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Well, what do you know? The Marquette Tribune appears to have now officially deleted (or whatever) the 150+ comments that their MSOE piece generated.

If you now look at the Tribune’s website, the story still does not have the usual comments section near the bottom of the story, though the dialog (?) box on the right side of the page indicates that the story has 3 comments (down from 150 plus comments earlier).

Interestingly, if you look at the cached version of the site available from Google, you get the same result, whereas previously one could view the comments. I’ll admit that I’m not completely familiar with how “caching” works — maybe each site is archived again after a period of time, so the deleted comments eventually disappear?

Somehow, I don’t think that deleting 150 plus comments from unhappy MSOE students will endear Tribune staffers or MU students to MSOE students. You can’t make a problem go away simply by deleting it on your website, and Tribune staffers would learn a poor lesson if they concluded otherwise.

Why not issue a correction or a follow-up story highlighting the positive aspects of MSOE that angry MSOE students may have felt were missed? Or a general apology for mixed (certainly unintential!) messages sent by the piece?

The Marquette Tribune is doing a series of stories on colleges and universities in the Milwaukee area. One story, about the Milwaukee School of Engineering, (MSOE), has elicited a heated response from students who believe the story seconded stereotypes about MSOE students. On the Tribune’s website, which I would not have seen had I not linked from for Lombardi’s piece, the article is claimed to have over 150 comments.

But where are the comments? The comments for all the Tribune’s stories are generally at the bottom of the page, where one might expect them. For this story, though, it appears that the comments section has been deleted or hidden. I think they are hidden. Why? Because you can Google the name of the article and get the cached version, which lists all of the comments. Get it here.

Searching for something completely different on the Marquette Tribune’s website this evening, I came across quite a questionable article. While the post has been taken down, a PDF of the screen shot (please note: rated R for strong language) can be downloaded here: Tribune “Article”

Is this an inside joke? Is it a shot at Seramur? Or both? Interestingly, the article in question is attributed to the same writer who wrote a critical piece about Seramur’s behavior in MUSG meetings earlier this year.

Almost anyone on campus this past week could confirm that it is Marquette University Student Government election time. The “Brock & Sara” campaign led over the “Sara & Dan” campaign to become the two finalists in the President and Executive VP slots.

Interestingly, we have come upon information that the Tribune will endorse a candidate in this year’s election. You may remember that last year, The Warrior endorsed a ticket, the two individuals who ended up winning, Dan Calandriello and Kristen Kamm.

As far as I know, the Tribune has not in recent times endorsed a candidate for the MUSG elections. This seems to be just another instance of the Tribune following the leader when it comes to the direction of news on campus.

This is a post I probably could have written last semester, or even last year, but alas, I do not obsess over the Tribune, generally speaking, and the opportunity cost of making a blog post about my thoughts on the Tribune outweighs the opportunity cost of, say, organizing my socks drawer, no offense.

However, Dr. McAdams has a truly splendid post from yesterday about the Tribune “Mimicking Warrior Stories”:

The current issue of The Marquette Tribune has a column titled “Confessions of a 21-year-old Karaoke King” written by Rob Ebert.

It’s a nice little piece of writing.

But interestingly, The Warrior ran a piece virtually identical in tone, writing style and substance back on 27 September 2006.

This one was written by Kyle Shamorian.

This is not the first time in the last few weeks that the Tribune has followed in the footsteps of The Warrior.

The February 15 number of the Tribune had a front-page, above the fold feature story on Marine Corporal Dave Warnacut, a Marquette senior who served in Iraq in late 2004 and early 2005.

Yet The Warrior ran a similar feature story on Warnacut back in November, 2005.

No one can deny that the Tribune has had an interesting case of following similar stories to that of The Warrior a number of times since The Warrior came to Marquette. The items that Dr. McAdams points out are part of a series of news items brought to the forefront of student interest either by The Warrior or conservatives generally.

