Book: Wild Justice

R >> Ruth M. Sprague >> Wild Justice




If this didn't work, a brief investigation identified her
friends and she was appraised of situations that might
affect them should she remain recalcitrant. Most didn't.

This was all done under the aegis of Academic Freedom, mused Henry.
The principle of academic freedom evolved years ago. It sheltered
serious scholars from the whims and avarice of the shifting politicians
and their politics. Now it was made better use of. We administrators
use it as a tool to circumvent trouble. Nearly all institutions, battling
the emergence of women and other minorities into the collegiate arena,
use it to maintain the status quo and rightfully so, Henry decided.
Academic freedom was used to shield the many ways we avoid compliance
with both federal and state laws. If we opened ourself to public scrutiny,
we'd never get anything done.

Universities are, were and should be a law unto themselves.
They can tolerate only those who are willing to make sometimes
painful compromises. Those who could not, and were compelled to
fight for so-called human rights and the original meaning of
Academic Freedom, soon left or were not reappointed.

Randy Fecesi was, despite his foibles, a prime commodity.
He was funded. This made him much sought after since colleges
were looking to capture research dollars. There was good reason
for this, Henry noted. Because it paid better, colleges and
universities had stopped putting the emphasis on teaching
and instead, looked for research potential. This meant that
candidates for a tenure-track position were not looked at
for their teaching experience but for their ability to
bring in research dollars.

Competition was fierce among these institutes of higher
learning and much was done to attract suitable candidates.
Headhunting became a profitable business in academia.

For the last ten years, teaching had taken a back seat at Belmont.
Crowded classrooms attested to the lack of adequate teaching space.
Much of the space formerly assigned as classrooms had been rebuilt
into laboratories. At the medical school, prospective recruits
were lured by promises of plenty of laboratory space, unremitting
stroking and very light teaching duties.

The reality was that once the entrant was hired, adulation ceased.
For Randy, this was a problem. In addition, he hadn't even tried to clean
up his act and Lyle did nothing except encourage him to be pond scum,
thought Henry. Randy expected the medical students to worship him
and instead they found him appalling because of his lack of expertise
in the subject he taught and for his repeated, haughty demonstration of it.

Having his way with women took a beating too. Usually, he ignored
any female who didn't fit his image of perfect enough for him to notice.
However, if he needed something, he would approach these females
in a sexual manner and was usually rebuffed.

Since Lyle had already established Trenchant as the whipping girl
of the department, Randy readily fell in with this designation
and laid all his problems at her door. When she refused to photograph
the pictures in a radiology atlas, he was furious. He ran to Lyle
and claimed that she was obstructing his efforts to modernize the course.
He neglected to tell Lyle that she had said she would be willing to do it
if the publisher gave written permission.

Lyle, of course, encouraged him to proceed with his innovations
and just ignore her. Randy took this to mean that he had carte blanche
and it led to his plagiarizing her laboratory manual as well as
the published texts and atlas of other authors.

Henry brought his attention back to the hearing just as Jane was
asking Randy to explain how he had found the `suspicious' critiques.

He answered, leaning forward toward her in his eagerness and excitement,
"In looking through the student critiques I found these that didn't seem
to be right. That is, the comments were not expressed the way
a medical student would.

"I also saw that the handwriting was different. Not the way
students write but like the handwriting of old people.
So then I went back and looked through other years
for similar handwriting." He explained that he, Randy,
had found all three SmurFFs which he had brought to Lyle
and asked that they be sent to a document examiner
because he thought these were written by Trenchant.

Responding to a very leading question from Anuse, Randy agreed,
"Yes, these evaluations had been very harmful to me in that
they tended to undermine my confidence in my ability to teach
radiology and could affect my reappointment."

Esther broke in, "Five evaluations out of nearly 200?"

"Well most of the 200 were pretty bad." Suddenly realizing
how this sounded, he quickly amended, "You see, it was the kind
of comments that tipped me off that they were not real student
feedbacks. They didn't sound the same. She was making these
kinds of comments to the students--exerting influence on them
to write the derogatory remarks. That's what was undermining
my confidence."

Anuse brought him sharply back out of harm's way by asking
if there had been trouble between him and Trenchant.

This opened a floodgate of accusation and crocodillian remorse.
He had no idea why she would be so resentful of him since
he had gone out of his way to be nice to her. "Once, I even
complimented her on the cute sweater she was wearing.
Instead of acting normally, she complimented me on my cute shirt.
Go figure!"

Pressed to answer what he thought might be her reason to
sabotage him with fictitious student evaluations, he lost it.
Although he had been carefully coached by both the chairman of NERD
and the university attorney, all that training went out the window.
The mask slipped and his answer was pure, vitriolic, undiluted,
vintage Randy.

