Former Director of the Gender And Sexuality Resource Center Moans and Complains About Removal of Mural of Terrorist

This blog broke the story, and it went national: a mural of cop killer and domestic terrorist Assata Shakur in the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center at Marquette. Quickly, the mural was painted over, and the Director of the Center, Susannah Bartlow, was fired.

She has now published an article on the issue in Feminist Studies, Vol. 41, No. 3, “Gendering Bodies, Institutional Hegemonies” (2015), pp. 689-697.

The mere title gives away the fact that this is going to be an example of the arcane and stilted rhetoric common among academic feminists. And indeed it is.

As the founding director of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center (GSRC), my job was to build an academic support office for women’s, gender, and LGBTQ+ education and empowerment. In the center’s third year, Amanda Smith (a Marquette senior) and Jeanette Martín (a community artist and program assistant at the center) envisioned, planned, and executed the Assata Shakur mural project as a way to invite greater community interest. In my role as director of the center, I supported the project, communicated it to senior leaders, and spread the word about the community-painting day in late March 2015.

So it wasn’t Bartlow’s idea. But she knew perfectly well who Shakur was, having signed a petition requesting that President Obama take Shakur off the Most Wanted Terrorists List. And she approved the project anyway.

Her claim to have “communicated it [plans for the mural] to senior leaders” is interesting, since if she informed “senior leaders” about who Shakur is, and they approved the mural, they are responsible and Bartlow was a mere sacrificial lamb.

Faced with a similar claim months ago, we wrote Bartlow, asking for details of what was communicated to higher-level officials, and she did not respond.

Defense of the Mural

Bartlow continues:

Over the six weeks it was on display at the center, the mural invited people into a quiet space off a hallway, and it had sparked discussion among staff, faculty, and students who used the space. The mural was one of very few images of a black woman anywhere on Marquette’s campus, and it contributed to a sense among many students of color that the GSRC was a space in which they were welcomed and safe and where they could be comfortable.

Yet in the distortions of white supremacy, the mural looked like a threat, rather than an intellectual and community representation central to the university itself.

So it’s “white supremacy” to object to object to a mural of a cop killer?

Did the mural “invite” people into the Center? If so, why was a mural of a cop killer particularly “inviting?” Does the clientele of the Center think killing cops is fine?

If one wants an image of a black woman, we can think of a lot of black women who have not killed any cop, and are not on the FBI’s list of Most Wanted Terrorists.

As for the mural looking like a “threat,” this is what psychologists call “projection.” Politically correct feminists and other leftists are always claiming to feel “unsafe” when they face arguments and facts they find inconvenient. So they assume that other people feel “threatened” (rather than merely appalled) by an image of a black militant cop killer.

Bartlow goes on:

What happened specifically to this mural and to my job is also connected to the charged context of contemporary racialized violence. What happened to the mural is really a minor symptom of the full-on assault against poor people, people of color, queer people, and others who cannot access or play by the rules of twenty-first-century social dominance. No words fit the loss of life and the daily violations against black, brown, and poor people: in Milwaukee, where Marquette is located, more than 100 of the 105 homicides reported so far in 2015 involve black or Hispanic victims.

The chutzpah here is astounding.

Painting over a mural is part of the same phenomenon of black people getting killed?

Worse still is the assertion that 100 of the 105 homicides thus far this year had black or Hispanic victims. Is she implying that cops killed all these people? Klansmen?

No breakdown of victims by race of offender for Milwaukee is available at the moment, but national statistics pretty much tell the story. In 2012 (the last year for which tabulations are available), of 2648 blacks murdered, 2412 were murdered by other blacks. That’s 91 percent.

And the map of the locations of murders in the city of Milwaukee, published by the Journal-Sentinel, also tells the story.



It shows murders concentrated in black neighborhoods on the north side, and Hispanic neighborhoods on the near south side.

More Arcane Verbiage

Bartlow continues:

Our choice of Assata Shakur—a powerful, controversial black leader, an uncompromising woman, for better and worse—came out of a year-long process of supportive, consensus-based, power sharing between students and staff at our center. The mural was visible evidence that our feminist collaborations were working.

