Book: Wild Justice

R >> Ruth M. Sprague >> Wild Justice




"How did you become aware of the issue that this panel is investigating?"
Henry continued.

Lyle testified that two years previously, Dr. Randy Fecesi
had come to him with two medical student feedback forms which he
had found. "Students are required to fill out and bring to the
NERD office a questionnaire type form that critiqued each of the
faculty in each course and the course itself," he explained. . .


Student Feedback Forms were initiated at Belmont in the
middle sixties. They were designed to allow the students to
evaluate faculty and courses in response to student demand
that they have a voice in their education. Although the professors
of each course at Belmont routinely handed the forms out and
collected them, they were never taken seriously by any department
or dean unless they were uniformly derogatory to a course
or professor and sometimes, even then, they were ignored.

Mostly, they were treated as a joke by the departments and
a lost cause by the students who never saw any changes made as
a result of their suggestions. The joke was propagated further
when some wag arbitrarily added MUR between the S and FF,
creating the adjusted acronym, SmurFF, from Student Feedback
Form. From that time on, the forms were printed on blue paper.


". . .Randy said that he had found a SmurFF for the radiology
course this year and one from last year that didn't look right
to him. He and Dr. Heathson, who teach the course, wanted me
to send them for handwriting analysis because he thought they
had been written by Trenchant."

Lyle went on to explain at some length that Dr. Randy Fecesi
and Dr. Ian Heathson were young faculty who were trying very hard
to make the radiology course more modern and sophisticated.
These efforts, he asserted, were thwarted by Trenchant and there
was controversy and conflict because of her. . .


When Lyle Stone succeeded Jimbo Jones as head of NERD, he brought
his post doc, Ian Heathson with him. No one on the NERD faculty
was consulted and all of them were very upset that they were given
no voice in a faculty selection. They soon learned that Ian was
a special friend of their chairperson and quickly discovered
that it was not wise to criticize him in any way.

Ian was a real nice, friendly fellow, fairly adept at his
research specialty, nutrition (which was also Lyle's) but
lacking knowledge and understanding of radiology.

Lyle put him in charge of the radiology course given to the
freshmen medical students. This act was similar to throwing a
child into the water and expecting it to learn to swim.

Diana had taught the lab portion of this course for several years.
Ian didn't learn very quickly. He tried, you have to give him that,
but he was way out of his depth. The students, as kindly as possible,
turned thumbs down on him. Not only that, but on their SMurFF's,
they were highly critical of the lecture portion of the course,
which Ian conducted, while praising Trenchant and the laboratory,
especially the laboratory manual which she had written.

The manual had been written out of desperation by Trenchant
on her home computer. Over the years, the radiology lab manual
had degenerated into such a mess that it was difficult to use
and impossible to understand--especially when most of the pages
were unreadable. This was before the department obtained
a copying machine and still used the old fashioned stencils.

So Diana wrote and illustrated an entirely new manual and
she registered the copyright on it. She offered this finished
manual to Ian at no charge for use in the course and he grabbed
it like the drowning man he was. The students had made their
disgust well known to him and he realized that he did not have
the knowledge or experience to produce an adequate laboratory
manual in Radiology.

Things got better in the course. Ian was improving in his
knowledge and lecturing. There was excellent cooperation between
him and Trenchant. That is, until Randy Fecesi was brought in.

Randy came with perhaps even less ability in radiology than Ian,
but where the students were sympathetic toward Ian, they were
pissed off by Randy. The SmurFFs they wrote concerning him were not kind.
Many reprimanded him for things he had said in lectures which were contrary
to what the students read in textbooks. Hurt, angry and unable to get at
the students, he turned on Trenchant. At first, Ian tried to stay neutral
but eventually, Randy convinced him that the course must be reorganized
and they had to start by redoing the laboratory manual.

His solution was to change the only part of the course that really worked!




Chapter 7


"Now what did you do with these SmurFFs that Dr Fecesi brought you?"
questioned Henry.

"At first, I just thought about them. Then I took them to
Jimbo Jones who was chair of the department before me.

"I thought he might have some idea of what should be done
and he, of course, knew Trenchant since she had been
in the department during his tenure as chair."

