When I decided to transfer to Marquette University in order to be closer to friends and family, I presumed that I would find the aforementioned Jesuit principles copious among the student body.,”Catholic and Jesuit at Marquette? I hadn't noticed. Last year I attended Loyola University-Chicago. At Loyola, we understood what it meant to be "men and women for others," and we were profoundly interested in the passionate pursuit of social justice.

When I decided to transfer to Marquette University in order to be closer to friends and family, I presumed that I would find the aforementioned Jesuit principles copious among the student body. What I have discovered instead is a University seriously confused about its Jesuit identity.

Marquette University certainly cannot be said to be a liberal institution of higher education. In fact, it seems to me to be decidedly conservative, likely because of the number of suburbanites that choose to enroll each year. These students, at least in my view, often fail to acknowledge that social injustice exists (or at least choose to ignore it), simultaneously failing to absorb the Jesuit education that they are paying for.

Why aren't we exposing social injustices, and then seeking to remedy them, as the Jesuits who allegedly run this place would want? In the months since I arrived on campus, I have seen an anti-abortion demonstration, a sexual violence awareness demonstration and a Darfur awareness demonstration. Is that really all we've got?

It's almost surreal that at a Jesuit Catholic University, no one is concerned about our perpetual presence in Iraq, overwhelming poverty in Milwaukee and the United States at large, 50 million Americans without access to health care, 80-degree days in October and a minimum wage that condemns millions to working poverty. If we aren't concerned about these and other issues, then what are we doing here? St. Paul reminds us, "We then that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves."

It is the opinion of a number of my colleagues and I that Marquette's decidedly conservative world view often gets in the way of its pursuit of social justice. Questions regarding social justice are condemned as "liberal thought," and conservatives certainly don't want to be associated with that.

It's high time we set our political ideologies aside in order to more accurately and whole-heartedly pursue Jesuit ideals. After all, isn't that what we're here for?

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