So she thought the process was great. But the outcome of the process was odious.

Why could not a “supportive, consensus-based, power sharing” process have produced a mural of a black woman that almost everybody on the campus could admire, and a mural that the Administration could have supported (rather than having to distance itself from). Quite simply: Bartlow and her collaborators were political extremists who didn’t particularly mind black militants killing cops.

Thus the hiring of Bartlow stands as a major fiasco. Perhaps the Administration will be more careful in the future. If so, this débâcle has served a useful purpose. But given the current administration’s habit of pandering to the activists, we have our doubts.

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.

Susannah Bartlow: Doubling Down on Assata Shakur

When we first discovered that a wall of Marquette’s Gender and Sexuality Resource Center was decorated with a large mural of convicted cop killer Assata Shakur, we thought that perhaps somebody simply didn’t know who she really was. Maybe somebody found some quote from her that they liked without bothering to learn anything about her. Otherwise, who would honor a cop killer?

We quickly discovered that the Director of the Center, one Susannah Bartlow, knew exactly who Shakur was, having signed a petition demanding that she be taken off the FBI’s list of the Ten Most Wanted Terrorists.

Bartlow was sacked, but she has a blog, and she has not backed down at all from her support for Shakur.

Here is one of her posts on the issue, and here is the other.

The posts are a window into the insular bubble that is political correctness at contemporary universities. It’s not just Bartlow. It’s at least several dozen professors at Marquette, and a fair number of administrators too.

Some examples:

This disrespect for the work of women of color is another astonishing example of how racism works. It is hard to imagine another mural, whatever its subject, being removed without even an attempt to understand the subject or the students’ perspective.

So it is hard to imagine that a mural of a Klansman would be removed without even an attempt to understand the subject or the students’ perspective?

No, if such a mural appeared, it would be summarily painted over, and the “students’ perspective” would be roundly condemned with no “discussion” necessary. But in the world of the politically correct, violent black terrorists are somehow heroes.

Further, the official statement of Alpha Kappa Alpha, the black sorority whose members painted the mural, claims that the members simply did not know who Shakur was, and if they had, they would not have painted the mural.

Assuming that’s true, what we have here is what happens so often on college campuses: white leftists using minorities as human shields.

. . . right now, a national movement is mobilizing in support of black and brown people who have been unfairly targeted by law enforcement! It should be more clear than ever that something is wrong with our system and how people of color fare within it.

In the first place, Bartlow doesn’t seem to notice that the “hands up don’t shoot” nonsense from Ferguson, MO has been thoroughly debunked, and debunked by the Eric Holder Justice Department. And the six officers changed in the Baltimore case of Freddie Gray include three blacks, making the simple racial narrative difficult to sustain.

Racial Grievance

Worse, just how is it that honoring a cop killer addresses any legitimate grievance about policing in the black community? In fact, it only poisons the atmosphere, and does so to the detriment of black citizens. Is the assumption here that black people approve of cop killers? A few do, but they should not be appeased or pandered to.

Although it feels good, “appropriate” doesn’t have much to do with the discomfort it takes to learn new things, especially about volatile political issues. It usually backfires, making people who are already threatened feel less safe, and enabling people who typically feel pretty safe in any environment to keep on keeping on. Educationally, this is counterproductive.

So, in the politically correct bubble, the world is divided into people who feel “safe” and need to be made to feel less safe, and those who feel “unsafe” and need to be made to feel safe.

This is typical of campus political correctness, where favored and petted victim groups are allowed to shut up speech they claim makes them feel “unsafe” (no matter how ridiculous such claims are) but whites, males, Christians, conservatives and so on must put up with whatever demeaning comments anybody chooses to make.

More importantly, though, Marquette students were protesting all year, mostly related to racism on campus. Many of the students I worked with were tired, sad, angry, energized, inspired, and motivated to claim some space where they could feel like their experiences and histories were affirmed.

Very few Marquette students (indeed the number is vanishingly small) are racists, that is unless any politically incorrect opinion on racial matters, or any innocent “microaggression” somehow counts as racism.

