Marquette Suspends Professor For Criticizing Instructor's Opposition To 'Homophobic Comments'

[Octafish]

Marquette Suspends Professor For Criticizing Instructor's Opposition To 'Homophobic Comments'

by Brendan O'Brien
Reuters, 12/17/2014

MILWAUKEE, Dec 17 (Reuters) - A professor at Marquette University in Milwaukee has been suspended after he publicly chastised a teaching assistant on his blog for discouraging a discussion in her classroom regarding gay rights, the school said on Wednesday.

Political science professor John McAdams was suspended with pay from his faculty and teaching duties at the Catholic university and barred from being on campus during the school's investigation, according to university spokesman Brian Dorrington.

The controversy began on Nov. 9 when McAdams criticized philosophy class instructor Cheryl Abbate on his blog.

SNIP...

"Opinions with which (liberals) disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed 'offensive' and need to be shut up," he wrote.

CONTINUED...

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/12/18/marquette-professor-homophobic-comments_n_6344300.html

Why does this guy matter? John McAdams is a leading debunker who has impersonated journalists and others in order to demean those investigating the assassination of President Kennedy. I don't know him, personally, but I saw him at the Duquesne conference in 2013 I attended and reported on via DU. One of the presenters, Lisa Pease, recognized him from the podium and said, while she disagrees with his conclusions, she reported he was a gentleman, kind in his exchanges with her.

For some reason, Prof. McAdams has archived a DU post of mine from 2004 on one of his websites (actually an excellent resource for those interested in learning more about the assassination of President Kennedy):

Know your BFEE: A Crimeline of Treason

[bluestateguy]

1. His criticisms of the TA were fair, respectful and legitimate

While the student who started this whole controversy is a homophobic little shit, the TA basically told him that he was not allowed to hold anti-gay marriage opinions, and that he should drop her class if he didn't like that.

McAdams respectfully criticized the young and inexperienced graduate TA. He didn't call her names or threaten her; and for that he was suspended. Unbelievable.

[HereSince1628]

4. The explanation I got was he made a personnel problem public

by posting his criticism and identifying her on a blog he wrote...iow it was an issue of the grad student's privacy.

I can't say if that's the real story, just that's the way I heard it.

[tblue37]

11. Apparently because he identified her by name he created a situation in which

she was harassed and threatened (including death threats) by RW readers of his blog.

Considering how often that sort of thing happens when a RWer with a public platform sets up a designated liberal for public harassment, giving harassers enough info to enable them to go after her was ill-advised at best. At worst, he might have wanted her to at least get hassled and embarrassed, even if he didn't realize that death threats would ensue (though how anyone could not realize that these days is beyond me!).

I imagine that is part of why he is suffering such consequences. Also, as a tenured professor at the university, he has certain responsibilities toward those who are students, including graduate students who teach low-level classes. TAs are considered to be "in training" as teachers. If he thinks she handled the classroom situation badly, then he should have spoken to her supervisor in her department, not flayed her publicly.

In fact, even though he is not in the same department she is, I could see this as being considered a violation of the Buckley Amendment, which protects students' privacy. Interpretation of that amendment has always been strict, so strict that we cannot even to send our college students information about their grades by email, because email messages are not secure forms of communication. Nor are we allowed to just throw out old tests or essays without first shredding them, since someone might find a student's essay or exam in a landfill somewhere with the name still legible.

Since she is a student, and since a TA is a teacher "in training," a senior professor's publicly complaining about her by name would probably be considered a pretty serious violation of that amendment.

[AngryAmish]

13. If you say something in a class you are saying it in public

A classroom is not a confessional nor an attorney's office.

That being said , I support firing RWers in any place. They do not have a right to spew their hate in public.

[tblue37]

19. She was speaking to the boy after class and he was secretly recording her

even after denying that he was doing so. According to at least several reports, she also devoted some class time the next period to dealing with his grievances and explaining why she couldn't let the class slip onto a tangent unrelated to the day's actual topic of discussion.

Before making up my mind completely, I would like to hear what the *other* students in the class have to say about the original class discussion and the second day's comments by the instructor, but having had to deal with such students myself on many occasions, I am inclined to believe hers is the more accurate version.

