UWM School of Information Studies Senior Lecturer Betsy Schoeller made comments on a Facebook post about Spc. Vanessa Guillen’s murder on a page with over 300,000 members that seems to argue what happened to Guillen was justified.
Guillen was murdered at Fort Hood on April 22, 2020. The primary murder suspect, Spc. Aaron David Robinson, committed suicide before investigators could speak with him and his girlfriend has been charged with conspiracy to tamper with evidence, according to the FBI.
Several people have come forward alleging sexual assault against Guillen by several of her peers at Fort Hood. Investigators at the Army base in Texas say no link between Guillen’s death and sexual assault has been found.
Guillen’s family said she never filed any sexual assault reports because she didn’t think they would be taken seriously. Schoeller’s comment suggests the price Guillen paid for speaking out against sexual harassment or assault in the armed forces was fair.
UW-Milwaukee responded to some of the backlash from Schoeller’s comment with their own Facebook comment.
The university website currently lists three classes Schoeller teaches. She is a senior lecturer at UWM and received all three of her degrees from UWM.
Before teaching at UWM, she became a colonel in the Wisconsin Air National Guard’s 128th Air Refueling Wing based in Milwaukee, WI.
That same unit took down all articles mentioning her name on their website shortly after the comment was posted.
A petition to have Schoeller fired from UWM as a response to her comment has been started here.
A follow-up article with statement from the university and the Air National Guard will be published as soon as the information becomes available.
The university has also posted a response to the comment on Twitter.
As a UWM alumni and as a military mother I am disgusted at what this person posted. MS. Guillen was a human being and no one deserves to have gone through what she experienced.
I understand that everyone has the right to speak and be heard but, what Schoeller said was heartless and disrespectful. Unless she knew Vanessa Gullen on a personal level I think it’s inappropriate to make the assumption that Guillen was trying to be accepted into the good ole boy club. There are people who not only believe the code if ethics but, there are people who rank up due to the merit if their work. Shame on you Schoeller! If I were a current student that required your course to graduate I would seek an alternate class.
This is an amazing comment you’re such an awesome person for your words
She is a disgrace to your institution as well as the military! How dare she think that what she has stated is ok?? She’s a sick and twisted individual! Had this happened to her own daughter I seriously doubt that she would feel the same!! My question to UWM….is that her message to WOMEN….lay back and take it??? DISGUSTING!!
Adam Kelnhofer, I really don’t think the “justifies” in the headline is an apt word choice, and I dislike this sentence within: “Schoeller’s comment suggests the price Guillen paid for speaking out against sexual harassment or assault in the armed forces was fair.” Contemporary journalism sometimes goes too far in ‘characterizing’ what someone said/did, rather than just reporting it. I’ll guess Ms. Schoeller knowingly testified to the sad truth, but never said what happened to Guillen was justified/fair/appropriate reprisal for the abused woman’s coming forward. (Oh, I still wish Schoeller hadn’t written that, but that’s another story. Why not ask her what she knows of such things in the military, and enlighten your readers?
Evidently this androgynous I want to be a man AKA a member of The Good Old boy club, must have some personal experience making the statement that she did which for me means, she has sexually harassed or done worse to female members of her branch of the service. Why else would she make such a hateful heartless diabolical pathetic and collaborative statement unless she was in fact a good old boy AKA gender dysphoria?
Evidently she has no problem with real women being raped and sodomized and murdered because for her she gets off on that. For all we know, this poster girl for this University watches snuff porn at home with her like-minded freaks. It would be terrible if somebody hacked into her computer and discovered all the nasty filthy vile entertainment she gets off on. Definitely a great credit to this University of Neanderthal learning AKA proof Satan exists!
Betsy Schoeller’s own statement on her Facebook page is very clear. She is blaming and shaming women victims as well as women who speak out against harassment and assault. Let me be clear. Betsy is not a naive, young woman. She holds positions of responsibility. She was very aware of what she was saying. The WI National Guard has had its own issues regarding lack of support for female members who have reported sexual harassment/assault. That Schoeller is part of that Guard unit is compelling. I certainly didn’t sign any enlistment contract that said I would be required to endure harassment and or rape in exchange for the opportunity to enlist. I enlisted to serve my country. For several years I served as an Army nurse only to end my career after a rape by a superior followed by harassment and threats. And the subsequent lack of support. Schoeller’s comment is beyond hurtful. It is a betrayal of her sisterhood and our foremothers who forged a path for womens rights.
Ya this lady is a terrible person. All her degrees should be revoked and voided. What a disgrace to the United States Military. I hope this person will step down, do some research and change their attitude toward certain people in this country.
Dude fuck UWM, fucking rip off.
UWM’s own policies.
“The mission of UWM is to provide a teaching, learning and working environment in which faculty, staff, and students can discover, examine critically, preserve, and transmit the knowledge, wisdom, and values that will improve quality of life for all. To promote these institutional values, UWM is committed to creating and maintaining a community environment that is free from sexual violence and sexual harassment.”
“The procedures identified below provide for disciplinary action against anyone found responsible for violating this policy…. For employees, sanctions may range from training requirements to dismissal from employment.”
“This policy prohibits retaliation against an individual who reports, assists an individual in reporting, or participates in proceedings involving an allegation of sexual harassment or sexual violence. Anyone who believes they have been subjected to such retaliation may report the retaliation to the Title IX Coordinator.”
“Hostile Environment. A hostile environment is created when one engages in sexual harassment and that conduct has the purpose or effect of 1) creating an intimidating, hostile, or offensive working, academic, or program-related environment”
Disgusting woman. She was a young lady someone’s daughter. Remove that uncivilized animal Betsy.
As a sexual assult Survivor this is absolutely disgusting and appalling. She is a person of power in this school. If her mentality is paying the price to be in the men’s club is sexual assault is utterly repulsive. As a women who grew up in the military I can honestly say she is a reason sexual assults happen and never come forward. If that is her mentality I am afraid for anybody who goes through sexual assault and comes to her for help and just turned away. She is a person of power and shouldn’t be, and you UWM is condoning it. Cause if it was anybody else who’s not in the military I can bet you would have reprimanded them.
Where is the comment Schoeller responded to? As a journalist, you should know to not print without context.
Latina lives matter all lives matter . University pendeja this is just getting statted
I agree this article is poorly researched. Need to see context of the post.
Because many folks are judging the post on its own, here’s my judgement. I would have said the same thing out of anger. This post seems extremely angry to me, to the point of losing control and using sarcasm, because the event was traumatic. Her comment is obvsiously impulsive and sarcastic and is not attempting to justify anything. Ex. “Good ole boy club.” Ex. calling someone a special snowflake for an outrage of a murder is so over the top, my conclusion is that she is taking on the side of the murderer and showing how ugly that side is, showing how ugly it is that the people who commit rape and murder think it is normal (because it IS normal in the US and all over the world) and actually see the responses of outrage as fragility like a snowflake. It’s a shame that whoever wrote the article didn’t take time to do some rhetorical analysis. We’re distracting ourselves from the people who are actually the problem.
Thanks so much for your valuable journalism in really getting to the bottom of this, Adam. Next time you try to catch a juicy scoop like this facebook comment, please include the context and the original post around which the story is based, because some people’s lives are actually very much affected by narratives that you publish. There’s a legal term for publishing incomplete stories that damage people’s livelihoods and reputations, isn’t there?