But students in the orbit of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center have been taught to collect and nurse grievances.

Exploration?

. . . why is Assata Shakur “inappropriate for a mural”? Because her story is more contemporary? Because she lives in Cuba? Because she is still alive? Who decides what is appropriate? What is a university for if not to explore these questions?

Unfortunately, the mural was not “exploration,” it was glorification. Had Bartlow’s center sponsored a debate on Shakur, that would have been exploration. Instead, debate was summarily bypassed and a mural painted.

It’s odd for Bartlow, who didn’t feel discussion was needed before the mural was painted, to now tout “exploration.”

In my first post, I used the phrase “regardless of the mural’s content” to argue that the GSRC (and all campus educational/resource centers) should be able to support students’ interests and expressions without censorship or controlling influence.

Of course, this is flatly disingenuous. If some bunch of students wanted to honor a Klansman, Bartlow would not think of making this sort of argument. Indeed, a mural honoring a prominent opponent of gay marriage would be doubtless denounced by campus leftists.

I supported the student-led mural project because my job as an educator is to provide space, resources, and opportunities without censorship or condescension. In an environment of daily racism, the students wanted to research and offer up images of powerful black women leaders—both as a way to brighten up the GSRC as a hangout space and as a way to support identities and experiences that were on the margins at Marquette.

Of course, Shakur is not a “powerful black woman leader.” Condoleezza Rice is.

Again, either Bartlow is a white woman using black women as human shields, or the national spokeswoman for Alpha Kappa Alpha sorority is lying (or at least badly mistaken) about what happened.

The argument seems to be that since black women deserve a “voice,” whatever they choose to say must be supinely accepted, since they are, after all, an oppressed minority group. Ironically, Bartlow adds:

Effective learning happens with healthy discomfort and sometimes with controversy.

But somehow, pampered minority groups should be spared discomfort and controversy. All the while, less favored groups should be made to feel uncomfortable about their “white privilege” in a “racist society” and have their political and social views challenged.

Somebody should have asked the women of Alpha Kappa Alpha “do you know who this woman is?” And if the answer was “yes,” “why in the world do you think she is some sort of role model?”

As is usually the case, politically correct people end up demeaning the victim groups they claim to champion. The implication here is that blacks and other minorities have fragile egos that cannot stand an intellectual challenge. Further, if having one’s views challenged is part of a good education, what does it say if one wants to dispense with that for minority students?

Conclusion

Bartlow’s essays are important as a window into the world of politically correct thinking in academia. It’s the sort of thinking that is increasingly dominant in academia, and part of the general corruption of college life.

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.

Petition Protesting Removal of Marquette Cop Killer Mural

We now have the text of the petition signed by over 60 Marquette faculty and staff, protesting the removal of a mural of cop killer and terrorist Assata Shakur from a wall in the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center.

First, the text of the e-mail cover send out with the letter:

Dear Faculty and Staff Colleagues,

Please read and consider signing the attached statement regarding the removal of the Assata Shakur mural from the GSRC office and the firing of GSRC Director Susannah Bartlow. This statement will be sent to members of the University Leadership Council. After reading this statement, email me if you’d like to sign and I will add your name and university department/position to the list of signees. You may sign anonymously, if you prefer. In that case, you will be listed as “Assistant Professor, Name Withheld” or “Staff Member, Name Withheld” (or perhaps “Staff Member, Libraries, Name Withheld”).

Take care,
Stephen Franzoi
Professor Emeritus, Psychology Department

Now the text of the letter itself:

The recent events on campus in response to the mural of Assata Shakur and the subsequent firing of the GSRC director, Susannah Bartlow, demand a response. As faculty, we would hope that a university administration would respond with a critical and careful concern for our students, our faculty, and our staff. In short, the administration should act with discernment following a process of examen and reflection. The university’s response has been the exact opposite. As a faculty, we submit that the following were not weighed in considering the process for engaging the mural, erasing the mural, and terminating Dr. Bartlow. The incident has raised critical questions that the university ought to have considered before any decisions were made.

