Marquette's Two Big Problems: Secrecy and Complacency

MU has had a series of setbacks in the past two years.  The first was the breach of contract with Jodi O'Brien.  The second was the sexual assault scandal involving basketball players.  The third was the revelation about Robert Wild's involvement with an alleged Jesuit pedophile.

Several threads run through these incidents.  The most obvious is sexuality.  The Church is notoriously bad on issues of sexuality, and Marquette is no exception.  The second and third threads are the secrecy that continues to shroud aspects of these events, and the complacency that seems to characterize the reaction of most of the MU community.  Again, secrecy and complacency are not unique to MU, but seem to characterize larger problems within contemporary Catholicism.

MU's leadership seems to think it can get away with keeping dirty secrets.  For example, we still do not know who approached Wild with cherry-picked passages from Jodi O'Brien's work, interpreted them out of context, and induced him to break MU's contract with her.  We do not know who violated procedures to undo a done deal.  We might never know this for certain, though we have suspicions.  We do not know if money was involved -- that is, if Wild capitulated to pressure from conservative donors.

Similarly, we do not know who foots the bill for Gerry Boyle's presence as an advocate for accused basketball players during student conduct hearings.  We do not know why the coaching staff, allegedly trained professionals, chose to have a meeting concerning allegations of sexual assaults that occurred in October.  During this meeting, one of the players texted a victim to ask if she had reported the alleged assault.  We do not know why reporting procedures weren't followed, or why there is no standardized mechanism for appeals of student conduct system results by victims, as required by Title IX.

We did not know, until the media broke the story, that Wild had allowed MU facilities to be used by an alleged pedophile in the preparation of his legal defense.  We do know that Wild couldn't tolerate the fact that Jodi O'Brien had written about lesbian sexuality in respected academic journals. She couldn't be here because, years ago, she had written about lesbian sexuality.  It was fine, of course, for an alleged pedophile not connected with MU to use campus resources to prepare a legal defense.  What hypocrisy!

If we cannot break the secrecy that is killing MU, at least, let us overcome the complacency.  The new President, Scott Pilarz, SJ, should be urged to fire the sycophantic administrators at the top levels who pandered to Wild's need to be kept in an information vacuum.  Pilarz needs to do serious housecleaning at MU.  This should extend not only to urgently needed personnel changes, but also to restructuring the divide between the administrative and academic sides.  The former should not hold the purse strings of the latter.  Academics needs to have control over its own budget, and not be subject to the whims of those who remain ignorant of academia and enrich themselves at MU's expense.  I hope that someone at the top -- Pilarz and more enlightened members of the Board of Trustees -- recognize this.