A Milwaukee County judge ruled today that Marquette University has the right to terminate tenured political science Professor John McAdams for writing on his blog in 2014 that Cheryl Abbate, a teaching graduate student, had refused to allow someone in her ethics class to make a negative argument on gay marriage. Abbate told the student that dissent on gay marriage was offensive, homophobic and besides, the gay-marriage issue had been settled and was no longer up for debate. Abbate was likely aware that Marquette, as a Jesuit institution, does not agree that the gay-marriage issue has been fully disposed of, or that students are no longer allowed to hold negative views on the subject.
To some observers, Marquette seems in full flight from its Catholic heritage, and instead of admonishing Abbate for incompetence and closed-mindedness, college president Michael Lovell went after McAdams, an outspoken conservative gadfly at the college, suspending him, banning him from the campus and demanding a written apology, which McAdams refused to supply. Lovell set up a faculty committee to judge the case and today the judge, David Hansher accepted that committee’s negative ruling. McAdams says he will appeal.
