Monaghan Security Watches Professor
When Ave Maria School of Law's Dean Bernard Dobranski dumped beloved co-founder and Professor Emeritus Charles Rice, he shipped Rice's office to him by UPS Next Day Service. It was a petty act, to the point of laughable, for the irrational paranoia that it uncovered.
Add to that the following from 27 Sept. 2007:
Seated is Stephen Safranek, the AMSL co-founder and tenured professor who was recently suspended without pay - an act that triggered vigorous protest by the AMSL Alumni Association Board, a majority of the AMSL alumni (see also 1,2), and by a group of prominent Catholic legal scholars. Safranek is being watched in his AMSL office by security guards from Domino's Farms, employees of Tom Monaghan. Safranek was banned from campus at the start of the semester in a systematic attempt to purge the campus of those who would point-out the institution's gross mismanagement (see also 1,2; summary here). AMSL's administration is currently under investigation for violations of accreditation standards.
Ave watch, indeed. What's next, bugged rooms? Is this more of Dobranski's twisted idea of "conditions adequate to attract and retain a competent faculty"?
This is what happens to those Ave Maria employees who stop putting their faith in a failed system dominated by tight central control. It is conservative Catholic scholars, not liberals or heretics, who are now the ones labeled by Monaghan as "academic terrorists". Legitimate respectful objection makes you a "terrorist" to be put under surveillance. What price is the Catholic community willing to pay before it realizes that no amount of money and control from an ostentacious billionaire with a high school diploma can realize the mission of the Church in higher education? Violating human dignity is not necessary to promote human dignity. Those who are anxious to view Monaghan as a savior and protector of Catholic principles must start realizing that "domestic tyranny" is as great as any threat from outside the Church.
UPDATE, 10/2/07 - Visitors to Fumare have offered first-hand accounts to corroborate the aforementioned. Also, from Fumare's comment box, former Ave Maria College Dean Dr. Christopher Beiting had this to say:
I'm surprised that nobody's mentioned the fact that Dobranski has long had a hidden camera in his office, monitered by Security in Domino's Farms. I learned it through one of my former students at AMC, who worked for Alpha Omega for a while, and was surprised, to say the least, to discover it. If memory serves, Dobranski even acknowledged this fact when asked about it in one of these town meetings of his.
So. Security teams AND hidden cameras. All combined with a prediliction for making people "unpersons" when they step out of line. And all of this in a setting where people still have to answer to regular law agencies. Now, riddle me this, what are things going to be like in Avemariaville, with its special administrative district status, where those mountebanks will *control* the law? What will life be like in a town where something like Alpha Omega security will really BE the police?
In the beginning of my fight to help preserve AMC, I never wished for AMU to fail, and I resent Monaghan for assuming that I and others were so motivated when we weren't, let alone characterizing us as "academic terrorists". But now? Oh, heck yeah. As nearly as I can tell, Avemariaville will develop with the worst features of a bananna republic and Calvin's Geneva, though absent the high-quality education.
You want to see the future of Avemariaville, folks?
Take a good, hard look at the Avewatch picture of Safranek.
Now ask youself whether you want yourself, or anyone you love, to live under such conditions.
Contact AveWatch if you have first hand knowledge of excesses or irregularities in Tom Monaghan's oversight of security.