In any case, I wouldn’t want to work there

In a world in which we feel compelled to identify with the grossly offensive Charlie Hebdo in the name of free speech, why can’t we identify with a professor or a student who voices unpopular views?

(source: Hang Together | “We must indeed all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Benjamin Franklin)

I want to agree with my fellow blogger.  I will point toward one tentative post taking note of the matter, and based on past experience I would expect a follow-up post eventually.  I find that I am usually in agreement with FIRE, and when both FIRE and AAUP weigh in on the same side, I am fairly confident that there is more here than just smoke.

There is little question in my mind that the equities in the larger situation tip in favor of McAdams, and I hope he is able to find a sane and stable situation at the end of all this froth and ferment.

Let me admit, though, that with regard to the immediate instance there are two respects in which I hesitate to roar out in full-throated support of McAdams.  The first is pretty weak, but does affect anyone in the professorate today:  FERPA.  As the instructor in question was a graduate student, the legal requirement that classroom information be held confidential tends to generate a cultural taboo that extends to all student activity.  Basically, we tend to practice “what happens in the classroom stays in the classroom” with regard to anyone that has student status (if students post comments, they are free to do that–though unauthorized recordings may still be illegal and are within the prof’s power to forbid).  But that’s just a taboo, and I will immediately point out that the instructor’s side of the classroom interaction is not part of her course information, the more so if McAdams is not her supervisor in a for-credit pedadogy program.  Moreover, McAdams did cite in a way that protected student information.

The real question, from what I’ve seen, is this:

Wrote Holz: “That is false. As you knew or should have known…, the student told the university three days after withdrawing that he had done so because he was getting an ‘F’ at mid-term. He further specifically agreed that his grade fairly reflected his performance and had nothing to do with his political or personal beliefs. Similarly, by leaving out any reference to Ms. Abbate’s follow-up class discussion in which she acknowledged and addressed the student’s objection to gay marriage, you created a false impression of her conduct and an inaccurate account of what occurred. You either were recklessly unaware of what happened in the follow-up class, or you elected not to include these facts in your Internet story.”

(source: Marquette moves to fire controversial faculty blogger @insidehighered)

If McAdams prejudicially selected comments from a failing student’s “hit” on the professor, to the extent that it adds up to a lie, then some pretty serious reprimand is probably appropriate (and if not, the same applies to the public accusation made by Holz).  What I need to see, in order to double down on what FIRE and AAUP have already said about the McAdams case, is a clear refutation of this claim.  (I will point out that Holz offers a pretty weak case, here, insofar as he accuses McAdams of dishonesty on the basis of information developed after McAdams published.)

Speaking of FERPA–I assume Holz has a waiver from the student, permitting him to disclose that failing grade?

None of this changes the total situation.  It is exceedingly unlikely that a student who wanted to consistently advocate Catholic social teaching in the sort of institutional culture Marquette promotes would be thriving.

And there is clearly plenty of blame to go around.  Even on a pretty unfavorable interpretation, nothing McAdams did–and nothing about the power and responsibility balance between McAdams and a graduate student instructor–is worse than the sequence of events that all accounts, and a recording, agree on:

[In an after-class discussion] Abbate went on to say that comments critical of homosexuality would not be tolerated, and she suggested the student drop her class if he did not like her policy, which he later did. Abbate also told the student, who asked her if opposing same-sex “marriage” was “homophobic,” that his position would come across as such in her class in the same manner that she would take offense if someone said women’s professional options should be limited.

(source: NCRegister | Was Marquette Professor Disciplined for Upholding Church Teachings?)

There is another prof-taboo which is tantamount to policy, here:  one does not specifically suggest that a student drop a class.  Even when the student’s dropping would obviously be strategically beneficial, instructors are trained and urged to avoid ever doing so, for just the reason here.  No student should ever have reason to complain that the instructor pressured him or her out of class in order to silence that student or shape the class conversation.  (Not, mind you, that there are not plenty of egregious violations of this sort of taboo to reflect on.)

And I do want to point out that the student’s conduct is hardly blameless, here.  Nonetheless, as regards the conversation and the class-drop situation, I have to say that professors and administrations are bound to give the widest latitude to student freedom of inquiry that they can–and this is clearly not an example of a school doing that.  There’s a lot of that going around, these days.

But, friends, if you can’t advocate for Catholic social teaching at a school which purports to stand in the tradition of the “Soldiers of Christ,” then what exactly can you do?

Well, one thing you can do is pray:

Anima Christi

(St. Ignatius of Loyola)

Soul of Christ, sanctify me
Body of Christ, save me
Blood of Christ, inebriate me
Water from the side of Christ, wash me
Passion of Christ, strengthen me
Good Jesus, hear me
Within the wounds, shelter me
from turning away, keep me
From the evil one, protect me
At the hour of my death, call me
Into your presence lead me
to praise you with all your saints
Forever and ever
Amen

(source: St. Ignatius | Selected Prayers)

2 Thoughts.

  1. Just getting to this now, but yes – my post did run roughshod over many of the finer points in the case. Certainly the undergraduate student was not blameless here, and in some ways it feels like the academic version of the Donald Sterling drama. And McAdams could, and I think should, have reported the incident without using the graduate student’s name. (I know that if a similar incident had happened to me – and I am in the graduate student’s more or less exact station in life in this regard – I would be horrified, and that before the harassing/threatening messages started to flow in.)

    But to beat a dead horse: as you point out, none of this changes the facts of the story, the current status of which simply seems indefensible to me.

  2. Quite agreed–at bottom, McAdams is getting the bum’s rush where he should be getting a stern talking-to. Nobody is a hero, here, but the injustice–and the irony of the injustice–is real, and telling.

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