Lyle continued, shifting in his chair so he appeared taller.
"Jimbo immediately took them to Mark Rogers who is the
university attorney and Mark sent them out for analysis.

"I looked through other SmurFFs and picked out a couple
that seemed strange, that didn't seem to me to be what students
would write, and Jimbo found a couple in the nursing course
and all those were sent out to the examiner.

"The document examiners reported that, to the best of their knowledge,
Trenchant had written the SmurFFs we had sent them so I went to you,
Henry, to the administration, and it was decided that I meet with her
and give her an opportunity to resign. When she refused, I wrote
the dean and he initiated the termination for cause action."

Henry appeared pleased, consulted his notes and asked if Lyle
could explain Trenchant's conduct.

Certainly, Lyle would be happy to. His eagerness to answer this
question lent strength to a skeletal system already overtaxed
with maintaining a taller posture.

"It had to do with the problems in the radiology course.
Ian and Randy were trying to make the course better. She fought
them on everything and finally she quit the course--said it was
too much along with her other teaching responsibilities.
It was about a year ago that. . ."


Randy called another meeting to discuss the Radiology course changes.
Ian attended reluctantly. He was not convinced but Randy swept him along
and Randy had Lyle's approval. All Ian had was a poor track record
teaching the course.

Randy delineated the changes he was going to make in the manual.
The first one was that Trenchant's name would not appear on it.
Instead, it would be the product of the course directors, Ian and Randy.

He was quietly and firmly told by Trenchant that he did not have
her permission to make any changes. The manual was copyrighted
by her and would stay that way. He had the option to either
use it or not, but he could not change it as he was indicating.
As for legitimate suggestions or ideas, she would certainly,
as always, welcome constructive criticism and make the necessary
changes herself.

This was not an arbitrary determination by Trenchant. Her manual was
written expressly to teach a circumscribed area of the course.
It did not pretend to be otherwise. Even though more emphasis
was to be given to recent developments in the field, the radiology
course must still devote a great deal of time to the basics.
This was because the students had to be prepared for the courses to follow.

Randy announced that he would use what he wanted, as he wanted
and the meeting broke up.

The accused was busy in her office when Lyle burst through the door
in his customary manner of no manners.

"What do you mean telling Randy and Ian that they could
not use the manual and make the changes they want in it?"
He yelled at her, continuing with threats of what would
or might happen if she didn't do as she was directed.

When Trenchant was finally given a chance to answer, she told him
simply that the manual was copyrighted and that she had told
Ian and Randy that they were free to use it or not as they chose.
They were not to edit it or change the authorship, however.

When his browbeating failed to move her, he left.
Within the hour, Jimbo accosted her in much the same manner.

Becoming a Vee had not changed Jimbo. He was still unable
or unwilling to govern his temper.

"You cannot claim copyright to the radiology manual because it
is illegal and the university will sue you and put you in jail."

After he had stopped yelling, Trenchant told him the same
thing she had told the others.

He left and went into Lyle's office where they were joined
by Ian and Randy.

It was decided that they would retype the radiology manual
using as much of it as they wanted. "To hell with that
trouble-making broad," was the decision of the assistant vice
president for academic affairs of Belmont University.
This was done. Without permission, they used large portions
of the manual in the fall radiology course, giving no credit
to its author.

Diana was not the only author so honored. In the manual,
and in other material that these men put together to teach
the radiology course, complete excerpts were taken verbatim
from four standard radiology texts. No source was cited.
No author was credited. Also, an entire atlas on radiology
was photographed. Several copies of these photographs
were made and put out in the lab with absolutely no credit
given to its authors or publisher.

At least one medical student was incensed by this.
He or she wrote to the publisher anonymously.

The accused learned through the student grapevine
that the department got into serious trouble
because of this and that Dean Broadhurst was furious.

Lyle blamed Trenchant for blowing the whistle, conveniently
forgetting that it was a student who had written the letters.




Chapter 8


Lyle droned on and on with a litany of sins attributed to
Diana Trenchant, carefully circling the truth. "Whatever problem
the department had, she was usually responsible," he asserted.
The folds of paper falling from the court stenographer's machine
stacked higher and higher. Janet was beginning to look very tired.

