given that this statement comes from those places, this is not a surprise.

Instead, the reactionary rhetoric of a single faculty member who is currently suspended by the University took precedence. . .

These, of course, are the same leftist faculty that have been demanding that Marquette fire us, and it must gall them terribly that they have not succeeded in shutting us up. Nasty authoritarians often have been successful in cowing and bullying into silence people whose views they dislike, but it didn’t work this time.

academic freedom; or the cold climate surrounding race, gender and sexuality in which we must work and live at Marquette.

Irony alert!

People who wanted us fired are talking about academic freedom? When they use the term, they apparently think it only applies to ideas of which they approve.

As for “cold climate:” what has actually happened is when they push too hard on their anti-Catholic, secular agenda, they get pushback. Since they are absolutely convinced in the righteousness of their cause, they consider this unfair. But anybody who thinks Marquette should try to be at least a little bit Catholic will have doubts about an aggressively lesbian dean candidate (Jodi O’Brien) and a Femsex seminar where women color pictures of female genitalia, produce a piece of pornography, and participate in a “non-judgmental” discussion of abortion and prostitution.

Catholic Identity a Sham?

Apparently, these secular faculty leftists have gotten the idea that a “Catholic identity” at Marquette is just a sham marketing ploy. One can easily see why they might think that, given that it’s mostly true. But then when Marquette is forced into a corner and has to reject something radically at odds with any notion of a “Catholic identity,” they whine and moan.

We expect to contribute our expertise in this process and challenge you to invite that of Marquette’s most important constituency, the students themselves, as you chart a new, inclusive and collaborative path for the University.

Of course, these leftist faculty have no “expertise” that would allow them to say that honoring a cop killer is acceptable. They have only leftist ideology.

Including all faculty would be a dandy idea. Including all students would be too. As noted, they are doubtless less likely to condone a cop killer mural than is MUSG. And alumni should be included, something the faculty leftists don’t like, having already lamented “that the university satisfies the Catholic, conservative base of alumni and donors.” But these folks are real stakeholders, the value of whose degrees are dependent on the reputation of Marquette, and whose contributions heavily support Marquette.

A genuinely inclusive and collaborative process would find these few dozen leftist faculty outnumbered and marginalized. Which is why they don’t want any such process. They simply want Marquette to cater to them.

Fundraising Support for Susannah Bartlow

For those who have not been following this blog, Susannah Bartlow is the former director of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Marquette, who was summarily fired when it was found that she had approved a large mural on the wall of the Center honoring cop killer and terrorist Assata Shakur.

A fund raising effort on her behalf can be found here:

http://www.gofundme.com/susannahbartlow

The appeal starts with some silly statements:

On Monday, May 18th, Dr. Susannah Bartlow was fired as Director of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Marquette University. She was fired suddenly and swiftly, without input from the GSRC Advisory Committee, after pouring her heart and soul into bringing excellent programming to Marquette over the last three years. She was fired seemingly for doing her job: providing a safe space for students to express themselves and engage in thoughtful dialogue (more information below).

No, the purpose of the Center was to promote a gay lifestyle, and push leftist political causes, as its Facebook page shows.

But then, we get some new and rather disturbing information:

When she was fired, Susannah was not offered any severance. She was paid only through her last day of work on May 18th, and was not expecting, at that moment in her professional life, to face the job market. Additionally, when she was terminated on May 18th, Susannah had already missed the 2015-2016 hiring cycle for positions in higher education. She continues to contribute to her community by accepting a temporary position at Pathfinders in Milwaukee, which pays a modest hourly income, but it is going to be hard to make ends meet and cover some of the basics, including health insurance. Her friends, colleagues and well-wishers ask that you consider donating to a fund to support Susannah as she transitions into a new (permanent) professional role. We want to give her the time to find the right placement for herself. Please consider donating; even a small amount helps. Funds will be used to cover her living expenses, health insurance, and any legal fees associated with an unemployment claim. Susannah has also pledged to donate any funds above our goal to Pathfinders and plans to blog about what’s going on in her life, especially related to job searches, work at Pathfinders, and writing projects on a weekly Wednesday blog called Work in Progress.

