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Written by Louis Weisberg, Staff writer
May 20, 2010
Student protesters strategize before a May 11 meeting with Marquette University president Robert A. Wild. More than 400 people attended. – Photo: Dan Zaitz
Nancy Snow, professor of philosophy at Marquette, says the faculty’s resolution condemning Wild should have gone much further. – Photo: Dan Zaitz
Less than a week after news broke that Marquette University had rescinded a high-profile job offer to an out lesbian, students there delivered a message to university president Robert A. Wild: Resign immediately.
During an emotional May 11 meeting with Wild, group after group of students approached microphones to repeatedly read a prepared statement calling on Wild to step down, to publicly apologize and to re-extend the original offer he made Jodi O’Brien to become dean of the college of arts and sciences.
Although the wording of their demands was strong, the tone among the more than 400 students who attended the event at Alumni Memorial Union was more sad than angry. Some students, many of them wearing rainbow stickers, spoke through tears and quivering voices.
“Marquette has broken my heart,” one student said, breaking from the prepared statement. “This is not the institution that over 100 years ago was revolutionary for admitting women.”
William Malloy, a senior nursing student, fought back tears as he told WiG that the university’s action “makes me ashamed to have a Marquette diploma.”
“Some of my closest friends are gay, and it embarrasses me to have to tell them I went to Marquette,” Malloy said.
Students have staged three demonstrations and created a Facebook page titled Marquette: Do Not Discriminate Against Jodi O’Brien. More than 3,300 people have joined the page.
Marquette’s faculty has also organized around the incident. The university’s academic senate approved a resolution May 10 condemning Wild and recommending a vote of no confidence in him in the fall, unless the university has by then assured faculty members that their advancement will not be impeded by the topics they research.
Academic freedom is at the heart of the concerns of many on campus. Wild has cited O’Brien’s published writings on lesbian sex and marriage as the reason for retracting his offer, saying they were inconsistent with Marquette’s Roman Catholic mission.
But Marquette faculty countered that the writings in question were published in respected peer-reviewed academic journals and were well-known to the search committee that recommended O’Brien for the job after interviewing her several times over the last two years.
They also pointed out that O’Brien’s 15-years of experience teaching at Seattle University, a Jesuit school where she heads the sociology department, demonstrated her success working within a Roman Catholic institution.
O’Brien’s situation has sent shock waves throughout academia and drawn attention from national media, including USA Today, The New York Times and the Chronicle of Higher Education.
Several Marquette students and faculty members told WiG they feared the negative publicity had tarnished the university’s academic reputation and could potentially harm their career prospects.
“Marquette has broken the principles of academic freedom and professional collegiality and damaged the university’s own stature as an institution of higher education,” wrote Evelyn Nakano Glenn, president of the American Sociological Association, in a letter calling on Wild to reverse his decision. “Marquette University appears to have violated its own non-discrimination policy as well as the principles of free inquiry that govern all great universities.”
“This is very damaging to our image,” said Sharon Chubbuck, professor of education at Marquette. “There’s always a tension between being a Catholic institution and a university, but the search for truth cannot be afraid of any knowledge that might be uncovered.”
Nancy Snow, professor of philosophy at Marquette and an out lesbian, said the faculty’s resolution condemning Wild should have gone much further. Snow and her partner took O’Brien house-hunting in Shorewood following one of her trips to Milwaukee to interview for the job.
Snow said she was ecstatic when she learned April 17 that O’Brien had been offered the position. “When I heard the offer had been withdrawn, I was devastated,” she said.
Although Wild assured students May 11 that “this decision is not about donor or outside influence,” O’Brien contradicted that claim in an interview with the Seattle University Spectator.
“I think (Wild)) is responding to people who are concerned with what I represent,” she told the newspaper. O’Brien said Wild called her to say that he feared her appointment would receive “too much distraction from people external to the university who did not support my appointment.”
The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported that Milwaukee Archbishop Jerome Listecki was the most important external figure behind Wild’s decision to reverse the offer to O’Brien. Listecki is a hard-line Vatican activist who spoke out against Notre Dame University last year for inviting President Barack Obama to speak there.
“This confirms our suspicions of corruption at the highest levels of the decision-making process,” Snow said in a posting on Facebook.
Wild has refused to discuss Listecki’s role in the decision, saying only that the archbishop “can speak for himself.”
Wild now says the university will chose a new dean internally. As of press time, O’Brien had not decided whether to seek legal action against Marquette.