See, for instance, the eminently predictable story, first brought to the forefront by our own Daniel Suhr of GOP3.com and further investigated by Dr. McAdams, about Marquette’s decision to change vendors from Altera to Stone Creek on the basis of donor threats by the father of a locally-owned coffee producer.

We began to blog on that story in early August, and what do you know, the Tribune’s top of the fold story to lead off the academic year in late August dealt with the vendor story as well. Even if one does not take this to mean that the Tribune has eclectic news gathering procedures, as several Tribune leaders have insinuated we suggest, it says volumes about news information on campus.

The Tribune, like the Mainstream Media, does not usually or even frequently gather news ideas from an independent source like The Warrior or conservatve blogs like McAdams and ours. However, it is practically undeniable that over the past couple years, non-University sanctioned news agents are driving much of the campus debate.

The very format of the Tribune, as Dr. McAdams has pointed out several times, has changed considerably over the past few years, at least since I’ve been to Marquette. The changes have been positive - not as much of the flare and “if we all work together, we can make this the best yearbook ever!” element as once existed on the front page.

(I completely stole that line from Jonah Goldberg, by the way.)

This year, at least, the Tribune has done laudable work, including some fierce criticism of University decision making - an arbitrary process that involves students only as window dressing for entrenched bureaucratic interests. On the whole, I think the shift on a campus dragged kicking and screaming towards greater openness has been positive.

I don’t expect, however, that suddenly University bureaucrats or even monopoly interests in the College of Communications to suddenly come around to the idea of diversity in media.

Other Trib Items
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The Warrior and the Marquette Tribune report today that the Marquette University Honors Program is sponsoring a performance of the Vagina Monologues on campus this spring.

Last year this blog led the charge in opposition to a performance on campus. We intend to do so again this year.

This year our case will be harder because the Honors Program is sponsoring the Monologues as an “educational” program. This adds a veneer of respectability and forces us to grapple with additional issues of academic freedom. The event is titled “An Academic Conversation on Catholicism, sexuality and human rights with a reading of ‘The Vagina Monologues.”

Yet I think the case can still be made that the Monologues should still be opposed. I offer seven reasons:

1. Clearly just trying to get around last year’s precedent
Last year JUSTICE, a student organization, applied to have the Monologues on campus. It was appealed up the chain to Fr. Andy Thon, Vice President of Student Affairs, who denied the application, saying it was “distractive” from the issue of violence against women.

This year the Monologues are being presented by the Honors Program. Clearly the gambit here (and a successful one, apparently) is to do it on the South side of Wisconsin Avenue to bring it under the umbrella of Academic Freedom. If Dan Maguire has the academic freedom to say and do what he does supporting abortion and gay marriage, then certainly there is the academic freedom to present the Monologues in an educational context, or so the argument will go.

Clearly this is the rational the University administration is taking. “‘It is part of the programming of an academic unit with extensive faculty development and only one piece of a larger academic discussion about issues of violence against women,’ [University spokeswoman Brigid O'Brien Miller] said.”

But I believe the agenda and motivation here is ideological, not educational. The Honors Program is run by Dr. Anthony Peressini. Up until recently, it was co-directed by Dr. Peressini and Dr. Heather Hathaway, an English professor who is now an associate dean of the College of Arts and Sciences (full disclosure: I was in the Honors Program and have a great deal of respect for Drs. Peressini and Hathaway). As reported in The Warrior, at the October 2006 conference “Jesuit and Feminist Education,” Dr. Hathaway gave a presentation entitled “The Vagina Monologues” during a panel on “Voicing Feminist Issues on Jesuit Campuses: When Academic Freedom and Jesuit Culture Collide.” Moreover, Dr. Peressini indicated to the Tribune that it was Honors Program students who brought forward the idea to him, which likely means that the same students in JUSTICE who tried for it last year decided to try a different tact this year. Their ideological motive remained the same, only the packaging changed.

