Marquette faculty and students and "outside interested parties" have been very vocal in their objections to the rescinding of the deanship of the College of Arts and Sciences to Jodi O'Brien.
There have been plenty of protests. The media are doing their part to keep the story alive.
(How do they find time to cover the Marquette story? It's amazing given all the reports on dirty restaurants and speeding cars there are to do.)
Last night, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported:
O'Brien says she had signed contract with Marquette
Seattle University professor Jodi O’Brien signed and mailed a contract, accepting a deanship at Marquette University and learned nearly two weeks later that the university was withdrawing the offer, according to an interview O'Brien gave to the Seattle University student paper.
In an interview published Wednesday, O'Brien said she was excited about the offer to become dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at Marquette and that she had no idea that there were concerns about her candidacy. Both Seattle University and Marquette are Jesuit institutions.
“I think the president [of Marquette] is responding to people who are concerned with what I represent,” O’Brien told The Seattle University Spectator. “I do not think the opinion of those people represents Marquette as a university.”
...O'Brien mailed an acceptance of the Marquette deanship April 20 and Marquette University President Robert A. Wild told her on May 2 that the offer would be withdrawn, according to the newspaper.
...When asked whether she was considering legal action against Marquette, O'Brien told the student paper: “I’m in conversation with the university about the best next steps. My hope is that the situation can become an opportunity for institutional learning.”
She also said Wild told her he was concerned that if she took the job, there would be “too much distraction from people external to the university who did not support my appointment."
That sounds like O'Brien wants money.
If a contract was breached, and that appears to be the case if O'Brien's claims are accurate, then there are grounds for legal action.
Fine. Threaten to sue and reach a settlement. Get your money and lots of attention.
Way to go, Marquette! This is a major screw-up.
However, in the long run, whatever price Marquette has to pay to make O'Brien go away, I think the university will lose far less both in terms of support from alumni and the recruitment of new students.
Marquette touts its Catholic identity as a recruiting angle. It ought to deliver.
This is not to say that there isn't diversity and academic freedom at the university. But values, particularly in high profile leadership positions, do matter. An individual with extremely controversial writings is not an appropriate candidate for a deanship.
O'Brien's sexual orientation is irrelevant. As I've said before, if a heterosexual's academic writings were similar to O'Brien's, that person would not be an appropriate choice to head the College of Arts and Sciences.
This is very troubling:
Go to the online comments accompanying the Journal Sentinel articles on the O'Brien mess. The Catholic bashing is rampant. Not Marquette bashing. CATHOLIC bashing.
I think Catholics should take note of how we are being portrayed by "Marquette's" critics.
Marquette isn't bearing the brunt of the criticism. Catholics are.
That just may be the most offensive aspect of this entire matter.
All the cries for alleged tolerance coming from these bigots are laughable.
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