[Octafish]

5. Here's what McAdams wrote...

http://www.mu-warrior.blogspot.com/2014/11/marquette-philosophy-instructor-gay.html

From what I got out of it, McAdams sounds like he really doesn't like liberals. He also makes clear he is willing to mis-characterize what was said -- both by the TA and the student -- to make his own point.

[Bluenorthwest]

6. The article I read at the link said she told him he couldn't make homophobic comments in class

and it did not say she told him he was 'not allowed to hold anti gay marriage opinion'. These are two very different things. Very.
Plus my guess is the reason he got suspended has to do with the fact that he criticized a subordinate on a public blog which is not the way one is supposed to criticize one's subordinates. Most institutions have rules about that sort of thing, as they well should. Do you personally think that is a proper way to offer suggestions, in public, in demeaning language?

[msongs]

2. marquette is a catholic university, and we know the catholic party line on gays nt

[mmonk]

3. He was fired for criticizing a TA admonishing

an anti-gay student.

[Bluenorthwest]

8. I sort of think he was suspended for publically admonishing a subordinate.

He did not offer her notes, he blogged about how shitty she is.

[ProudToBeBlueInRhody]

21. Whoops.

[Octafish]

7. More from McAdams and Marquette University...

Marquette expands on John McAdams controversy

Professor calls actions 'a bit of a joke'

by Karen Herzog
Milwaukee Sentinel-Journal, Dec. 19, 2014

EXCERPT...

McAdams in his initial blog post described the after-class discussion between the student and Abbate, and then concluded:

"Abbate, of course, was just using a tactic typical among liberals now. Opinions with which they disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed 'offensive' and need to be shut up."

At the end of his blog post, McAdams said: "How many students, especially in politically correct departments like Philosophy, simply stifle their disagreement, or worse yet get indoctrinated into the views of the instructor, since those are the only ideas allowed, and no alternative views are aired?"

McAdams said in a blog post Tuesday that he wasn't given specifics for why he was relieved of his duties while under review, and that he has secured an attorney.

"Whether Marquette officials really want to punish us for blogging, or whether they simply feel the need for a pro forma 'investigation' of charges someone has brought, we don't know. Either would be gross misconduct on the part of Marquette officials."

McAdams added in a Wednesday night blog post: "The 'suspension' is a bit of a joke, since it's Christmas break and we aren't teaching."

SOURCE: http://www.jsonline.com/news/education/marquette-says-it-hasnt-suspended-professor-john-mcadams-b99411727z1-286304231.html

He is willing to bend the facts to fit his narrative. That, IMO, makes him a suspect resource.

[zappaman]

10. "He is willing to bend the facts to fit his narrative"

[Octafish]

15. Read Carefully.

There's a difference between what I write about and what Prof. McAdams writes about:

The facts, I believe, show the assassination of President Kennedy is an unsolved crime, perpetrated by person or persons unknown.

The facts, Prof. McAdams believes, show the assassination has been solved: Lee Harvey Oswald was the lone assassin.

That also is what you have written, zappaman, on DU:

JFK Conference: John McAdams, debunks the nonsense

You've also made a point of denigrating me for my position for years on DU, which I find particularly telling.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

9. Here's the Story Reported by a Supporter of the Instructor:

"A philosophy graduate student and instructor at Marquette University is the target of a political attack initiated by one of her students, facilitated by a Marquette political science professor, and promulgated by certain advocacy organizations...."

http://dailynous.com/2014/11/18/philosophy-grad-student-target-of-political-smear-campaign/

[Octafish]

12. McAdams used on a colleague what he's employed against critics of the Warren Commission.

Thank you for the heads-up, A-Schwarzenegger. Prof. McAdams has used the tactics of a professional disinformationist against a colleague, tactics he has employed to smear critics of the Warren Commission.

SOME COMMENTS ON JOHN MCADAMS'

KENNEDY ASSASSINATION HOME PAGE

Michael T. Griffith
2001
@All Rights Reserved
Revised on 12/01/2012

From time to time visitors to my JFK website ask me about John McAdams' Kennedy Assassination Home Page. In this article I will respond to some of the claims that are presented on McAdams' site. It is my contention that most of McAdams' claims are wrong and that in some cases McAdams presents information that is badly outdated.

