Sunday, December 21, 2014

MARQUETTE UNIVERSITY STIFLES ACADEMIC FREEDOM




BY BERNARD JAMES MAUSER, PH.D.



Marquette University is making national news. This is only partially because Philosophy Instructor Cheryl Abbate told a student that opposed homosexual marriage that “Some opinions are not appropriate,” “you don’t have a right in this class to make homophobic comments,” and “you can drop the class if you don’t like it.”  The main reason for national coverage is due to Marquette professor John McAdams being put on leave and investigated because he reported this incident on his Marquette Warrior blog (http://bit.ly/13leFvr


Cheryl Abbate

John McAdams


As a graduate from Marquette (with several years in the Philosophy program) I know the leadership of the department (both Associate Dean Dr. Susanne Foster and the chair Dr. Nancy Snow) that dealt with the student’s complaint. I also remember how liberal both of these professors were. Despite this liberalism in the leadership positions, there were conservatives in the department that were unaffected. Knowing these women, it is possible more is going on here than simply liberals ignoring complaints by a conservative student (though the policy may justify them doing so).


Here are four problems with what is happening regarding the circumstances at Marquette:


1.       Marquette needs to discover how to reconcile its Catholic identity with the ‘speech codes’ that labels a statement offending any party as hate speech.

A tension for ANY professor at Marquette would be that there are serious problems with forbidding statements against homosexual marriage. One problem is that the teachings of the Catholic Church, the Pope, or even the Bible could be perceived as a personal attack or harassment and thus forbidden from being subject to classroom discussion. 

Another involves the issues with claiming that objections to gay marriage are homophobic. This commits a logical fallacy.  People can be homophobic, but arguments can’t. Even if a person does have an irrational fear of gays, it doesn’t follow that their arguments are invalid or unsound. Also, a phobia is an irrational fear you can’t control. The person with this condition is handicapped. When one person accuses another of being homophobic to ridicule their arguments, it is the equivalent of making fun of the handicapped (which is more politically incorrect than opposing gay marriage). These are distinctions any person can perceive and philosophy professors can lead the way in making them. 

Professors should encourage students to explore that there are not only theological reasons for opposing gay marriage (Rom. 1, 1 Cor. 6:9), there are also strong philosophical (http://bit.ly/1z4L1TG), economic (see http://bit.ly/16ADyVH), and legal reasons for opposing it (http://amzn.to/1AmVdLv). It remains to be seen whether Marquette’s new President Michael Lovell, its first non-Jesuit, will take up the mantle of the Jesuits (who were once known to be defenders of the Catholic Church).  One can hope he will support the right to engage ideas in the classrooms with Catholic teaching (which opposes ‘gay’ marriage).



Dr. Michael Lovell

2.       Everyone should recognize a professor’s right to control the classroom discussion.

The main fear the instructor seems to have had in bringing up the issue of gay marriage is that some in the class would be offended. As Cheryl Abbate certainly thought her students may feel harassed, she thought it best to keep this off the table for public discussion. Ms. Abbate has the right as an instructor to control her course content to stay on task. 

3.     In investigating John McAdams, Marquette is employing a bullying tactic to try to squelch conservative views.

Although they have denied officially ‘suspending’ McAdams (which consists of stopping his pay), opening an investigation into his activity will effectively suppress students and faculty from discussing areas where there is legitimate debate. This is not an atmosphere that will engender public discourse on subjects that are of moral concern. In accordance with McAdams initial blog surrounding the controversy, Marquette has taken the very action of silencing debate of which Ms. Abbate was accused. 

4.     There has been a lack of integrity on the part of some journalists in not reading Ms. Abbate’s side of the story. 

Few reports present a balanced approach in trying to figure out what actually occurred. I’m disappointed by the lack of research done on both sides. It was not entirely unreasonable for Ms. Abbate to postpone or prevent discussion on the issue of gay marriage in class as it would potentially highjack the discussion. In an interview with Ms. Abbate right after the initial report, we should admit that it is possible that there is more going on here than meets the eye (see http://bit.ly/1taUzta). As a conservative, I don’t have to create straw men to knock down liberal arguments for gay marriage. Some of Ms. Abbate’s most contentious statements were not in the actual recording the student provided Dr. McAdams. As these are the most damning, we should give her the benefit of the doubt. All professors have experienced students that have misunderstood what they were saying.  


There are many problematic facets of this story. Ms. Abbate will be welcomed practically anywhere due to the liberal majority in the Universities (if it is proven she actually said what Dr. McAdams has claimed, so much the better in the liberal mindset). The real question for many is whether it is possible to reform liberal Catholic Universities to keep them in line with the foundational beliefs of Christianity. Also, it is clear that the logical outworking of these speech codes is that Jesus, Paul, Aquinas, and even many Popes would be punished if they were to teach ethics at this ‘Catholic’ University.


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