Even if that were not true, there is a very solid position to be taken that argues about exactly what “academic freedom” means at a Catholic, Jesuit institution, and whether or not a presentation of the Monologues or a professor whose research interest is the moral defense of abortion fit within a proper understanding of “academic freedom.”

2. This is not the normal purview of the Honors Program
The Honors Program is primarily a certain kind of curriculum that emphasizes liberal arts education. Students take special sections of core courses and a series of four HP seminars. In my four years in the Honors Program, I cannot think of one example of an event like the proposed symposium.

If this were being sponsored by the English Department or Theatre Department, the argument would be different. But in this particular situation the fact that the HP does not usually sponsor these sorts of things simply reinforced my argument 1 above.

3. Just because something is educational …
The Administration’s key line is that the presentation is going to be academic and educational. The Tribune reported: “‘Last year, we talked of the difference of an academic exercise and a performance of the play,’ Wake said in an e-mail.”

Still, just because something is academic or educational does not make it appropriate. Suppose we all get together at the Weasler Auditorium. A professor could give a talk about Catholic approaches to human sexuality, John Paul’s Theology of the Body, and related topics. Then we could watch a male and female prostitute undress and have sex for a half hour on the stage. We could break for a minute to clean up the stage, grab some watered down lemonade from AMU catering, and then listen to a four-professor panel on marriage and human sexuality, including an orthodox Catholic theologian.

Such an event would still be inappropriate! Taking something that would not be appropriate and sandwiching it between a few professors including a Catholic does not make the thing in the middle appropriate. It would be educational to watch two people have sex - we could learn about the various parts of the human body and how they fit together - but just because something is educational does not grant cart blanche to present it on this college campus!

4. This is still “distractive” from the issue of sexual violence
The best way to talk about sexual violence against women is to talk about it in a symposium that does not include the Vagina Monologues. The Monologues are a charged topic and their presentation distracts from the real issue. If there were a symposium on sexual violence against women, and it included Dr. Friman talking about international sex trafficking (an issue to which my presidential candidate of preference, Sam Brownback, has paid great attention), I might attend. But this is not that. This is asking what can we do to put together a package academic enough to make a reading of the Monologues acceptable. Rather than finding unity as a campus in standing against sexual violence against women, we are distracted and divided over the appropriateness of the Monologues.

Doubtless members of the faculty and student body who pushed for and supported this performance knew this to be the case. I think that undermines their argument that this really truly is about women’s empowerment and violence against women. If that were the true and ultimate goal, then they would have picked something else that would have drawn together campus rather than splitting it apart. By pushing the Monologues specifically, I think gives further evidence of my arguments 1 and 7.

5. Bishop D’Arcy did not distinguish
During the debate over the Monologues last year, we turned to the statements of several bishops of the American Catholic Church for guidance. One was Bishop John M. D’Arcy of the Diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend.

Last year, the Department of Film, Television and Theatre and the Department of English sponsored a performance of the Monologues at the University of Notre Dame. Even though it was a pair of academic units sponsoring the presentation, Bishop D’Arcy still made the case that the performance shouldn’t go forward:

Pope John Paul II has made clear that a Catholic university “guarantees its members academic freedom so long as the rights of the individual person and the community are preserved within the confines of the truth and the common good.”
— “Ex Corde Ecclesiae.”
Here, Pope John Paul II, a longtime professor in a Catholic university, explains that freedom must always be linked to the truth and the common good. The same principles apply to artistic freedom. As a university professor, the future pope presented a series of lectures on human love and sexuality in which he reflected how artistic freedom must always be linked to the whole truth about human love and sexuality. …
The play, which is being sponsored, does not portray the whole truth about human sexuality; and by this separation, it violates the truth about the body, the truth about the gift of sexuality, the truth about love, and the truth about man and woman.

6. The University’s Dotrinal Citation is Arguable
From today’s Tribune:

According to Miller, this program is consistent with Decree 14 of the Documents of the 34th General Congregation of the Society of Jesus: Jesuits and the Situation of Women in Church and Civil Society.

