Allow me to paraphrase Tuesday's staff editorial ("Freedom already exists"):

Free speech concerns at Marquette are valid. Moreover, it is wrong for the university to restrict speech. Paradoxically, the Tribune then endorses the decisions to stifle student speech on three occasions in the very next paragraph.,”

Allow me to paraphrase last Tuesday's staff editorial ("Freedom already exists"):

Free speech concerns at Marquette are valid. Moreover, it is wrong for the university to restrict speech. Paradoxically, the Tribune then endorses the decisions to stifle student speech on three occasions in the very next paragraph.

Additionally, the Tribune does not think that a student group that has been very active (Students for Academic Freedom) can make a difference to improve campus discourse and protect the free marketplace of ideas but a reading of "The Vagina Monologues" could lead to the end of sexual violence.

I don't get it, guys. Does the Tribune support freedom of speech or not?

At the end of the staff editorial, the Tribune agrees that Students for Academic Freedom raises questions that have not been answered. Wouldn't it be nice to have an active student organization to explore these issues?

Beyond that, wouldn't it be nice to have a student organization that exists to bring civil and reasoned debate to Marquette?

Marquette promotes a very narrow view of what social justice is. Students for Academic Freedom would object to the one-sided discussion of how to achieve social justice and provide a reasoned rebuttal.

The Office of Student Development has unfairly characterized Students for Academic Freedom as wanting to thwart the academic freedom of professors when Students for Academic Freedom would do quite the opposite.

A university is a place where differing minds should meet in pursuit of truth.

The only objection Students for Academic Freedom would raise with professors is, for example, a math professor using lecture time to criticize the war in Iraq or an engineering instructor referring to certain students as "Nazis."

Both of these instances have happened at Marquette and both are abuses of academic freedom.

I encourage The Marquette Tribune and OSD to reconsider their positions on freedom of speech and Students for Academic Freedom. Is it really in the spirit of Ignatius to silence the expression of students when the discourse in no way disparages our Catholic, Jesuit identity?

Students for Academic Freedom would improve the campus discourse, respect intellectual diversity and grant strength to students in the academic sphere.

Rickert is a senior in the College of Business Administration.

“