'Creeping illness' of liberal bias at university, alumni argue

Frustrated alumni at St. Joseph's University have pledged to not donate more money to the university due to the school's purported liberal and woke bias.

The reaction was sparked by the university's handling of an employee's political tweets.

A group of alumni at St. Joseph’s University is protesting the school in response to the university’s handling of professor Gregory Manco termination.

Gregory Manco, an assistant math professor and baseball coach, was removed from the classroom after students found a pair of anonymous tweets on a private twitter account.

The tweets contained Manco’s personal feelings about the left’s reparation plans and radical bias training. Manco, who had been with the university for 17 years, was fired even after an investigation by the university proved no bias was shown.

On Friday, six concerned alumni protested outside a 50th reunion luncheon for the class of 1971, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. The alumni held signs reading “H**l no! No more dough for Saint Joe,” and “Re-hire Manco and fire the wokesters [sic].”

The alumni gave a letter to university leaders at the luncheon outlining their concerns. The group plans to communicate with other alumni to cut off donations to the university, which the Philadelphia Inquirer reports could be the in the amount of hundreds of thousands of dollars. 

Anna Dorneman, a junior communications and graphic design student at SJU, told Campus Reform that the alumni’s decisions were justified because the University is becoming more and more liberal.

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“I think it’s the only way to make people more aware,” said Dorneman. “In the past, I feel I have received lower grades than I deserved because I took a conservative approach.”

The alumni originally expressed their concern about the University’s bias after an incident earlier this year.

“It looks like retribution, and it looks like they are sending a message to the rest of the staff and students that if you go against the orthodoxy, you’ll be punished,” said James A. Henwood, one of six alumni in protest. “It’s bad optics at the very least.”

The alumni’s biggest concern, the newspaper reports, is “the creeping illness” of liberal ideas that are taking over the campus.

Mike Dugan, the president of College Republicans at SJU, also expressed his concern in an interview with Campus Reform.

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“When professor Manco was fired, we knew that free speech does not exist on campus,” said Dugan. “We knew that any opinion that the university disagreed with, could be weaponized against us.”

Many students and alumni feel Manco was wrongfully fired and should be reinstated. Likewise, Dugan questioned the effect this decision would have on the university as a whole. 

“The university has completely prioritized their leftist agenda over the well-being of the students,” Dugan said. “Our university is already hurting for money. They have had a decline in admissions and have cut professor salaries already in some cases. I think that losing hundreds of thousands more will just continue to put the university on the decline.”

“My parents used to also give donations to the university but have stopped over the course of this past year for the same reasons,” he added.

Campus Reform reached out to SJU for comment; this article will be updated accordingly.