CampusTavern.com

Welcome to CampusTavern.com!

This blog is currently under construction as our blog staff works on the page and moves our old content from 1832 to this site.

CampusTavern.com will officially launch on Tuesday, January 17th 2006 when classes resume at Marquette.

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The CampusTavern.com Staff

Last night a Marquette Tribune reporter contacted me about a follow up story to the ongoing debate and petition regarding the Office of Student Development, below is a transcript of our conversation:

Tribune Reporter: Hi, Ryan. I am calling because we are doing a follow up story on your petition, could you tell me what the response has been on your petition since our first story and could you tell us how many signatures you currently have?

Ryan Alexander: Well, first of all I will not release any information about the petition until the end of the semester, as stated in the petition blog. Secondly, It is hard to judge the response to our petition because the front-page story did not give any information to students on where they could find the petition or find my blog.

Tribune Reporter: Well just so you know, we decided not to publish an address to your blog or or your petition because THE OFFICE OF STUDENT DEVELOPMENT WOULD COME DOWN ON US AND WE DIDN’T WANT TO HAVE TO DEAL WITH THAT. [Emphasis added]

I was under the impression that the Marquette Tribune was supposed to be semi-independent of the University. Sadly, I was wrong. This seems to show just how far the Office of Student Development will go in order to keep the status quo. Perhaps what is even more frightening is Pam Peter’s actions in trying to censor and suppress College Republicans 1st Amendment right to create a truly independent right-wing paper on campus (although “technically” it would be off campus). The following is from Brandon Henak and his GOP3.com blog:

In a landmark victory for an independent student voice on campus, a small group of committed students have started The Warrior at Marquette University to truly represent the views of students. The publication will be a monthly magazine with news and opinion from the moderate and conservative voices on campus often ignored by liberal local media sources such as the Marquette Tribune.

The Warrior staff made the decision to have no official relation to Marquette in order to retain their right to freedom from censorship. They have stated they will be openly critical of liberal bias on campus and work to give voice to conservative reason.

When I posted an ad for The Warrior on the Marquette University College Republican’s website I was almost immediately contacted by controversial Office of Student Development employee Pam Peters asking what it was. I replied with the aforementioned details on the publication. Her response then included the following points:

1) The publication would have to be approved by OSD. I responded that it wouldn’t because it was not associated with the university.

2) She said the MU College Republicans could not support or advertise for it unless they were also approved by OSD and I stated our website is not under their jurisdiction.

3) She said The Warrior could not distribute on campus unless it was submitted for approval, to which I responded that it could be distributed on public property.

4) She finally warned me the MU College Republicans could not officially sponsor The Warrior and were to use caution on this matter and then requested more information. I said I am not officially a part of The Warrior board and she should contact Katie Dorman, the editor, for more information.

This incident fully demonstrates Marquette University’s fear of a loud, clear and independent student voice.

The Marquette Tribune as reported earlier, issued a staff editorial regarding this blogs petition to remove Pam Peters of OSD. The Tribune so vastly over looks the point and the success of our efforts, that it makes their editorial downright comical.

First lets take a look at the title of the editorial:

“Peters petition won’t help groups”

The Marquette Tribune, in yet another example of its journalistic failure to report events correctly, would have you believe that the students and faculty who have endorsed this petition actually think that firing Pam Peters will solve all of our problems.

This is simply not accurate. It has never once been said by anyone, including myself, that the firing of Pam Peters would solve all of our issues and concerns with the Office of Student Development. In fact, I will further that statement by saying that none of us actually expect the Office of Student Development to fire Pam Peters because of our petition.

The members of College Democrats, College Republicans, and other organizations that have signed on to the petition, do not measure the success of the petition on whether or not Pam Peters is fired by the University. In our view, the petition has been a success. It has shown the University how strongly and how united the political organizations are on this issue and it has started a fierce debate on campus regarding changes that could be made to the Office of Student Developments policies and procedures.