The `suspect SmurFFs' were introduced and Lyle identified them.
"Yes," he intoned, "When I spoke to Trenchant and told her she had
the option to resign and nothing further would be said or done to her,
I gave her all of the handwriting evidence, all of these SmurFFs,
at that time."

Now, Henry allowed questions from the rest of the committee
who started to slowly wake up after enduring Lyle's long and
repetitious testimony. Nearly 20 minutes was spent answering
their inane questions regarding how many courses were involved
and who found the `suspect' critiques. Most of their questions
had been answered previously in the material given them--
the dean's letter and Lyle's memo.

Esther, however, alertly noticed that some of the SmurFFs
in question had no dates and inquired how these could be said
to come from a certain year.

The answer given was a model of obfuscation. Lyle replied,
"The critiques from those two years came in a packet to me from
Randy and Ian. Those were the years that Trenchant was indeed
involved in teaching this course."

Satisfied with the answer apparently, Esther questioned
why one of the suspect SmurFFs had a note stapled to it.

Diana sat up in her chair. This was a question she wanted answered.

Lyle replied that it was a note from Trenchant and that he had stapled it
to the evaluation prior to sending it off to the handwriting analyst.

None of them questioned why a note in Trenchant's handwriting was made
a part of the document that the analysts were to analyze for authorship.

Annette wondered if she understood correctly. Did Lyle
say that he kept all of the critiques in his office?

When Lyle answered yes, she asked how it would be
possible for Diana to submit falsified ones.

The silence in the room was deafening. Janet, lifting her
hands from the keys, massaged her fingers, the suggestion
of a smile floated mischievously over her face.

Panel member Anuse finally came to the rescue with a cuing
question and a long discussion ensued as to how SmurFFs were
handled in the department and what happened to them.

Many of the answers give by Lyle were false. Diana made a note of these.

The chair now looked expectantly at Professor Jane Astori.
So far things had gone very well. Everyone had been on cue
and except for those two surprise questions. . .well, they were
fielded quite adeptly. His chest expanded with pride in his ability
to bring this thing to a smooth conclusion. Now it was time for
Jane to ask the questions that would delineate the magnitude
of this crime. That would certainly figure in the Attorney
General's evaluation of the hearing.

"Since all of the comments on the suspect SmurFFs refer to Randy,"
Jane began, "I'd like the details of how this could impact on Ian."

Well, Jane had come through all right. A little too direct
for comfort but then, she hadn't the gift of subtlety that he,
Henry, had acquired. At any rate, Lyle was well prepared and
the gates opened and the Ian story poured forth. How hard he
had worked at the course. What it had cost him in research
time and time away from loved ones.

In answer to further questions from Jane, he covered everything.
All the trips to the dean's office in Ian's behalf. He emphasized
that the disparaging student critiques suddenly got better when Trenchant
was no longer in the course.

Over and over, he stressed that it was all the faultfinding
SmurFFs that were coming in that were the problem. What was
the reason for it?

He, Lyle, felt that Ian was doing a fine job. Well, the situation
had caused them many a sleepless night. And on and on. . .

Several times Jane tried with her questions to bring Lyle back
to saying how the SmurFFs in question, the ones he thought Diana
had written, hurt Ian. Henry had impressed on her that it was
important that Lyle be given the opportunity to link the harm
caused by Trenchant to Ian as well as Randy.

Whatever the reason, Lyle was acting awfully dense, she thought,
or else he thinks it's vital to get all this other stuff in first.
I've certainly given him the question often enough, let someone else try.
She put down her notes, leaned back in her chair and nodded to Henry
that she was finished.

Frank Anuse took over the questioning. He wanted to know the reason
that Ian's SmurFFs got better when Trenchant was not in the course.

"Well, you see, these suspect SmurFFs in those packets there,
these few are just the tip of the iceberg. Diana Trenchant,
during the years she was in the course, influenced the students
to write bad evaluations about Randy and Ian."

There it was. Stark and real. Diana was not just accused
of creating SmurFFs--she was accused of witchcraft.