First and foremost, there was no consideration of the intellectual or scholarly traditions in which Shakur is invoked and engaged. While she is certainly a controversial figure, by adopting the narrative of pure vilification, the university has applied a problematic standard. The opportunity to sponsor a discussion about the appropriateness or inappropriateness of the mural’s subject was completely lost. Any context about race, policing, and the present moment and historical legacy surrounding these issues were ignored, including any reflection on Marquette’s own place within the social justice landscape. Did the administration consider the chilling impact of the erasure of the image within the context of present conversations about police brutality and black life? To disappear the mural with no engagement or conversation was to deny the role of such symbols in the social critique of police and to selectively erase some difficult histories while leaving others untouched. For a university to adopt a position informed solely by police is problematic in that they are but one stakeholder in our community. Students, staff and faculty are the other stakeholders on this campus, and their perspective and knowledge ought to have been weighed.

Second, the racial politics of the erasure of the mural were not considered with care. A group of black women students asks for a space to self-educate and explore. They paint a mural of a controversial black female figure. The figure is erased. Were the students consulted? Were they offered an opportunity to engage? To defend their choice? Were they offered opportunities for education and coursework? Was any of the care for their whole persons extended on the part of the university? Or was their initial request, that for space to invest in the representations of black women on campus, simply denied and stripped away? Where is the care for our students, their desire to engage in serious and difficult conversations? Does the university note that the involvement of Professor McAdams in drawing attention to the mural after its painting on March 24, 2015, means that a white male professor’s voice has taken prominence over the voices of many black female students, and the staff who took their project seriously and sought to give them space for conversation? What is the university planning to do to make those students whole? There is also the issue of whether similar standards are applied to other figures with problematic legacies, and how the term “terrorist” is itself not a neutral moniker, but one that is deeply racialized and politicized. For example, while Nelson Mandela is honored as a freedom fighter, he and the ANC were literally branded terrorists by the apartheid state in South Africa. Mandela remained on the U.S.’s lists of terrorist until 2008. Conversely, Thomas Jefferson is largely celebrated at the University of Virginia and at many universities across the country as a founding father and celebrated figure in our democratic history. Simultaneously, a robust and well-documented understanding of his legacy of slave ownership and sexual exploitation is well known in scholarly and popular discourse. As universities, which problematic legacies do we quietly accept, and which do we hold accountable? Is their [sic] racial and gender parity in how these standards are applied? Are we condoning some forms of violence while rejecting others?

Finally, was the process by which Dr. Bartlow was terminated appropriate and proportional? Was the board of the GSRC asked to weigh in? As the GSRC’s charter dictates that all decisions impacting the operations and future of the center must be vetted through the board, how was the board included in the decision-making process? Is immediate termination an appropriate course of action given the sequence of events, and was Dr. Bartlow’s contribution to enriching the research and teaching practices on campus outweighed by the perception of transgression in this case? Was her expertise in bringing best practices around LGBTQ advocacy, sexual assault prevention and advocacy, allyship, and student support outweighed by this event? Does the administration consider how difficult it will be to replace Dr. Bartlow and that this hasty decision undermines the momentum of the GSRC, and compromises the students, staff and faculty who depend on the center’s resources and role at the university to enrich our work? Has the university considered the impact on future enrollments of our student body, or future faculty hires? How will this decision impact the quality of student, staff and faculty life in the future?

Given the failures of the administration to act in a manner befitting a scholarly Jesuit institution, we ask the university respond to these queries, put in place processes to secure the future of the GSRC, to support students of color, and to embrace difficult conversations. Chiefly, it is clear that as the original recommendations for chartering the GSRC indicated, the GSRC must be directed by a tenured faculty member. In addition, programs such as Africana Studies and Women and Gender Studies must be adequately resourced, and care for our students, particularly students of color, must be exercised in the university’s practices, and not simply its words.

Sincerely,

Stephen L. Franzoi, Psychology

Analysis

This is a virtual thesaurus of politically correct ways of trying to defend the indefensible. Just how muddle-headed (and downright evil) is it? Let’s take it piece at a time.