Numerous other student organizations as well as other students and members of the faculty and staff have come forward with additional recommendations for changes to the office of Student Development, and many of them have contacted OSD independent of our own efforts.

As a result of our petition, the pressure on the University to enact changes is higher, the awareness of the problem within and outside the Marquette community is wider, and the number and substance of recommendations for positive changes to the Office of Student Development is greater. All of this increases the likelihood that the University will actually undertake changes that WILL HELP student organizations as a result.

“He voices indignation that materials circulated by student organizations would have to be pre-approved by some kind of authority or oversight.”

This statement is absurd. I fully understand that materials circulated by student organizations should have to be pre-approved by some kind of authority or oversight. What I have voiced “indignation” over is that students organizations have no say in this process and have no avenue for an appeal that may result in relief.

“A listing of the rights of student organizations, or supplementary material explaining the guidelines considered to be appropriate could alleviate the tension between political groups that push the limits of the public discourse. This is an idea that Alexander is pushing for.”

While I thank the Marquette Tribune for mentioning one of the additional changes we would like to make within the Office of Student Development, this statement shows that the Marquette Tribune has failed connect the petition to fire Pam Peters with our overall package of recommendations. The Marquette Tribune clearly engages in selective quoting and reporting in both the front page story that appeared on this issue and in their editorial.

“A listing of the rights of student organizations, or supplementary material explaining the guidelines considered to be appropriate could alleviate the tension between poltical groups that push the limits of the public discourse. “

“A possible solution is instruction on OSD procedures, in the form of written materials, which ideally can be prepared by both the administration and members of campus political groups.Whatever solution is advanced should ideally be the product of negotiations between the concerned student groups, OSD and MUSG.”

So let me get this straight, you call our petition “deplorable” when the petition itself has started the process of “negotiations between the concerned student groups, OSD, and MUSG” and when the petition endorsers have advocated for the very same changes that the Marquette Tribune is now advocating?

Ridiculous

I had tried to post a similar blog entry regarding the fact that the Marquette Tribune had failed to mention this blog and the web address of the petition in their article, but for some reason blogspot.com kept giving me an error. Dr. McAdams wrote:

Marquette Blogger Breakthrough

On the front page of the Marquette Tribune today: an issue first raised on a student blog by a Democratic blogger which gained support of student Republican bloggers.

Ryan Alexander’s 1832 blog initiated a petition to fire Pam Peters of the Office of Student Development. The petition quickly got the support of the College Republicans, and of conservative student blogger Joseph Kastner.

The issue was the front page, above the fold story in the Tribune, the first case on campus of an issue initiated in the blogosphere “broke through” into Marquette’s version of the Mainstream Media. But here’s the kicker: the Tribune entirely failed to mention that the issue was first raised on a campus blog!

The Tribune recently ran a story on campus blogs, but has not heretofore covered an issue first broached on one of them. The Tribune wrote a dismissive editorial on blogs just two weeks ago, whining about how “opinionated” people publish blogs, and even mentioning the case of a college student who supposedly threatened the police in a blog post.

That editorial was not a journalistic triumph for the Tribune, since it badly mangled the facts of the case. Clearly, blogs are beginning to become a force on campus – impossible to ignore and sometimes way ahead of more traditional media.

In addition to Dr. McAdams’ comments I would like to point out that not only did the Marquette Tribune fail to mention this blog as the source for the story, it also failed to provide a web address to the petition in question so that readers could access the petition and possibly sign it themselves.

The full text of Dr McAdams’ Warrior Blog can be found here

A state constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage and civil unions has been approved by both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature. The final step is that the legislation must clear both houses again in 2005 before going to voters in a statewide referendum. The referendum would put the issue of gay marriage into the hands of Wisconsinites who, I feel, need to know the affects the ban would have on people (heterosexuals included) before they could vote.