So how do we feel about this?

We are actually hoping that the campaign raises the target amount ($3,800) for Bartlow. Yes, she is a leftist extremist (as her blog posts about Shakur show) and should never have been hired as a director of any program at Marquette.

But we have seen no evidence that she ever concealed or misrepresented her political views when interviewing for the position. And indeed, Marquette seems to have approved (if only through inattention) of her leftist activism in the position (with Femsex being a large exception).

That being the case, Marquette owed her a reasonable severance package. We won’t contribute, although only because we would accused of some nefarious purpose if we did so. But we think certain Marquette administrators should step up and see that this campaign reaches the goal.

Dan Maguire Comments

Among those who commented and gave a relatively generous gift ($200) was Dan Maguire, who said:

Another example of heavy-handed non-collegial authoritarianism in the Lovell administration. Another example of the lack of appropriate faculty participation in university governance as recommended by the AAUP and other academic agencies.

Maguire is making a principled argument here, although it’s one to which we have never been sympathetic. It has always sounded to us a bit like wanting the inmates to run the asylum. This has been especially true given that the “faculty” who want to participate in “governance” have been a highly self-selected bunch of activists.

But then, what about the case where the people supposed to be running the asylum are corrupt?

Marquette has not had a president whom we could respect since John Raynor, who served from 1965 until 1990.

In this case, however, we don’t think Marquette had any choice but to take the mural down, and to fire Bartlow. Had the issue of the mural been opened up for “discussion” with some faculty defending it, and others (probably many fewer, since conservative professors keep their heads down) opposing it, the public relations fallout would have been monumental. Unlike in academia, in American society as a whole murdering cops is not only viewed as evil, it’s not even viewed as something that can be defended.

Marquette Leftist Faculty Continue to Protest Removal of Cop Killer Mural

To normal people in the real world, it might seem obvious that Marquette should not honor a cop killer who is on the FBI list of the Ten Most Wanted Terrorists. So a large mural of Assata Shakir on the wall of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center seemed clearly out of place.

And indeed, when we outed Marquette for having the mural on campus, the University moved quickly to have the mural painted over, and also fired Suzanna Bartlow, the Director of the Center, who had given permission for the mural to be painted.

But academics are not normal people in the real world, so there has been some push-back by campus leftists.

First, there was a petition, signed by over 60 faculty and staff, protesting the removal of the mural.

At about the same time, leftist faculty were meeting with Arts & Science Dean Richard Holz to complain. We have the minutes of that meeting:

Gender Resource Center Faculty Meeting with Dr. Richard Holz
Tuesday, May 26, 2015
1:00-2:30 p.m.
Attendees: Drs. E. Afinoguenova, A. Blair, C. Burrows, K. Coffey-Guenther, M. Cover, A. Crampton, E. de St. Aubin, A. Efford, K. Foster, S. Foster, S. Gendron, O. Goldin, N. Gordon, J. Grych, H. Hathaway, S. Hartman-Keiser, C. Hay, J. Holstein, R. Holz, G. Krenz, S. Luft, C. Maranto, R. Masson, M. Mattox, D. McDaniel, S. Mulla, D. Nowacek, R. Nowacek, A. Pasero, J. Peterson, A. Sheikh, M. Siderits, A. Sorby, J. South, J. Su, R. Stuart, M. Williams, A. Zurcher. Ms. Kim Patterson

Dr. Holz welcomed and thanked everyone present for meeting with him. He will share concerns with President Lovell, Interim Provost Callahan, and incoming Provost Myers. Dr. Holz was contacted by OMC and notified of the mural on Sunday, May 17 (graduation).

