Teacher to Student: If You Don’t Support Gay Marriage, Drop My Class
“Opinions with which they disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed ‘offensive’ and need to be shut up,” he wrote.
The student told me he filed a complaint—but he said university officials dismissed his concerns.
McAdams wrote that he was not surprised because the university officials held the same intolerant views as the instructor.
“Like the rest of academia, Marquette is less and less a real university,” he wrote. “And when gay marriage cannot be discussed, certainly not a Catholic university.”
A university spokesman told me they were viewing “both a concern raised by a student and a concern raised by a faculty member.”
“We are taking appropriate steps to make sure that everyone involved is heard and treated fairly,” the spokesman told me. “In compliance with state and federal privacy laws, we will not publicly share the results of the reviews.”
Abbate told the website Inside Higher Ed that the “class discussion was not meant to be an opportunity for students to express their personal beliefs about political issues.”
She said she hoped Marquette would “use this event as an opportunity to create and actively enforce a policy on cyberbullying and harassment.”
“It is astounding to me that the university has not created some sort of policy that would prohibit this behavior which undoubtedly leads to a toxic environment for both students and faculty,” she told Inside Higher Ed.
The only thing toxic at Marquette are teachers who oppose Catholic doctrine and try to silence dissenting opinions.
I would be remiss if I did not address the student’s behavior. A full review of the audio tape reveals the student was in fact disrespectful to the instructor. And when the instructor asked if she was being recorded, the student did not tell the truth.
I asked the young man about his behavior and he admitted to me that it was wrong. He told me that he “regretted” his actions.
Nevertheless, the student’s behavior does not excuse Marquette University’s successful attempt to silence the free exchange of ideas.
So let’s review—an instructor at a Catholic university taught material that is contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church and when a Catholic student brought this information to the attention of Catholic administrators, the student was the one who got rebuked.
I’m not a Catholic, but it seems to me Marquette University is one of those CINO schools—Catholic in Name Only.
Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join his Facebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is God Less America.