This act would establish that marriage is between one man and one woman and would do away with domestic partnerships rights. This is frightening because as a result of the new constitutional amendment banning gay marriage in some states, such as Ohio, domestic violence laws no longer protect unmarried straight people. There is also language in Kentucky that actually says, “A legal status identical or substantially similar to that of marriage for unmarried individuals shall not be valid or recognized.” In other words, if you are not a straight married couple you don’t matter and the government has no obligation to protect your rights. Additionally, common law marriages (such as the one my own mother and step-father had before he died) would not be recognized and no voice would be given to a partner who was left behind after a tragedy.

So I, an unmarried straight female, can be beaten up by an overly aggressive boyfriend and I am not legally protected from him because Conservatives have an issue with what grown people do in the privacy of their bedroom. Thanks a lot guys- knew you wouldn’t let us women down again.

I believe that marriage, in the strictly legal sense, has zilch to do with religion. I am a devote Christian but I am also an American and to me the idea of imposing a highly religious ideal on a secular nation is not only wrong but dangerous.

If Wisconsin citizens should be called on to vote on a ban on gay marriages it will not be a referendum on defending marriage and family values. It will be an attempt to, not only, impose religious morals on others but to marginalize an already vulnerable minority group through a poorly drafted (and somewhat mean-spirited) state constitutional amendment which will have immeasurable and unintended consequences on people of all sexual orientations.

I digress, on women of all sexual orientations.

as reported by the Marquette Tribune
the orginal blog entry can be found here and you can sign the petition here

Petition circulating to fire OSD official
Members of political groups in agreement
Amanda Sheaffer
Tribune Staff

In a joint effort, members of Marquette’s College Democrats and College Republicans are petitioning to have Pamela Peters, coordinator for student organizations and leadership in the Office of Student Development, fired. Ryan Alexander, a College of Arts & Sciences junior and a member of College Democrats, started the petition.

“We feel that based on our dealings with OSD that she’s not qualified to deal with student organizations in general, especially political organizations,” Alexander said. “She just doesn’t seem to have special knowledge needed to work with political organizations.”
Peters was contacted but declined comment.

Brandon Henak, chair of College Republicans and a College of Business Administration junior, acknowledged the move to request the university fire Peters is controversial, but he supports change in OSD.

“We both support serious changes within the Office of Student Development and the way it works,” Henak said.

The official College Democrat and College Republican groups do not endorse the petition, Alexander said. The petition stems from past problems that College Democrats and College Republicans have had seeking OSD approval.

The College Republicans’ main problem with OSD was a result of the January “Adopt a Sniper” controversy, where a miscommunication resulted in OSD officials removing the fundraising display. Henak said the group also had a problem when OSD declined their request to have an animal rights barbeque, to oppose animal rights extremist groups like People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, six hours before the event was scheduled.

The controversy surrounding “Adopt a Sniper” stemmed from the table’s display of bracelets featuring the words “One shot, one kill, no remorse, I decide.” The story became national news, and the university came under fire for College Republicans’ claim of restricting free speech.
“Our main problems stemmed from Adopt a Sniper,” Henak said. “There were also problems getting approval for signs that Peters said weren’t worded correctly during the election season.”
Alexander said Marquette could have avoided the negative publicity received from the Adopt a Sniper controversy if not for Peters.

“The blame for all the negative publicity the university received from Adopt a Sniper squarely falls on Pam Peters,” Alexander said. “She should have asked what (the College Republicans) were selling and where the money was going to. She didn’t ask any of that. If she had, she probably would have rejected the approval and Marquette wouldn’t have had the negative publicity.”

Mark McCarthy, assistant vice president of Student Affairs and dean of Student Development, said OSD was made aware of the petition.

“I invited Ryan Alexander to meet with me because I was interested in hearing more of his concerns, particularly in light of policies and procedures,” McCarthy said. “I left the door open for further conversation on how to improve services.”

