On Tuesday, a group of Marquette students and faculty got together outside the Alumni Memorial Union to protest the university’s choice of Angela Braly, CEO of Wellpoint, as the keynote speaker for the Business Leaders Forum luncheon.

We were not alone in protesting Ms. Braly’s appearance on campus, because many people oppose her stance on the current health care debate.

But we were unique in that we were motivated by our membership in the Marquette community and our commitment to the sense of justice that is central to the ethos of that community.

We are a politically diverse group.

We are women and men, Catholics and non-Catholics, undergraduates and graduate students.

However, we all share a commitment to the values we see enshrined and practiced in Jesuit institutions in general and at Marquette in particular.

And we have this, above all, in common: We do not understand why the university would choose, in such a tense and important political moment, to endorse the work of someone who last year made $8.7 million by profiting from an unjust health care system.

In June, it was revealed that Wellpoint evaluated employee performance based on how much money they saved the company from retroactive rescissions of insurance policies.

Wellpoint has refused to end these rescissions.

In short, Wellpoint rewards its employees for depriving medical care to those in need and has no plans to change this practice.

All this confirms what Angela Braly herself already admitted when she said Wellpoint “will not sacrifice profitability for membership.”

We stood outside the AMU on Tuesday — despite heavy rain, not to mention threats of arrest — because we demand an explanation.

We want to know how a person who presides over such activities can be considered a leader in the Catholic, Jesuit sense.

Catholic and Jesuit values require that leaders serve the common interest, especially the interests of the most vulnerable people in our society.

Denying health care to the sickest and poorest members of our community is the opposite of what Marquette stands for.

Profiting off that denial is not only counter to the ethos of our institution, but is, quite simply, indefensible.

We are part of the Marquette community because we want to be men and women with and for others — not just with and for those who are healthy and wealthy enough to fend for themselves, but also, and especially, with and for those who are not so fortunate.

We love our university and our community.

We are deeply disappointed by this blatant disregard for the values which make this university a great place in which to live and learn.

We believe in Marquette and in its core values, and we hope that together as a community, we will all strive to live up to them in any way we can.

That is why we stood outside the AMU on Tuesday, and that is why we ask all of you, fellow members of this community, to join with us in demanding that the College of Business Administration and the university explain why they made such a poor choice.

Margaret Steele is a philosphy graduate student and a member of JUSTICE.