John McAdams is a university professor who believes strongly that Lee Harvey Oswald, acting alone, shot President Kennedy. McAdams doesn't believe a conspiracy of any kind was involved. McAdams believes the Warren Commission (WC) was correct in all its essential conclusions.

In McAdams' opinion, anyone who defends the conspiracy position is a "conspiracy buff." McAdams frequently refers to those who reject the lone-gunman theory as "buffs." McAdams even applies this label to experts who speak about aspects of the assassination that involve their field of expertise. For example, when McAdams learned that a professor of neuroscience at a Canadian university rejected the lone-gunman view that Kennedy's backward head snap was the result of a neuromuscular reaction, he opined that the professor was either a "buff" or had been spoon fed erroneous information by a critic of the lone-gunman theory.

McAdams' attitude toward virtually anyone who disagrees with him about the assassination is somewhat surprising, given the fact that for the last three decades surveys have consistently shown that anywhere from 65-90 percent of the American people believe Kennedy was killed as a result of a conspiracy (with about 5 percent undecided).

SNIP...

It might be worthwhile at this point to mention some of the experts and public figures who have said they believe a conspiracy killed President Kennedy or who have said they reject the single-bullet theory, which is the foundation of the lone-gunman theory:

* Dr. Joseph Dolce, an Army wound ballistics expert who played a leading role in the WC's wound ballistics tests.

* G. Robert Blakey, a professor of law at Notre Dame University and the former chief counsel for the House Select Committee on Assassinations (HSCA).

* The late Senator Richard Schweiker.

* Senator Christopher Dodd, who served on the HSCA when he was a member of the House of Representatives.

* The late Senator Richard Russell, who served on the WC.

* Dr. Roger McCarthy, a ballistics expert with Failure Analysis, which assisted with the American Bar Association's mock Oswald trials in the 1990s.

* Robert MacNeil, formerly of the McNeil-Lehrer News Hour on PBS.

* Ambassador William Atwood, former Special Assistant to the U.S. delegation to the United Nations.

* Vice President Al Gore.

* President Lyndon Johnson. (We now know from the Johnson White House tapes that Johnson rejected the single-bullet theory. We also know from former Johnson aides and associates that privately Johnson said he believed Kennedy was killed by a conspiracy.)

* The late Dr. Milton Helpern, a renowned forensic pathologist and formerly the medical examiner for New York City.

* The late Dr. John Nichols, a forensic pathologist and formerly a professor of pathology at the University of Kansas.

* The late Carlos Hathcock, a Marine sniper who was widely regarded as the greatest sniper of the 20th century.

* The late Evelyn Lincoln, who was Kennedy's White House secretary.

* The late Dr. George Burkley, Kennedy's personal physician.


CONTINUED...

http://www.mtgriffith.com/web_documents/vsmcadams.htm

Seems some of the same tactics are employed online for critics of the national security state and the people who continue to make money off war.

[A-Schwarzenegger]

18. I remember the smug asshole from the alt jfk groups

when I first went on in 1998.
McAdams was born to lie.

[Octafish]

20. John McAdams and the Siege of Chicago

"McAdams did indeed make comments that were intended to imply that Gary Aguilar was a drug addict. IMO, they were deliberate, malicious and intended to smear the doctor."
Robert Harris on John McAdams

By Jim DiEugenio with Brian Hunt

Several months ago I received a phone call from a couple of people who lived in the Chicago area. They were associated with a play that was going to be staged at a venue called the Glen Ellyn Village Theater. Glen Ellyn is a suburb of nearly 30,000 people which lies about 25 miles west of the Windy City. The play was called Oswald: The Actual Interrogation.

SNIP...

Like Ron Rosenbaum, McAdams uses the term "buff' to automatically demean the work of any person who studies the JFK case from a critical angle. By using that term, instead of the word "critic", he reduces the works of scholars like the late Phil Melanson and Dr. John Newman to the level of street corner chatter. When, in fact, their work is much more valuable to the pursuit of facts and truth than the exposed hackery of Warren Commission counsels like David Belin and/or Arlen Specter.

Concerning the use of the second propagandistic term, McAdams borrowed the term "factoid" from a panel discussion in Washington D. C. after the film JFK came out. The late Fletcher Prouty was on that panel. When Prouty tried to bring in matters that did not directly tie into the Commission's case against Oswald, the moderator said that these were "factoids". Therefore, under this rubric, things like Kennedy's intent to withdraw from Vietnam, his issuance of NSAM's 55, 56 and 57 to limit the role of the CIA, and his editing of the McNamara-Taylor report in the fall of 1963 would be "factoids", even though they are all facts.