McCarthy would not comment on OSD’s intention to retain or fire Peters.
Alexander said both College Democrats and College Republicans have been negatively affected by Peters’ decisions.

“Her job performance is not all that great on a very consistent basis,” Alexander said. “She’s a very nice lady but that has no bearing on one’s job performance.”

One of the petition’s several recommendations is the creation of an independent appeals board that would review OSD and Marquette Student Government decisions and perhaps overturn those decisions.

“Our biggest frustration is that we have absolutely no say in whether an event is approved or not,” Alexander said. “There is no appeal process and no avenue to present our case.”
This article appeared in The Marquette Tribune on April 26 2005.

According to the Star Tribune, Howard Dean was in Minnesota recently for a benefit for the American Civil Liberties Union of Minnesota. Dean apparently made a speech that he delivered without notes (a trademark of his Presidential campaign by the way) and did a question and answer session.

What is newsworthy is that during his speech Dean drew howls of laughter from the crowd by mimicking a “drug-snorting Rush Limbaugh”. Normally I do not have a problem with prominent Democrats making fun of Republicans as long as it is factual and done in relatively good taste. Dean’s remarks and gestures regarding Rush Limbaugh, however, were neither.

As Dr. Dean should know, one does not “snort” pain-killers and if he has read the news at all he would know that Limbaugh was not found guilty of doing cocaine. In addition, as much as I dislike the man, I would think that members of the ACLU would agree that his addiction should be a private matter.

Our DNC Chairman responded to questions about his speech by saying:

“I’m not very dignified, he said.”But I’m not running for president anymore.”

You know what Dean? I worked for your disaster of a campaign and YOU LOST BECAUSE YOU WERE NOT DIGNIFIED. You had a great record and you had a great plan for this country, but you flushed it all down the toilet because you could not keep your mouth shut. When you decided to run for DNC Chairman, I had hoped that you had reflected on your campaign and your demeanor and had actually learned something about yourself. It seems that you have not.

I hope Dean realizes that while he may not be running for President, that he is the leader of the Democratic party and that requires that he act and speak in a dignified manner.

What I find even more absurd is that Dean, after making these comments, went on to state:

“That Democrats have to learn to speak from the heart and with respect to Americans who have found more comfort in Republican appeals to their fears about their jobs, health care, schools and national security.”

Mr. Chairman, How is attacking a political opponent by making false accusations about alleged drug use, talking from the heart? How is that speaking with respect?

I think it would be prudent for the Chairman of the Democratic Party to follow his own advice.

UPDATE:
Many people have commented on how it is possible to “snort” painkillers and other drugs. This is something I do not doubt, I have personally witnessed some of my HS friends snorting ritalin. However, I was more or less referring to Rush Limbaugh’s drug use, and it is my understanding that he did not abuse Oxy by snorting it, however, I could be wrong. In addition, reports from the event indicate that Howard Dean was alleging cocaine use in his joke which is factually incorrect.

The leader of the Clinton impeachment, Congressman Henry Hyde (R-IL), recently admitted in an interview that the impeachment was partially political retaliation for the Democrats impeaching Richard Nixon.

The veteran republican is also admitting for the first time that the impeachment of Clinton may have been in part political revenge against the democrats for the impeachment proceedings against GOP President Richard Nixon 25 years earlier. *

“Was this pay back?” asked Andy Shaw.

“I can’t say it wasn’t. But I also thought that the Republican Party should stand for
something, and if we walked away from this, no matter how difficult, we could be accused of shirking our duty,” said Hyde

The impeachment was particularly embarrassing for Mr. Hyde because it caused his adulterous affair to come into the public spotlight. The 81-year-old seems to be clearing his conscience before he retires after his 16th term in the House of Representatives. His comments show the cut-throat nature of politics and prove that elephants never forget.