As faculty, we would hope that a university administration would respond with a critical and careful concern for our students, our faculty, and our staff. In short, the administration should act with discernment following a process of examen and reflection. The university’s response has been the exact opposite.

And just how much “discernment” is needed to figure out that Marquette should not honor a cop-killing terrorist? If somebody painted a large racist mural on a wall on campus, the politically correct crowd wouldn’t be asking for “discernment” or “examen.” They would be demanding that it immediately be taken down. But they believe racism is really bad. Black militants killing white cops they think is debatable, and perhaps defensible.

First and foremost, there was no consideration of the intellectual or scholarly traditions in which Shakur is invoked and engaged. While she is certainly a controversial figure, by adopting the narrative of pure vilification, the university has applied a problematic standard.

What “intellectual or scholarly traditions?” The notion that it’s OK for blacks to rob and murder and that this somehow redresses racism?

Being a violent thug is not a “intellectual or scholarly tradition.” And even if it were, it would not be one Marquette should honor and commend.

Any context about race, policing, and the present moment and historical legacy surrounding these issues were ignored, including any reflection on Marquette’s own place within the social justice landscape.

So there is some “context” that makes killing cops (or honoring cop killers) acceptable? If one thinks there are problems surrounding race and policing an appropriate response is for black militants to kill cops?

Or perhaps Franzoi thinks that if black people are upset about police behavior (and it doesn’t seem to matter if, as in Ferguson or Madison, the cops were blameless) a good way to placate them is to honor a cop killer.

People who condone killing cops should not be placated. They should be roundly condemned. But leftist academics can’t bring themselves to do that.

As for “Marquette’s own place within the social justice landscape:” just how do you strike a blow for social justice by honoring a cop killer? Not only is this an injustice to the cop who is killed, it poisons the racial atmosphere, mostly to the detriment of black people.

Did the administration consider the chilling impact of the erasure of the image within the context of present conversations about police brutality and black life?

If painting over the mural sends a clear “chilling” message to those who think killing cops is defensible, that’s good. Marquette ought to condemn such ideas.

Students, staff and faculty are the other stakeholders on this campus, and their perspective and knowledge ought to have been weighed.

Does Franzoi believe that more than a tiny clique of politically correct yahoos among the “stakeholders” approve of a mural honoring a cop killer? Actually, he probably does. In certain departments at Marquette a narrow insular political correctness is dominant. But not among all faculty, and certainly not among all students, who on net are politically moderate. But perhaps when Franzoi says “students” he’s talking about a small group of leftist political activists. But they don’t represent all students.

Second, the racial politics of the erasure of the mural were not considered with care. A group of black women students asks for a space to self-educate and explore. They paint a mural of a controversial black female figure. The figure is erased. Were the students consulted? Were they offered an opportunity to engage? To defend their choice?

Here Franzoi most explicitly plays the race card. If a group of black women asked for something, they should not be denied, since they are members of a victim group, and any of their requests must be acceded to, under penalty of being charged with racism.

But it gets worse:

Does the university note that the involvement of Professor McAdams in drawing attention to the mural after its painting on March 24, 2015, means that a white male professor’s voice has taken prominence over the voices of many black female students. . . .

So here we have the anti-white racism and anti-male sexism so prevalent in academia. McAdams’ views must be rejected, since he’s a white male.

But of course, Marquette doesn’t care what we think. They reacted to the undeniable empirical reality: a large mural of a terrorist and cop killer was painted on a wall on campus.

Further, according to a national spokesperson for the black sorority in question (Alpha Kappa Alpha):

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.

In short, it was not “the voices of many black female students,” it was a screw up by sorority members who didn’t do their homework.

What is the university planning to do to make those students whole?

The members of Alpha Kappa Alpha do not need to be “made whole,” they need to be sternly lectured about expecting Marquette to honor a cop killer and terrorist. They need to be told to do their homework. And if they did intentionally want to honor a terrorist, they should be condemned.