Well, McAdams borrowed this deceptive term and he now applies it to everything that counters the case of the Warren Commission. For instance, in his debate with this author--a matter we will return to later--he labeled many of the evidentiary problems with the SIngle Bullet Theory as "factoids". This would include the finding of the Magic Bullet on the wrong stretcher; the alleged exit wound for the Magic Bullet being smaller than the entrance wound; the fact that Kennedy's cervical vertebrae are not cracked or broken, yet they would have to be if the Warren Commission trajectory for the Magic Bullet is correct; the fact that the probes inserted into Kennedy's body that night at Bethesda did not match the proper trajectory either: the back wound was much too low to connect with the front wound, and almost every witness said the malleable probe could not find an exit; and the fact that Secret Service agent Elmer More was sent to Dallas to talk Malcolm Perry out of his story about the throat wound being an entrance wound. These are termed "factoids" by the professor, even thought they are all facts. He does this for the simple reason that he doesn't like them because they are facts. And they torpedo the Commission's case.

CONTINUED...

http://www.ctka.net/2013/mcadams.html

Glad you got out, safe, sound and intact, A-Schwarzenegger. The professor's side doesn't seem to play by the same rules as everybody else.

[Jesus Malverde]

14. McAdams reminds me of a lot of a few posters here.

He is famously one to shepherd and nurture the official government narrative of the Kennedy assassination.

For him creative speculation outside of the warren report is blasphemy.

Kharma is a an evil mistress sometimes.

[Octafish]

16. a FAQ

http://www.prouty.org/mcadams/faq.html

[Jesus Malverde]

17. I didn't want to date myself mentioning usenet.

Thanks!



and awesome gif.

[Octafish]

22. You are most welcome, Buenoscuche! I think he's my nephew, if not my brother. The other guy, too.

The TIME writer was at the Duquesne JFK conference I attended. Of all the people to interview there, including the sponsor's Dr. Cyril Wecht, he focused on the guy supporting the CIA version of the Kennedy assassination.

The Debunker Among the Buffs

Fifty years after John F. Kennedy's assassination, another wave of conspiracy theories has arrived. One little-known professor has spent his last 20 years fighting the skeptics.

By Jack Dickey
TIME, Nov. 05, 2013

EXCERPT...


“Tonight they can get us all in one drone strike,” Oliver Stone, who directed JFK, told a gathering of Kennedy assassination buffs one evening last month. “This is like going to a meeting of abolitionists in the 1850s. We know we’re all right. But our passion scares them.”

Everyone here at Duquesne University’s International Symposium on the 50th Anniversary of the Assassination of President John F. Kennedy agreed that Kennedy had been murdered, brazenly, brutally. But the old men on the dais and in the audience, with their tweedy getups and rapidly spreading bald spots, could not concur on who had done it and how and why. Maybe Lee Harvey Oswald shot Kennedy. Maybe a second gunman had done it. Maybe he (or they) were acting on Castro’s orders, maybe on Hoover’s, maybe on Johnson’s. A lot of support coalesced around the CIA’s complicity. But who at the CIA would have had the President killed? And how?

Bobbing along like any other tern in this sea of skepticism and paranoia was John McAdams, a 68-year-old associate professor of political science at Marquette. McAdams looked like every anonymous student of the assassination: He, too, had tan pants, a briefcase, and silver hair atop a big head with prominent features. On the last day, before a full house, one speaker praised McAdams for having the guts to turn up. The speaker called for a sarcastic round of applause and then went on with his speech.

“That’s because I’m a debunker,” McAdams said afterward. “I debunk things. I’m in the business of knowing how so much of what is said here is nonsense.”

What an odd business that is for a 1964 graduate of Kennedy High School in Kennedy, Ala., who every so often finds himself attending conventions on Kennedy’s assassination. Though he’s no academic star, McAdams has secured his own kind of prominence by devoting much of his adult life to calling nonsense on the most persistent strain of doubt in U.S. history.

