Marquette Warrior: Marquette Administrators and the Campus Gay Cabal: What Are They Planning for Us?

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Marquette Administrators and the Campus Gay Cabal: What Are They Planning for Us?

We’ve reported on the fact that Chris Miller, Vice President for Student Affairs here at Marquette, brought to campus lesbian college administrator/activist Ronnie Sanlo to serve as a “consultant” to Marquette.

The issue was very hush-hush. No notice was sent to the general faculty mailing list. It was not listed in “News Briefs” (where virtually all campus events are announced). We only learned about it via a leaked e-mail. Apparently, only gay and lesbian students and faculty, and their liberal “allies” were told about it.

But with whom did she meet?

When we learned about her visit, we asked Student Affairs for a copy of her itinerary. The Secretary in Student Affairs (Stacy Kuras, obviously acting on direction from Chris Miller) replied:
Normally, we don’t release a consultants’ itinerary. If you do have an interest in speaking with her, we will be more than happy to provide you with times in order to do so.
So we signed up for the 1:00 p.m. Friday meeting (which we knew about via the leaked e-mail) and filed a report from there. Apparently Chris Miller had calculated that letting us in would be less embarrassing than having us make a stink about being excluded.

Then, this past Monday, a student who was a strong supporter of the campus gay lobby came by our office and showed us a copy of the Sanlo itinerary. He had gotten it simply for the asking from Kuras. Under the circumstances, we called Kuras and again asked for the itinerary, pointing out that the student had it. She said she would have to “ask,” and then Tuesday it arrived in our e-mail.

Apparently, the “less embarrassing to produce the information” principle had worked again.

The PDF of the exact document we got from Student Affairs is here, but the gist of it is as fellows.
Dr. Ronni Sanlo
October 28th & 29th, 2010
Itinerary

Thursday, October 28th

8:00 a.m. to 8:30 a.m.
Breakfast with Dr. Christopher Miller at the Envoy in the Ambassador

9:15 a.m. to 10 a.m.
Meeting with Dr. John Pauly, Provost, Zilber Hall 448

10:00 a.m. to 10:20 a.m.
Meeting with Mr. Greg Kliebhan, Senior Vice President, Zilber Hall 435

10:20 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.
Meeting with Ms. Anne O’Brien & Dr. Toby Peters, Vice President’s Office, Zilber 435

11:00 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.
Meeting with Diversity Advocates, Todd Wehr Chemistry 002

12 a.m. to 12:50 p.m.
Lunch Meeting with Dr. Steven Engel & Dr. Amelia Zurcher, Tory Hill Café

1:00 p.m. to 1:30 p.m.
Meeting with Mr. Steve Frieder, Assistant to the President, Zilber Hall 441

1:30 p.m. to 1:55 p.m.
Break

2:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m.
Meeting with Mr. Larry Rickard, MU Chief of Police, & DPS 1st floor Parking Structure, 16th St

2:40 p.m. to 3:10 p.m.
Meeting with Mr. Steve Blaha, Campus Ministry, AMU 236

3:15 p.m. to 4:55 p.m.
Break

5:00 p.m. to 5:55 p.m.
Meeting with Dr. Chris Miller, Vice President of Student Affairs, AMU 437

6:00 p.m. to 7:30 p.m.
Dinner with Dr. Nancy Snow at the Knick, 1030 E Juneau Avenue*


Friday, October 29,th


8:30 a.m. to 9:25 a.m.
Meeting with the [Student Affairs] Executive Leadership Team (ELT), AMU 252

9:30 a.m. to 9:55 a.m.
Break

10 a.m. to 10:50 a.m.
Meeting with Ms. Erin Ruckoldt of GSA [Gay/Straight Alliance] & Student members, as well as the Student Organization Empowerment, AMU 230

11 a.m. to 11:50 a.m.
Meeting with Ms. Rana Altenburg, Vice President, Office of Public Affairs, 1616 W Wells

12 p.m. to 12:50 p.m.
Lunch with Marquette University Student Government (MUSG), Lunda Room

1:00 p.m. to 1:50 p.m.
Meeting I with various Faculty & Graduate Students, AMU 252

2:00 p.m. to 2:50 p.m.
Dr. Wellburn Collegiate Group and Diversity Advisory Committee, Zilber Hall, Conf 444

3:00 p.m. to 3:50 p.m.
Meeting II with various Faculty & Graduate Students, AMU 252

4:00 p.m. to 4:20 p.m.
Meeting with Dr. Chris Miller, Vice President of Student Affairs, AMU 437

4:20 p.m. to 4:30 p.m.
Conference call with Fr. Scott Pilarz

4:30 p.m.
Stacy to drive Dr. Sanlo to the Airport
The first obvious thing: virtually every top administrator at Marquette met with Sanlo. The exceptions: President Robert Wild (who sent Steve Frieder to talk to her), and Development (which would not be expected to much like initiatives that would alienate alumni).