Jane jerked upright in her chair and stared at Lyle aghast.
Was he really accusing Diana of that level of control over
medical students? Preposterous--one woman, all by herself,
had influenced hundreds of medical students over a period of years
to do as she dictated. There's more to this than I've been told. . .
this isn't about forging seven SmurFFs. What on earth is going on here,
she pondered. . .

Finally, Henry noticed Janet who had been trying to get his
attention for some time. "We'll take a ten minute recess
and when we come back, Trenchant may cross examine Dr. Stone.
You may leave the room. I'll summon you when we are ready,"
he ordered, taking in Janet and Diana with the same disdainful glance.

The committee huddled and Lyle Stone joined them. So much for impartiality.

Janet and Diana left, both breathing an audible sigh of relief
as the door shut behind them. Stopping at the soft drink dispenser,
the court reporter glanced around carefully then said sotto voce,
"What a farce. Unbelievable."




Chapter 9


The ten-minute break had stretched to twenty before Henry
and the panel finished going over their notes to make sure they
had brought out everything that Mark, the university attorney,
had advised.

Diana and Janet were called back and Diana began the
cross examination of her department chair, Lyle Stone.

She asked him first to confirm a sentence written in his
memo to the dean and which he had testified to before the break.

"Yes," Lyle answered, "I did write in the memo to the dean
and also testified that I gave you all of the documents used
in the handwriting analysis."

Diana held up several sheets of paper from the evidence packet
on the table. "I have found documents dated nearly twenty years ago
in this material the committee has introduced as that sent to the document
examiners. These were not in the material that you gave me.
So your assertion that I was given all of the documents is incorrect."

Henry searched quickly through his copy of the evidence
that had been sent to the document examiners as standards.
Good God, he thought. What is this creature doing?
Come on Lyle, don't let her get the best of you.

Ah, much better, Henry observed happily to himself as Lyle
started tap dancing around her question. Instead of yes or no,
he would repeat at length some of his previous testimony with
added embellishments and avoid answering.

By persistent questioning, Diana established that he had stapled
her brief note to one of the `suspect' SmurFFs before it was sent
out for analysis. But it was like pulling teeth. He kept reiterating
that it was stapled to a `suspect' evaluation, so it would not get lost.

Patiently, she repeated her question, finally wearing him down.
"Were the document examiners given this evaluation with the note
stapled on it as one of the `fictitious' critiques?"

"Yes, they identified that critique as having been written by you."

"No distinction between the note and the critique was given them--
according to their report, is that correct?"

"I guess so, yes."

Using a sketch of the NERD office, Trenchant ran Lyle back
through his previous testimony of how the blank critiques,
the SmurFFs, were given out, how they were collected
and what happened to them afterwards.

From her intimate knowledge of the operation, she was able to
reveal most of the lies he had told of this process when the
committee was questioning him.

Jane was listening carefully. Slowly, there evolved the information
that this whole evaluation process was sloppy and unreliable.
That it had indeed, been this way for years. Given that,
she thought, how could he claim that such a high reliance
was put on SmurFFs when assessing faculty for reappointment?

Lyle admitted that students had scant desire to complete SmurFFs.
They considered it a useless effort since little or no attention
had been paid in the past to their comments.

"To force compliance," he explained, "students were told
that unless their name had been checked off on a list in
the secretaries' office, they could not receive their grade
for the course from the dean's office. Most students bring
in completed evaluation forms, place them in the box provided
and check off their names. Some merely come in and check off
their names, eschewing the forms," he finally admitted
with obvious reluctance.


This certainly puts a different light on things, Jane noted
as she jotted down the information being squeezed out of Lyle
by Diana. She carefully registered in neat script:

1. That the blank SmurFFs were left out in the open for days,
sometimes weeks so any body could have had access to them

2. That the completed SmurFFs left in the box, supposedly by
radiology students, were separated and given to each instructor;
the course critiques went to Ian and Randy

3. No tabulation of the number of critiques was carried out

4. Anyone could come in (etc.)

5. Since the critique form (etc.)

6. Most of the submitted critiques were not dated


The accused was left out of course planning meetings when
Ian and Randy met with Lyle, contrary to what he had just
told the committee.