Concerns/Discussion:

• The Gender Resource Center Chair was told of the decision by the Interim Provost. The Chair was not consulted nor made part of the conversation regarding the outcome of this situation. In addition, members of the Diversity Advisory Committee, the President’s Task Force on Equity and Inclusion and the University Academic Senate-Committee on Diversity and Equity were also not consulted or involved in a discussion or the process.
• The director position should be held by a tenured faculty member.
• The Gender Resource Center should be located in a more prominent spot on campus. The media statement issued indicated the mural was located in a “remote” area of campus. What message does this portray about the Center and to those who are actively involved with it?
• The incoming WGST faculty director resigned as a result of this issue.
• Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority students completed the necessary university paperwork required for this project with no indication that their project would be problematic.
• This is an issue about black women, a specific voice on campus, who wanted to be heard and were shutdown.
• No outreach effort on the part of university leadership to the students involved with the project.
• Students who are not part of the “mainstream” feel that the university sides with a certain population on campus who is/was hurt by this display. These students don’t see a tolerance or respect for inclusion and diversity on campus but rather a tenor that continues to favor the traditional/white student. They are on campus and in class with their peers and are seeing repercussions.
• A university is a place of discussion and ideas, even a Catholic university. It is not a place where the conversation is shutdown no matter how uncomfortable. It is problematic that we are not able to discuss/talk about ideas/issues that we are uncomfortable with. This could have been a teaching/learning opportunity for the entire university community. A dialogue to learn why students chose this person, why some members of campus feel it is/it is not a good selection and a discussion to determine how to best collectively move forward, would have been prudent.
• Marquette is a Catholic-Jesuit University; part of a 100 year tradition. A tradition that encourages discussion. We must articulate the difference between a parish and a university.
• The Marquette Parents social media outlets are in need of a university leader/facilitator who is well-versed in Jesuit traditions and pedagogy. This issue was a recent topic of discussion on one of the parent social media formats and clearly there was no one providing a perspective/interpretation on behalf of the university. It was clear that no one was tasked with responding on behalf of the university and/or that as a university we are a place for discussion of all types of issues and concerns.
• Discussions about sex-race-gender continue to be taboo on campus.
• A number of junior faculty members are asking themselves if Marquette is the right place for them. We need to be concerned both with the retention and recruitment of junior faculty.
• Dr. McAdams influence and reach appears to be in full force even though he has been suspended. This has a chilling effect on the campus community. Some faculty members are now more than ever concerned with what they are saying/doing in the classroom because it seems that legitimate discussions of controversial topics can be used against them.
• The university finds itself in the media spotlight and is immediately reactive. Rather than talking about the concern/issue in an intellectual manner, the university satisfies the Catholic, conservative base of alumni and donors.
• How do faculty members respond to peers and collaborators at other institutions who are asking and wondering what is happening at Marquette? Recommendations:
• A tenured faculty member serve as Director of the Gender Resource Center.
• The Gender Resource Center be placed in a more prominent space on campus.
• The Center falls under the umbrella of the College of Arts and Sciences.
• A request of President Lovell to hold a forum/discussion with faculty, students and staff about this issue.
• Academic Senate to make a statement about the lack of inclusion in the decision to erase the mural and remove the director.

Dr. Holz thanked everyone for sharing their thoughts and feedback.

Let’s deconstruct some of this blather.

In addition, members of the Diversity Advisory Committee, the President’s Task Force on Equity and Inclusion and the University Academic Senate-Committee on Diversity and Equity were also not consulted or involved in a discussion or the process.

Translation: all of these bodies were approved and established by the University as sops to the politically correct “diversity” faction on campus, but when an issue arose of actual vital importance to the University, the institution saw no need to consult the race-gender-sexual orientation hustlers. Good call on Marquette’s part.

The director position should be held by a tenured faculty member.

Tenure would protect the faculty position of a Director who wanted to honor a cop killer, but not the administrative position. A lot of administrators have tenure in an academic department. If they screw up and are fired from their administrative position, they have the option to go to their academic department and be just like any other faculty member.

But they virtually never want to do that.

The media statement issued indicated the mural was located in a “remote” area of campus. What message does this portray about the Center and to those who are actively involved with it?

It says, folks, that it was just a sop to the campus gay lobby in the wake of Marquette’s failure to hire aggressively lesbian Dean candidate Jodi O’Brien.

