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Matthew Franck Sorts Out Marquette

First Things writer: No heroes in Marquette controversy, only blunderers

I wish to revise my previously stated position on the Marquette snowflake situation to wholly endorse Matthew Franck’s take at First Things. It strikes me as the most balance and sensible take I’ve read so far. Excerpts:

There are no heroes in this story, only knaves and fools. Oh yes, and some victims of others’ bad behavior. But let us not, as the trendy academic word is nowadays, “valorize” anyone in the tale.

He goes on to find fault with every single person in this story. More:

It should be time for someone at Marquette to remember that the university is not Hobbes’s state of nature, the war of all against all where grasping for power over others is all that matters. Time for someone to remember what a Catholic university (yes, even a Jesuit one) actually stands for. Time for someone—a provost, a president? (I know, now we’re in the stratosphere of stupidity)—to break the cycle, to say “stand down” to everyone involved, to un-suspend McAdams, to recommend remedial pedagogical advising for teaching assistants, and to reassert the freedom of Catholic opinions at a Catholic university, even on the part of lowly undergraduates. That would be a start.

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