2007 Protest in Union

Once a month my friends have a Stand for Peace at Marquette University to protest the military training program, ROTC, at this Catholic university. Last Thursday, when it was below 0 degrees outside, I suggested we have the stand for peace inside the Marquette Alumni Memorial Union. Last fall the vice president and the Legal Council of Marquette University told a friend and me, coordinators of Breaking the Silence, that we could present our message for Marquette to be faithful to the Gospel and stop military training for war and killing on campus in the ROTC programs on the Marquette University campus. In December 2013, when we had a protest inside the union to stop the military training program on campus, we were allowed to proceed without Marquette Security being call or the Milwaukee police. In fact over the years we have had many protest of ROTC in the Union and other buildings on campus without an arrest or citation.

However, last Thursday after we entered the union and held up our signs the Marquette security was there to say we could not protest with our signs on the Marquette campus. My sign was a quote from Pope Francis, the leader of the Catholic Church. The headline said “Violence and Faithful are Incompatible.” See full poster and quote below. When we protested this command of the security, having been told by Marquette administration, we could present our message nonviolently on campus, the security officers responded saying hey were just “following orders” and would call the City of Milwaukee Police to have us arrested.

I asked the security officers whose orders they were acting on and they said their boss. I called him and he said he was also working on ‘orders.’ I tried to call the Vice President and Legal Counsel who said we could present our message on campus but the police arrived. The three of us agreed to leave if it was against the law or Marquette regulations to be in the union with our message but the police could not wait for us to check it out. They took our ID’s and said they would send us a citation for trespassing, which they did.

I wrote what happened to the Legal Council of Milwaukee and the Vice President. The Legal Council said the Vice President was on vacation but he completely denied that we had been given permission to present our message on campus. I wrote back that in my thirteen years of Jesuit education I had been trained to trust figures of authority, especially in a Catholic institution like Marquette University.

I had been in the Union earlier that morning for something else and no one stopped me. We also have protest ROTC many times in the Union over the years without getting in trouble. So I figure it must have been our signs that lead to this citation. The Jesuit taught me to be honest and practices the values of our faith. This lead me to object to Marquette’s Teaching Killing, Killing without conscience and thus to be present at Marquette protesting the presence of military training (ROTC) on campus. My sign with a quote from Pope Francis seemed to be what got me a police citation on campus. Maybe at our next event we can get Pope Francis to stand with us for Peace, since the Pope’s quote got us in trouble. Check it out below.

Pope Quote, Trouble

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