None of the documents he had sent to the analysts contained
anything detrimental to Ian Heathson, as claimed in his memo
to the dean. She re-read what he'd written in the memo,
"These fictitious student critiques were very detrimental
and personally injurious to two junior faculty members."

Under Trenchant's quietly relentless cross examination, Lyle
became flustered. First he claimed that perhaps his language had
not been perfect in that phrase but what he meant was that,
"manipulation of critiques in general would be detrimental
to any faculty member."

Trying to bring him to the point, Trenchant read from
a signed, dated student critique that had not been deemed
`suspicious' by Lyle. It had been submitted during the same
period as the `questioned' critiques.

"Quote: `I think Randy needs to be more than one page ahead
of the class in understanding the material. How can you teach
what you do not know? I was also offended by the so-called
anthropological function' (he gave) `of the female breasts.
I am familiar with some of the literature which support the
statement in the handouts,' (in a lecture, Randy had emphasized
that the primary function of the female breast was to attract a
mate) `but was not aware that THE NAKED APE, PENTHOUSE MAGAZINE,
PLAYBOY MAGAZINE and so forth were regarded as competent medical
school publications. The underlying tragedy of this incident
is that it demonstrates the ease with which non-scientific
hypothesis are disseminated without any thought. This, I think,
is a poor reflection on the department and the faculty.' Unquote."

Diana continued, "This is what I would call personally
injurious but I do not see this student critique among
the `suspicious' ones--the ones sent out for analysis."

Henry started to sweat along with Lyle who was becoming
increasingly uncomfortable, his tone hostile. He dodged
and refused to answer directly a question asking if he always
sent suspicious critiques for handwriting analysis, claiming
that in this case, one of his junior faculty had asked him to.

Jane picked up on an item of special importance, and extremely
relevant, underlining it several times on her note pad.
Because of the negligent handling of the critique process,
there was no authentic chain of custody maintained! In addition,
neither the SmurFFs alluded to as `suspicious' nor the so-called
handwriting standards were ever authenticated.

According to the testimony she had just heard, each of the
so-called `suspicious' critiques had been discovered when the
finder was alone. Furthermore, Lyle could give no proof that
any of the `suspicious' SmurFFs he claimed were found,
had ever been placed in the return box provided for the students.
In fact, except for the few critiques that were signed,
there was no evidence that any of the nearly two hundred
uncontested critiques relating to the radiology course were
even submitted by the radiology students!

Jane was simply astounded. In all of Lyle's testimony, he had
offered no witnesses or evidence that could confirm his testimony
that students had been manipulated by the accused. Witchcraft
was insinuated, but never proven.

Henry was rapidly becoming unglued. Noting Lyle's declining control
and fearing an incipient outburst, Henry interrupted and declared
that they would now take a lunch break. How could that idiot sit there
and let himself give away that kind of detail on how SmurFFs were handled
in his department? Henry knew that this was having a deleterious effect
on the panel and he knew that he'd better set things straight while
there was still a chance to cover up.




Chapter 10


Lunch was catered in the upstairs witness room as the prosecution,
Henry and the panel, huddled to socialize and discuss the morning events.

Henry and Frank Anuse excused themselves after the meal and adjourned
to the men's room to plan strategy. "We can't say too much to the women
now with the other witnesses around but when we get back, you take Esther
out somewhere and I'll handle Jane. Annette's no threat, we'll forget her.
Anyhow, explain how all that bullshit about the chain of custody doesn't have
any bearing at all. Everything rests on the document examiner's evidence.
Nothing else counts. Got it?"

"No problem, Henry. I'll set her straight," Anuse said reassuringly.
"Christ, Diana really stuck it to Lyle, didn't she?"

The defense huddled too. They went as a group to the nearby cafeteria.
Everyone took the trouble to keep the conversation light and encouraging.
They were convulsed at the reaction of the court stenographer which Diana
related to them.

"She's probably attended a great many hearings," offered Helen.
"What happens in the cloistered halls of Belmont U. would be a bit
foreign to her."

Even though it was practically certain by now that
they would not be needed to testify until the next day,
they all elected to stay. "Hey," Roz insisted, "we want
to be here for you and each other. It's bad enough
that you have to face them alone in that hearing room."

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