MADISON — Samantha Pfefferle says her higher education dream came true when she was accepted into Milwaukee’s famed Marquette University.
That dream appears to be “going down the drain” after Pfefferle failed a Marquette admissions litmus test — a test that tolerates no conservative counterpoints to the Jesuit school’s ironclad liberal “guiding values.”
The 18-year-old New London High School graduate told Empower Wisconsin that she had a hastily-called phone meeting last Tuesday with Marquette admissions staff. They put Pfefferle through the ringer, asking her questions like, what would she do if she lived in the same dorm as a “Dreamer” (a young, undocumented immigrant in America under the Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors —DREAM — Act), and the Dreamer didn’t like Pfefferle’s opinions?
They asked her what she would do if an illegal immigrant lived nearby and didn’t like her comments.
Why? Pfefferle has posted her opposition to illegal immigration on her social network accounts.
She has also publicly commented that she doesn’t agree that a biologically-born male can truly claim to be a female.
The cancel culture crowd, Pfefferle asserts, will not tolerate what they see as her intolerant beliefs. So they apparently inundated Marquette leadership with emails containing screenshots of Pfefferle’s posts, insisting that the incoming freshman didn’t belong at a woke institution like Marquette.
After the phone interrogation, Pfefferle said admissions officials suggested they wouldn’t let her become part of the Marquette family.
“They told me I wasn’t a student,” she said. “They said students at the university were complaining that what I said put people at risk at Marquette and that their [admissions] offer needs to be rescinded as soon as possible.”
They said they would contact her in a couple of days. It’s been more than a week.
“I already was admitted to the university, I had already paid for my housing applications, had my roommate. I don’t know what they meant by 'I’m not a student,'” Pfefferle said.
Brian Troyer, Marquette’s director of undergraduate admissions, did not respond to Empower Wisconsin’s email request for comment. Other Marquette officials could not be reached for comment Tuesday. An email response noted that the university is “completely closed for the Gift of Time Week, June 29-July 3.”
Late Tuesday night, Lynn Griffith, senior director of University Communication, sent Empower Wisconsin a message stating, “Marquette University has not rescinded her admissions offer.”
“Members of our admissions team did recently have a conversation with incoming freshman Samantha Pfefferle about statements made on her social media accounts,” Griffith acknowledged in an email.
She did not return a follow-up email seeking comment about Pfefferle’s take on the unusual phone interview.
After the social mob blitzed the web with her social network posts, Pfefferle said the hatred was horrendous. One student made an Instagram post attacking Pfefferle as transphobic, homophobic, xenophobic and all manner of phobic. She sent it to Marquette administrators with the clear intention of getting Pfefferle rescinded, the New London grad claims.
“We had a couple of Facebook posts about it. You would not believe how much hatred was directed toward me,” Pfefferle said. “People have gone on her TikTok page saying how they hope I kill myself. It’s a never-ending cycle of hatred by people who don’t agree with me.”
Pfefferle was a two-sport athlete in high school, was involved in several school clubs and maintained a 3.3 grade-point average. She said she worked hard to get into Marquette, and now it’s slipping out of her hands because of the university’s intolerance to conservative viewpoints.
She says she has considered legal action, but most pressing is the need to stand up and push back against cancel culture.
“I would like to call on all conservatives: We can no longer afford to be the silent majority. We need to stop letting mobs rule over us,” Pfefferle said.