Thomas Jefferson is largely celebrated at the University of Virginia and at many universities across the country as a founding father and celebrated figure in our democratic history. Simultaneously, a robust and well-documented understanding of his legacy of slave ownership and sexual exploitation is well known in scholarly and popular discourse. As universities, which problematic legacies do we quietly accept, and which do we hold accountable? Is their [sic] racial and gender parity in how these standards are applied? Are we condoning some forms of violence while rejecting others?

To compare Thomas Jefferson to Assata Shakur is absurd. Jefferson was one of the Founders of the greatest democracy on earth. Shakur’s legacy is a dead cop, numerous other crimes for which she was not convicted, and asylum in Fidel Castro’s Communist dictatorship.

Jefferson’s sexual behavior was immoral, but so was the sexual behavior of Martin Luther King, who frequently and blatantly committed adultery. But both King and Jefferson have a positive legacy. Shakur is just a thug and a criminal.

Has the university considered the impact on future enrollments of our student body, or future faculty hires? How will this decision impact the quality of student, staff and faculty life in the future?

Just what kind of people would blame Marquette, and refuse to come to Marquette, because Marquette would not allow a cop killer mural on campus? Apparently the sort of people that Franzoi would want to have at Marquette.

But not everybody thinks what Marquette needs more of the sort of leftists who think killing cops is acceptable. That is if a black kills a white cop. A white killing a black cop is something the leftists would really dislike.

Conclusion

That sixty-plus people signed this shows how corrupt Marquette has become. It’s true that this is only a small proportion of all Marquette faculty and staff. But this mentality permeates certain departments at Marquette, including two departments integral to a liberal arts education: English and Philosophy. And it’s dominant among the activists who are constantly pushing Marquette to be less and less a Catholic university, or more a citadel of secular political correctness.

Who Were the Faculty and Staff Who Supported the Cop Killer Mural?

When Marquette painted over a mural, in the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center, that honored cop killer and terrorist Assata Shakur, it seems like the obviously sensible thing to do. Why in the world would Marquette want to honor a cop killer?

But some Marquette faculty and staff disagree. From the Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel:

Marquette University failed to consider the racial politics of erasing a mural of a controversial black female figure, and missed an opportunity to sponsor a discussion about the appropriateness of the mural’s subject, more than 60 Marquette University faculty and staff allege in a statement sent Tuesday to the university’s leadership.

The mural depicted Assata Shakur, an African-American activist convicted of killing a New Jersey state trooper in 1973. She escaped prison, fled to Cuba, and became the first woman on the FBI’s Most Wanted list under her birth name, Joanne Chesimard. She is considered a domestic terrorist by some, and a wrongly accused folk hero by others who say she was targeted by authorities for her involvement in the Black Liberation Army and for being a Black Panther.

The statement from faculty and staff questions whether the university’s actions were “appropriate and proportional” and characterizes the move as a “hasty decision” that undermines the momentum of the Gender and Sexuality Resource Center.

“Any contexts about race, policing, and the present moment and historical legacy surrounding these issues were ignored, including any reflection on Marquette’s own place within the social justice landscape,” the statement by faculty and staff said. “Did the administration consider the chilling impact of the erasure of the image within the context of present conversations about police brutality and black life?”

What kind of yahoos signed this statement?

What, for example, is the meaning of “the chilling impact of the erasure of the image within the context of present conversations about police brutality and black life?” Is this a way of saying black people are rioting in Ferguson and Baltimore, and we don’t want to rile them up?

What in the world about the “contexts about race, policing, and the present moment and historical legacy surrounding these issues” justifies killing cops, or glorifying people who do?

But to answer the question: we know what kind of yahoos signed this statement. Politically correct yahoos, who are pretty numerous on the Marquette faculty, especially in humanities departments, Sociology and Psychology and the colleges of Education and Communications.

But exactly who did?

We don’t know, since the list of signers is secret. So is the unedited text of the statement.

We asked Journal-Sentinel reporter Karen Herzog for these two things, and she declined to provide them, citing the confidentiality of her source.

That raises the question of why the original manifesto and the list of signers was confidential. Are the people who signed it ashamed of the position they took? Why aren’t they willing to publicly stand up for their beliefs?