But the Marquette Wire has published another student’s controversial social media post
The student newspaper at Marquette University is refusing to publish social media posts made by the son of the school’s president, even though the posts led the son to withdraw from the school.
The Marquette Wire, the student newspaper at the Catholic university in Marquette, reported Aug. 6 that Matt Lovell, the son of Marquette’s president Michael Lovell, “posted multiple racist and sexist posts to different meme accounts on Instagram.”
The posts included “derogatory statements about women and Black people” and were first published in 2017 and 2018, Lovell’s freshman year at Marquette.
“The memes posted by Matt include comments involving prominent Black leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. and former President Barack Obama. Posts also make light of sexual assault,” the Wire reported.
However, the student newspaper did not publish copies of the posts or even include language from the alleged offensive posts.
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The paper’s refusal to publish the actual language and imagery of the posts — or even what Instagram accounts they come from — prevents readers from making up their own minds about the posts the newspaper and others have deemed racist and sexist.
But the campus newspaper has published a controversial social media post in the recent past.
It did so when it covered a controversial Snapchat by an incoming freshman lacrosse player whose admissions offer was revoked.
The student wrote on Snapchat “some ppl think it’s ok to f—— kneel during the national anthem so it’s ok to kneel on someone’s head. come at me. y’all brainwashed. kind disgusting lowkey,” and the Wire republished the remarks.
The campus newspaper did not cover another recent controversy over an incoming freshman who university admissions officials questioned for her TikTok videos supportive of President Donald Trump.
As for Matt Lovell’s controversial posts from three years ago, the campus newspaper did not publish them, explaining: “Rightly or wrongly, it is our opinion that doing so would serve no other purpose than to further spread offensive material.”
Natallie St. Onge, the author of the article and the paper’s executive editor, told The College Fix in an emailed statement Monday that the paper “decided to include what was said by the lacrosse commit because that Snapchat was already widely shared by many across several different social media websites, where many inside and outside of the Marquette community saw the post and were calling on the university to do something.”
“The posts made by Matt Lovell, however, were not widely shared to our knowledge and only a few people had known that he was even posting it in the first place, like the two anonymous sources in the story. Therefore, because we realized that not many knew, we did not want to continue to spread the hurtful language and the imagery.”
In response to a follow-up question, St. Onge said “We did not include the language because like we stated in the article, most of the posts were already deleted and by the way the posts had impacted our sources, we did not feel the need to continue to spread the language and hurt others. Again, right or wrong, this was our choice.”
She directed The College Fix to the paper’s ethics code.
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The Marquette Wire said that two anonymous sources alerted it to the posts after the university rescinded the scholarship and admissions offer to the incoming female lacrosse player.
However, one source was wary of coming forward because of fear of reprisal from the university. That source told the Marquette Wire “Being the son of the president (of Marquette) is pretty powerful. I just didn’t know what repercussion I would face, and if it would even be worth it.”
Matt Lovell told the Marquette Wire:
I deeply regret having posted offensive, racist and sexist images on social media. The images do not reflect who I am or the values my family lives by. I am very sorry for the pain that these images have caused to anyone who viewed them. I am also sad about the hurt my family has experienced from learning about these posts. I take full responsibility for my actions and have withdrawn from Marquette University.
Michael Lovell thanked the sources who turned his son in, telling the Marquette Wire that calling people out for racism is what he asked of the school community during a June virtual townhall on race issues.
“We need to hold each other accountable – including my son Matt. As personal and difficult as this situation is to our family, maybe it can serve as a catalyst for positive change,” Lovell told the Marquette Wire.
He said that the university has received numerous accounts of racist comments online from Marquette community members.
“It’s really hard for the university to monitor everyone’s social media platforms. We have trouble just as parents with our own children, let alone the university.”
Marquette did not immediately respond to a request for comment Monday from The College Fix on if it asked the paper not to publish the text and imagery of the allegedly offensive social media posts.
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IMAGE: Twin Design / Shutterstock.com
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