By MIKE MANNO
Dr. John McAdams was a professor at the Jesuit-run Marquette University for over 30 years. He was — as in he isn’t anymore. And he isn’t because of political correctness run amok at what is supposed to be a Catholic school. The upshot may be a court ruling that will either uphold traditional beliefs of academic freedom and free speech or deal them a near-death blow.
What happens is now up to the Wisconsin Supreme Court when later next month McAdams will square off against Marquette.
Professor McAdams’ story has the eerie hallmarks of a dozen such cases usually played out on a secular campus; but this one not only goes to the free speech issue, but to the essence of a Catholic university which, while open to dialogue, should support the teachings of the Church.
The story began in November of 2014 when an undergraduate student complained to Dr. McAdams about a graduate student instructor in the philosophy department. According to the student, identified only as J.D., the grad instructor, Cheryl Abbate, was conducting a class on how the Rawls’ theory of justice might be used to resolve various issues.
During the classroom discussion the issue of same-sex marriage came up but Abbate allowed no discussion on the issue because, according to J.D., there could be no genuine disagreement about it. J.D. then reached out to the teacher to ask why, indicating that he was opposed to same-sex marriage. He taped the conversation and as a result there is little dispute about what was said.
The professor’s Supreme Court filing stated that Abbate told J.D. that “there are some opinions that are not appropriate that are harmful, such as racist opinions, sexist opinions, and quite honestly, do you know whether anyone in the class is homosexual….And don’t you think that that would be offensive to them if you were to raise your hand and challenge this?…You don’t have the right in this class…to make homophobic comments….If you don’t like that you are more than free to drop this class.”
First thing to note here is, as we have seen before, certain topics and discussions are off limits because someone’s feelings might be hurt. Second thing to note is that the graduate instructor (paid by the university) is arbitrarily quashing speech that supports the Church’s view of marriage.
J.D. first took his complaint to the administration, but, again as we have seen when a conservative is seeking his free speech rights, the administration did nothing. J.D. then dropped the class and took his recording to Dr. McAdams.
What is interesting in all of this is the chatter that went back and forth between Abbate and the university administrators. The chair of the philosophy department told Abbate — not to open the class discussion to dissenting views — but that J.D. “needs to change his attitude…and [is] a little twerp.” Abbate then thanked the chair, saying, “Hopefully this experience has informed him that oppressive discourse is not acceptable.”
Enter Professor McAdams. He has a web blog, The Marquette Warrior, which had developed a reputation of supporting conservative issues on campus, much to the chagrin of the majority of the faculty and administration. The professor wrote about the episode in the November 9, 2014 edition of his blog and criticized Abbate by name for typical tactics by liberals: “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.”
After criticizing administrators for towing the political correct line, he added, “How many students…simply stifle their disagreement, or worse yet get indoctrinated into the views of the instructor, since those are the only ideas allowed, and no alternative views are aired?…Like the rest of academia, Marquette is less and less a real university. And when gay marriage cannot be discussed, certainly not a Catholic university.”
The war of words started even before the blog post was up. Abbate accused McAdams of using free speech to “insert his ugly face into my class and to try to scare me into silence.” Naturally Abbate filed a complaint against McAdams claiming that he “hates homosexuals or anyone who supports gay rights” and that she “cannot believe that this bigoted moron has a job at Marquette.”
Thus an investigation was launched — not against the instructor who would not allow Church teaching to be aired — but against McAdams, the “bigoted moron.”
Charges and counter-charges flew until a hand-picked faculty was charged to investigate McAdams, which would recommend he be suspended. One among these had already signed an open letter of support of Abbate and critical of Dr. McAdams. Not to be outdone, the university president added that McAdams could not return until he apologized to Abbate with a written statement expressing his “deep regret” and admitting that his blog post was “reckless and incompatible” with the mission and values of Marquette.
The president further ruled that McAdams’ presence on campus would pose a threat to public safety and he was therefore forbidden to step foot on the campus. Thus the issue was not one about free speech but of harassment and public safety.
In the mix of all the legal arguments about academic freedom, First Amendment protections, the school also claimed that the incident caused Abbate to leave Marquette for another school. Additionally, during the investigation, the school withheld from McAdams information and documents that tended to support his defense claims, information that was not made available to the professor until the case reached court and the documents were provided pursuant to court rule.
Unknown to Dr. McAdams, only 15 days after his original blog post, Abbate threatened the university with a lawsuit unless it fired McAdams, punished J.D., and paid her damages. In a letter to Marquette’s president a few weeks later, she demanded “reparations” and again threatened bad publicity. She also announced her decision to leave Marquette for the University of Colorado as a result of the controversy. It was later revealed that Abbate had applied to Colorado a year earlier — before any controversy began. Colorado offered Abbate a more lucrative package, and she took it, it having nothing to do with the controversy in which she was involved.
Unfortunately for the professor, the lower court held against him, but the Wisconsin Supreme Court took the unusual step of taking the case itself, bypassing the intermediate Court of Appeals. Oral arguments are scheduled for April 19.
The case has generated a number of “friend of the court briefs” from The Thomas More Society; The National Association of Scholars; and FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education — all in support of Dr. McAdams. Not surprisingly, the Association of Jesuit Colleges and Universities has weighed in on the side of Marquette. The Wisconsin Institute for Law & Liberty is representing Professor McAdams.
Perhaps in all the finger pointing and legal arguments, the most significant statement was made in FIRE’s amicus brief:
“Around the country, the free speech and academic freedom rights of faculty are being eroded by students, administrators, and members of the general public demanding censorship and by administrators caving to those demands. This capitulation is to the serious detriment of American higher education and ultimately the health of our democracy.
“If a faculty member is not free to criticize, even publicly, the pedagogy of a fellow instructor, or to respond in kind to his or her critics, important institutional dialogues about teaching, scholarship, policies, and more will be deeply chilled. Faculty already report being reluctant to speak out and even to teach about sensitive issues for fear of professional repercussions. If the lower court’s ruling stands, the increasing chill on faculty expression will only intrude further as administrators around the country seize on the decision to justify disciplining faculty for public dissent on topics both internal and external to the university.”
Oral arguments are set for next month — we’ll keep a look out for the decision.
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