My name is Zach Corey and I am a Junior in the College of Arts and Science and will join Ryan in frequently posting on this blog. Like Ryan, I am an Economics and Political Science major. I have interned for Russ Feingold in various ways for over two years, am a former member of JUSTICE, co-founder of Amnesty International on campus and Treasurer of College Democrats. My interests include reading, gambling, and politics. I hope to write about all three.

Along with Matt Manning, I recently co-founded Amnesty International on campus. Since I had been heavily involved in politics, I decided that it was about time to get involved in something that was fairly platitudinal. I thought, “who could be opposed to advocating for human rights?” Little did I know how wrong I was.

My first jolt to reality came from the GOP3 blog when it belittled the organization. Although I was a little offended, I make fun of people/things enough where things like that do not bother me too much.

I became a little more worked-up when I read a second negative entry about Amnesty International that implies that we should not be allowed on campus. I responded to the post and it has been said that the author of the original post got “Suhr-ved”.

This second story was picked up by Dr. McAdam’s blog and he essentially agreed with it. I responded to Dr. McAdam’s piece as well and he responded to my response. I just spent the last two hours creating a response to his response to my response, which he will hopefully post shortly:

“While we fully accept the bona fides of the current leadership of Amnesty International at Marquette, the general pro-abortion, pro-gay marriage thrust of the organization is an invitation to future problems.“

Our constitution will not/cannot change. When people join our Amnesty International group at Marquette it is clear that they are not joining Amnesty International, but an affiliated group that has to abide by the rules of Marquette University.

“Corey, and indeed anybody who cares about human rights, ought to be disturbed at the organization’s apparent endorsement of “hate speech” laws criminalizing criticism of homosexuality.”

The sentence that you pulled out of the Amnesty document is simply descriptive and certainly does not “Quite clearly… look forward to the time when simply espousing the Catholic view of homosexuality as “intrinsically disordered” can land one in jail”

“The global trend towards granting explicit protection against discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation has become firmly established at national level. Canada, France, Ireland, Israel, Slovenia and Spain are just some of the countries where specific reference to sexual orientation is included in their anti-discrimination laws relating to areas such as employment, housing, public services and protection against defamation or hate-speech.”

I looked for further clarification on Amnesty’s stance on hate speech against homosexuals and I could not find anything that makes the position more clear.

Most people would agree that “fighting words” like telling an angry mob, “Let’s kill these f**king faggots” is something that people should not be free to say. However, a Catholic saying, “I think homosexuality is immoral” is something that most everyone would agree should be allowed. The problem lies in the cases between these two extremes.

“Corey hasn’t addressed the Administration’s apparent inconsistency in refusing to recognize the Human Rights Campaign, while recognizing Amnesty International. Perhaps this was something so simple as the unwillingness of the former group to include the relevant paragraph in its Constitution.There is no inconsistency to not recognizing the Human Rights Campaign and recognizing Amnesty International because each organization’s mission statement relates differently to Church teaching.”

The HRC Doctrine has nothing in common with Church Doctrine, so it would be impossible for the group on campus to conduct any activities. It is logical, therefore, to not recognize them as a student group.

Although there are parts of Amnesty International that fall outside of Church Doctrine there is still a substantial area that Amnesty International can promote on campus that is both within Church Doctrine and the Amnesty International Mission Statement.

“Corey hasn’t challenged our characterization of Amnesty as a sort of general-purpose liberal lobby, rather than an organization supporting some consensual notion of human rights. Of course, they have a right to be that if they want to be that. But everybody needs to know that their idea of “human rights” is a liberal/left one.”

For any conservative that is not in the moderate wing of the Republican Party, Amnesty International is an organization with whom they will most likely disagree on substantive issues (like the definition of human rights, stances on contraceptives… ad infinitum). For even the most right-wing person, there will be many issues with which they will agree with Amnesty International. Amnesty International at Marquette, however, is intentionally working on stopping genocides, freeing prisoners of conscience, and ending torture. These issues should be important to both conservatives and liberals alike.

Well, enough of the blog drama. I’m off to play poker.