Miller said the statement calls “all Jesuits to listen carefully and courageously to the experience of women.” The statement also invites “all Jesuits, as individuals and through their institutions, to align themselves in solidarity with women” and to give “specific attention to the phenomenon of violence against women.”

First off, I think it is GREAT that the University is choosing to attempt to defend its decision based upon a particular Catholic teaching document. That the conversation is a debate between teaching documents and their logical implications is awesome. This particular document is making its second showing at Marquette - it was part of the Gender Equity Task Force report a few years back.

Second, if the University were serious about using this as a rationale for the performance of the play, then last year’s proposal should have met the criterion.

Third, listening to the voices of women, being in solidarity with them, and paying attention to violence against women are not mutually exlusive with, indeed are in many ways hindered by, the performance of the Monologues. There are many ways our campus community could come together to listen to women and learn about their experiences without the Monologues, for instance the “True Life” series at Schroeder Hall. Moreover, as we noted above, the Monologues, in their shockingly crude and offensive language, distract from serious discussion about the topic of violence against women. Some Monologues seem to present the opposite image, for instance when “In one scene, a 24-year-old woman gets a 13-year-old girl drunk and has her way with her. Afterward, the girl says, ‘if it was rape, it was a good rape. I’ll never need to rely on a man.’”

7. The Monologues are a Litmus Test
Let’s all be honest - the Vagina Monologues receive disproportionate attention on Catholic college campuses because of the media attention paid to performances in the past. Liberal students or faculty push for performances knowing that the Cardinal Newman Society and conservatives will inevitably object. Fr. David O’Connell, C.M., President of the Catholic University of America, was right on when he said “…[I]t has become a symbol each year of the desire of some folks to push Catholic campuses over the edge of good and decent judgment.” Certainly the ongoing battle at the University of Notre Dame, where the back-and-forth has garnered the greatest popular media attention, shows the degree to which the Monologues are a proxy for a bigger battle.

Character is revealed in the crucible of difficult moments and tough choices. For better or for worse, the Vagina Monologues have become a litmus test - which does a Catholic University place higher on the scale of values: its Catholic identity or academic freedom/political correctness.

This is a topic we will return to many times in the coming days, and I plan to extrapolate on several of these points. But for the moment, suffice it to say that it appears Marquette has chosen the latter option, and that is unfortunate.

The Warrior has a first breaking story by yours truly about Marquette University’s decision to reverse its decision last year to allow the Vagina Monologues on campus:

The highly controversial “Vagina Monologues” will be the heart of a symposium sponsored by the Marquette Honors Program entitled “Academic Conversation on Catholicism, Sexuality, and Human Rights,” April 14 at 4 p.m.

The announcement of the event is less than a year after the university denied left-leaning student organization JUSTICE’s request for the monologues’ performance last spring. The Rev. Andy Thon, Vice President of Student Affairs, said at the time a performance of the monologues would be “distractive” from the issue of violence against women.

But Director of University Communications Brigid Miller said this rendition of the monologues are permissible because they are being sponsored by an academic department, not a student organization. Unlike students, faulty-based “academic units are free to host lectures, discussions and symposia that are appropriate to their subject areas.

Marquette’s wishy-wash position on these violent depictions of women is not terribly surprising. Marquette has a pretty well known history (see here for example) of turning around on an issue when something feels more politically or financially feasible.

I find it sad and unfortunate that the best way that Marquette feels it can address the issue of violence against women is through the Vagina Monologues, a series of acts that includes underage rape, prostitution, and a grotesque lack of seriousness about sex.

The sad truth is that most feminists, such as those who wrote the Vagina Monologues, have zero interest in women’s health. For such individuals, the exercise of raw shock is supposed to serve some perverse sense of empowerment for angry, bitter political leftovers.

Speaking of Political Leftovers

My my, how times have changed. Time was when there was only one paper on campus, and the best we could expect of investigative journalism from that entity was a story three years ago about a professor getting tuberculosis.