Alpha Kappa Alpha (AKA) sorority students completed the necessary university paperwork required for this project with no indication that their project would be problematic.

Which was a major dereliction of duty by the person (presumably, Suzanna Bartlow) who approved the project.

This is an issue about black women, a specific voice on campus, who wanted to be heard and were shutdown.

The national Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority claimed “Unfortunately Ms. Shakur’s entire history and background was not fully researched. If that process had occurred, she would not have been featured in the mural.” Is this a lie? Did the women of the sorority mean to honor a cop killer and terrorist? If so, they deserve to be condemned, “specific voice” or not. The faculty who are complaining about this would quickly want to silence a “specific voice” with which they disagreed. Indeed, later in the letter they complain about not being able to silence this blogger!

Students who are not part of the “mainstream” feel that the university sides with a certain population on campus who is/was hurt by this display. These students don’t see a tolerance or respect for inclusion and diversity on campus but rather a tenor that continues to favor the traditional/white student.

So tolerance and respect require honoring a cop killer? Is the implication that there are lots of minority students on campus who support killing cops? If it is, this is a terrible slur against minority students.

A university is a place of discussion and ideas, even a Catholic university. It is not a place where the conversation is shutdown no matter how uncomfortable.

But discussion has not been shut down. These folks can “discuss” all they want. All that has happened is that a mural honoring a cop killer and terrorist has been painted over. The mural involved no discussion. Just the glorification of Shakur.

It is problematic that we are not able to discuss/talk about ideas/issues that we are uncomfortable with.

Irony alert!

These are the kind of faculty who believe that discussion of gay marriage should be forbidden because any arguments against it would be “offensive” to gay students and “homophobic.” These are people like Nancy Snow, who tried to shut up a student in one of her classes who wanted to present a cops’ perspective on “racial profiling.” It seems these folks are very selective about when they want to “discuss/talk about ideas/issues.”

Discussions about sex-race-gender continue to be taboo on campus.

No, people blather about those issues endlessly. But then when somebody disagrees with them, they start whining about how an issue is “taboo.” What they would really like is to make it taboo to voice opinions which they dislike.

A number of junior faculty members are asking themselves if Marquette is the right place for them.

What kind of junior faculty? Yahoos who think honoring a cop killer is acceptable? If there is any substantial number of such people, that speaks very badly of Marquette, and if such people should leave, that would be good.

Dr. McAdams influence and reach appears to be in full force even though he has been suspended.

It’s amazing how much “influence and reach” one can have by simply reporting things that certain people would like to be secret.

Did they think they had silenced us when they got Marquette to suspend us? If so, they now know better.

Rather than talking about the concern/issue in an intellectual manner, the university satisfies the Catholic, conservative base of alumni and donors.

It seems that these people are “stakeholders” when Marquette wants to hit them up for money, but they should not count if they object to bizarre things happening at the institution.

A request of President Lovell to hold a forum/discussion with faculty, students and staff about this issue.

Of course, as Marquette has pointed out, the time for such a discussion was before the mural was put up. A discussion would be a good idea, but these folks would not want a balanced discussion with a representative group of faculty, students and alumni. They want a discussion stacked to favor people such as themselves.

This whole document is a window into the insular, politically correct bubble that is the political climate in substantial parts of academia. Yes, in that bubble, it’s not only arguable that killing cops is justified, it is thought reasonable that Marquette might honor a cop killer.

Update

An e-mail correspondent sends the following comment:

I read your Tuesday blog post. Just because some faculty showed up to the meeting doesn’t mean that they are politically motivated in attending, though your blog suggests that this is a special meeting with outraged leftist faculty. A number of us were silent, listening. The invitation to the meeting went out to all Arts and Sciences faculty interested in hearing what the dean had to say about the matter. Turns out that he had no information, only offering himself as a conduit to the higher administration, but we didn’t know that when we showed up.

This is a fair point to raise. Our readers should not assume that just because a particular faculty member is on the list of people who attended he or she approved of the mural or was protesting its removal.