***

A few hundred of McAdams’s usual antagonists had traveled to Pittsburgh to hear the likes of Oliver Stone and Cyril Wecht assail the Warren Commission, the blue-ribbon panel Lyndon Johnson charged immediately after the assassination with uncovering the truth. In September 1964, the panel fingered Oswald as the gunman whose bullets, fired from a 6.5mm Carcano rifle perched on the sixth floor of the Texas School Book Depository, had wounded Texas Gov. John Connally and killed Kennedy. No outsider had influenced him; he acted alone. Case closed, as one well-known book would put it later.

CONTINUED...

http://nation.time.com/2013/11/05/the-debunker-among-the-buffs/

From the audience, I heard the above answer a question from a panel that included Russ Baker, Jefferson Morley, Lisa Pease, Jerry Policoff and Oliver Stone, regarding media coverage of the JFK assassination. He hadn't a clue. He certainly hadn't heard disgraced CIA director Allen Dulles "failed" to inform his fellow Members of the Warren Commission of the matter concerning how the CIA had hired the Mafia to assassinate Fidel Castro in 1960.

[Octafish]

23. Masters of the Dark Arts

What was done to Dorothy Kilgallen:

WHO KILLED DOROTHY KILGALLEN?

Born in Chicago, she became a New York journalist and popular game show panelist.
But her mysterious death still troubles a legion of fans who won't forget this remarkable woman

By Sara Jordan
Midwest Today, July 14, 2007

EXCERPT...

In a column which appeared on July 15, 1959 Kilgallen became the first reporter to imply that the CIA was working with organized crime to knock off Fidel Castro. The FBI had been surveilling Dorothy since the 1930s, and now tried to dig up more dirt on her. An internal memo to director J. Edgar Hoover dated Sept. 15, 1959 cited a confidential informant who "stated that (Dorothy and her husband Richard) have their own private lives," that he "has been dating other women...is interested in both sexes...and has his own private apartment..."

SNIP...

On Aug. 3, 1962, Kilgallen became the first journalist to refer publicly to Marilyn Monroe's relationship with a Kennedy. Within 48 hours, Marilyn was found dead of a drug overdose at her Los Angeles residence. The inquiry into her death was marred by numerous unanswered questions and contradictions in the medical findings.* Dorothy publicly challenged the authorities with tough questions. For instance, she wrote, "If the woman described as Marilyn's 'housekeeper' (Eunice Murray) was really a housekeeper, why was her bedroom such a mess? It was a small house and should have been easy to keep tidy." Kilgallen also wanted to know "why was Marilyn's door locked that night, when she didn't usually lock it? If she were just trying to get to sleep, and took the overdose of pills accidentally, why was the light on? Usually people sleep better in the dark." And she asked, "Why did the first doctor (to arrive on the scene) have to call the second doctor before calling the police? Any doctor, even a psychiatrist, knows a dead person when he sees one, especially when rigor mortis has set in and there are marks of lividity on the surface of the face and body. Why the consultation? Why the big time gap in such a small town? Mrs. Murray gets worried at about 3 a.m., and it's almost 6 a.m. before the police get to the scene."

SNIP...

Then John Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963. Dorothy was devastated. Ten months before, she had taken her young son Kerry on a tour of the White House one Saturday. To their surprise, President Kennedy invited them into the Oval Office and was extraordinarily kind.

As a formidable crime reporter, Kilgallen immediately started asking tough questions of the authorities. She had a good contact within the Dallas Police Department, who gave her a copy of the original police log that chronicled the minute-by-minute activities of the department on the day of the assassination, as shown in the radio communications. This allowed her to report that the first reaction of Chief Jesse Curry to the shots in Dealey Plaza was: "Get a man on top of the overpass and see what happened up there." Kilgallen noted that he lied when he told reporters the next day that he initially thought the shots were fired from the Texas School Book Depository.

SNIP...

In October, Dorothy confided to "What's My Line?" make-up man Carmen Gebbia that she was "all excited" about going to New Orleans to meet a source whom she did not know, but would recognize. She said it was "very cloak-and-daggerish" and would yield details about the assassination. Gebbia told Lee Israel that Dorothy "said to me several times, 'If it's the last thing I do, I'm going to break this case.' "

CONTINUED...

http://www.midtod.com/new/articles/7_14_07_Dorothy.html

People who remember are a problem. That's why the smears. That's also why when they're gone, they're no longer a problem.