Second, “faculty” and “students” were included, but only very carefully selected faculty and students.

Thus, when Marquette announces some new “initiative” to placate the gay lobby, it can claim that there was “extensive consultation with students and faculty.” But the “consultation” was a sham.

The Agenda

But just what do they want to do?

First, we can look at what President Fr. Robert Wild has already promised.

In a statement released in the wake of the decision not to hire lesbian Arts & Science Dean candidate Jodi O’Brien, Wild said:
I am saddened by the divisiveness this decision has caused, and, as I enter my final year as your resident, a priority focus will be continuing dialogue and reflection, among faculty, staff and students, about our Catholic, Jesuit identity and the important principles of academic freedom, shared governance and the needs of our LGBT community. I expect us to explore these topics through the research, teaching and service projects that are a part of university life, in ways that include, but certainly are not limited to, faculty summer research, faculty-student team research projects, conferences and speakers, course development, and student service‐learning projects, particularly in the areas of gender and sexuality and Catholicity in higher education. I welcome, indeed encourage, your ideas.
Some of this sounds innocuous enough. Who could object to “research projects” or “conferences and speakers” or “service-learning projects?”

In reality, however, any such initiatives are likely to have a sharp pro-homosexuality, politically correct bias. We would be astonished to, for example, see an actual campus debate on gay marriage or whether Marquette should have hired Jodi O’Brien with advocates on both sides, sharply presenting both sides of the issue.

If any such debate happens, it will probably come from a student organization, not from any Marquette bureaucrat.

Some of these things, of course, can be pursued by faculty who enjoy academic freedom to research gay issues, or to discuss such issues in courses. But it would be foolish for Marquette to fund or encourage such things.

But Wild’s list hardly exhausts the mischief that the gay agenda might involve.

A Gay & Lesbian Center.

One of the things strongly promoted by Sanlo during her meeting with faculty was a Gay and Lesbian Center. It might sound nice to “provide resources” or “meet the needs” of gay and lesbian students. But it’s unclear how those needs aren’t being met by the current Marquette bureaucracy. The Counseling Center or the Campus Ministry or Student Affairs are hardly anti-gay.

But then, maybe the “need” is simply to legitimate a homosexual lifestyle.

Domestic Partner Benefits

Marquette student government has already endorsed domestic partner benefits for the “partners” of gay and lesbian faculty and staff. Of course, since it’s illegal in Wisconsin to discriminate on the basis of sexual orientation, presumably the unmarried live-in partners of straight faculty would also be covered.

That would require Marquette to actually subsidize relationships that Catholic teaching holds to be illicit. But a fair number of “Catholic” colleges do this, so it’s not hard to think Marquette would.

When faculty met with Sanlo, this was one of the issues heavily promoted.

Hiring More Gay and Lesbian Faculty

We don’t expect to see any job ads from Marquette saying “candidate must be gay or lesbian” or even “gays and lesbians encouraged to apply.” But that’s not necessary. Simply advertising for a scholar doing “gender studies” is overwhelmingly likely to turn up candidates favorable to the gay lobby. Then, of course, it’s possible to skip a competitive search for an entry level position and hire a particular scholar from another institution.

Conclusion

Thus the gay lobby agenda on campus is to build an infrastructure. Not that they are lacking one already: Student Affairs, the Campus Ministry, the English and Psychology Departments (along with several others), the program in Women’s and Gender Studies and the Office of Mission and Identity are firmly on board.

The agenda is to expand the infrastructure with more courses, more hires of faculty and staff, and more symbolic concessions that (implicitly but quite clearly) renounce Catholic teaching on sexuality.

Labels: , , , ,

3 Comments:

Anonymous James Pawlak said...

This would be a great insult to the Church---If, and only if, MU was a Catholic university.

7:31 AM  
Blogger GTChristie said...

I would say, given MU's status as a Catholic university, the only rational position to take is "tolerate but do not advocate." In other words, the dividing line between appropriate and inappropriate policy is whether the policy or procedure tolerates the interests of the GBLT community but does not advocate them. Since "building infrastructure" (which means creating power centers) is activist in nature, allowing that would be support of advocation -- a move in the wrong direction.

3:12 AM  
Blogger John McAdams said...

I think "tolerate but not advocate" is an excellent formulation.

3:39 PM  

Post a Comment

<< Home