Now, that same paper relies on it’s adversaries for sources while it pines for the day when it and the Administration controlled the flow of debate at Marquette University. “Come gather ’round people, wherever you are …”

We here at Gop3.com: The Triumvirate understand that a few posts a day cannot convey the mass of interesting news occuring across the internet and blogosphere, nor can it satiate your desire for constant breaking news everytime you visit Gop3.com. Each blogger has any number of interesting news articles that we come across that we are unable to blog about due to this phenomenon called “real life”.

So, in our ongoing attempts to keep Gop3.com fresh and on the leading edge, we have added a new feature today as an early Christmas present to our readers.

Gop3.com Rapid Links

Faster than a speeding bullet, more interesting than your work or homework, this new list of links is updated constantly (so rapidly in fact, that every time you visit there will be something new) by the Gop3.com authors along with our new Rapid Link Master Scott Genz.

The way it works is, each of our bloggers and friend of Gop3.com, Rapid Link Master Scott Genz, have installed a Del.icio.us tag button that is located on their browsers, whenever they find interesting or relevant news they “tag” it and it instantly appears under the “Gop3.com Rapid Links” section on the sidebar (between the Recent Comments and Recent Readers sections).

Bottom Line: Our entire team is scouring the net for interesting news and constantly updating our Gop3.com Rapid Links section along with blogging on in depth issues, check the Rapid Links every time you visit for the latest news and links!

From the Journal Sentinel:

A Wauwatosa psychiatrist has been charged with having repeated sexual contact with one of his patients.

Charles Michael Grade, 43, faces three counts of sexual exploitation by a therapist, a felony punishable by up to 12½ years in prison. County jail records indicated Friday evening that Grade was in jail and that no bail had been set.

Grade has been a licensed psychiatrist since 1991, according to state records. He did his residency at the Sinai Samaritan Medical Center and is listed as a consulting psychiatrist at the Marquette University Counseling Center.

He was arrested Wednesday, just hours after what a criminal complaint charges was his third sexual contact with the same patient. Grade’s practice is listed at 1220 N. Dewey Ave. He lives in Milwaukee.

According to the complaint filed Friday, Grade had sex with a female patient shortly after she began seeing him in June 2005. She saw him as a patient once a month from then forward, the complaint says, and she told detectives that they had sexual contact “during a number of their therapy sessions,” including occurrences in early October and again Wednesday.

The complaint also indicates Grade spoke with a detective Wednesday evening and admitted “a sexual conversation . . . that he knew was inappropriate,” and touching his patient, that day. (emphasis added)

Some questions:

- What contact has Grade had with Marquette students?
- Has Grade ever been allowed to be alone with Marquette students?
- What is the hiring process and depth of psychological evaluation of Marquette counselors, not to mention staff in general?

I can’t wait to see how Marquette spins this one. Absolutely disgusting.

Students for a Fair Wisconsin has plastered every residence hall with reminders to “Vote No On the Ban.”

(If I could find my digital camera I would just post a picture of it … I’ll work on that).

The quarter-sheet of lit reads:

“… Don’t Forget …
“Today is THE Day!
“The polls open at 7 AM … And close at 8 PM … Bring a photo ID!
“VOTE NO ON THE BAN
“Make the Time To Make History”

The opposite side has a checklist of sorts:

“To Do List - Nov. 7th
“-Study History
“-Finish Math Homework
“-Work out
“-Start English Paper
“-Student Org Meeting
“-Make History”

The quartersheets are bright orange with black font.

Let me point out that I am more livid over the fact that Marquette turns a blind eye towards this sort of thing than that the homosexual lobby or the College Democrats do this on campus.

Enough with the hypocrisy of the Stephanie Quades of the world who create policy for student organizations, donate hundreds and hundreds to pet liberal causes, and then turn a blind eye when her pet student organizations violate policy.