Perhaps it was because he sensed a kindred spirit in Frank Anuse.
"Well," sneered Randy, "you know broads, they get crazier than ever
at that age and. . ."

Oh, God, thought Henry and nearly shouted, "It's getting late,"
over the rest of what Randy was about to say. "This would be
a good time to adjourn for the day. All right?"

He glanced around quickly, stood up and was halfway to the door
before anyone could disagree. Damned idiot, he thought to himself.
He'd see to it that this boy got a talking to and had his priorities
straight as well as his head before he came back the next day.


Henry kept his bad mood at bay with difficulty during the drive home
by thinking only of his comfortable chair and a huge drink. . .or two
before dinner. He had just entered the door and placed his briefcase
on the hall table when his wife's voice floated down the stairs,
jarring the hell out of him.

"That you, Henry? Hurry up now and get dressed,
we're due at the Bakers in half an hour."

Henry groaned. "Not tonight, shit!" Then almost immediately,
he recollected that the Bakers were giving a party and it was
most important that he be present. No help for it, he'd have to
bite the bullet. Casting a fond look at his Lazy Boy as he passed
the entrance to the living room, he ascended the stairs feeling like
a doomed man mounting a scaffold.

"You look like death warmed over," his wife, Kate, announced caustically,
as she met him at the top of the stairs.

You're no raving beauty yourself, Henry thought. Kate was
an athletic, slender woman of forty-two. She neither thought
herself beautiful or required that others did. Henry often
lamented the fact that with all the money they had, she could
afford to go to one of the many body shops and get some or all
of her sagging flesh lifted, but Kate opted to live naturally and
age gracefully. He was continually after her to at least wear
makeup but she adamantly refused.

When they were married, Henry didn't mind the over a decade
age difference between them. Kate was an exciting woman--
an exciting, rich woman. Her money had been the deciding factor
in asking her to marry him and it was one reason he stayed married
to her. The other was that he basked in the prestige her place
in society lavished on him.

"Go on in and get your shower and hurry up. We're going to
be late as it is."

"Oh, hell, it doesn't matter if we're a bit late for this.
Everyone understands that I'm really busy with this damned hearing,"
Henry grumbled as he made his way to the ornate bathroom.

When he entered his bedroom a few minutes later wrapped in
a towel, Kate called through the connecting door from her room
to ask how the hearing was going. Her innocent question brought
the whole disgusting mess back, along with the foul humor that
went along with it.

Henry set down heavily on his bed. "What a day. You wouldn't believe
the absolute stupidity of that NERD chairman and his little boy bad, Fecesi.
You'd think after all the trouble they took to have this hearing take place
that they would at least be prepared. But no, Lyle couldn't even remember
how many Smurffs were involved--two or three. As if that wasn't bad enough,
he let that damned woman, Trenchant, tie him up in knots on cross examination.

"Then Fecesi testified. He's the guy that actually found these
suspicious SmurFFs and I was told that he'd been well coached.
Mark and Lyle both had gone over and over his testimony with him.
The trouble is, the guy is the pits. A horny, crass bastard
if I ever saw one. He put on a world class demonstration
of constipation of the brain and diarrhea of the mouth.
If I hadn't adjourned the hearing when I did, there's no telling
what else would have come out of that foul throat of his.

"Now, add to all of that, those stupid broads on the panel
got teed-off at the document examiner and apparently aren't
convinced now that Trenchant wrote those evaluations at all.
The only one I can depend on is Frank Anuse." Henry buried
his head in his lap and massaged it with both hands.

Kate looked at him without pity. "Serves you right. You and the rest
of those sanctimonious bastards trying to railroad that woman.
Seven SmurFFs, for God's sake--it's a greater crime to spit on the grass.

"As for Fecesi, he's got his brains in his crotch just like
the rest of you. The only difference is that he doesn't
pretend otherwise--he's a little too direct for you, isn't he?

"Since this whole thing started, I've had more people ask
me what the real reason is for going after Diana Trenchant
because they just can't believe the SmurFF crap.
Everyone on campus knows the SmurFFs are a joke.
Nobody, but nobody takes them seriously."

Henry defended himself vigorously. "Well, it is serious and
the SmurFF thing is not all there is to it. That woman has been
using her influence over the past three or four years to injure
the other faculty in the radiology course," Henry defended
himself vigorously.

"Influence? A lecturer with influence? Who did she influence,
the dean? The Pope?"

"No. The students. That's why these guys in the course
were so hurt by all this. Their yearly evaluation by the
students--nearly all the student feedback for them,
and the course they directed, were really bad.
And, it's her fault. She manipulated the students
to write those bad critiques."

"Pshaw. She manipulated medical students? Since when?
You know, Henry, you can't have it both ways. You claim that
your witnesses are stupid and loathsome, then blame Trenchant
when the medical students agree with you."

"You just don't understand. She had a chance to resign
and didn't take it. Now I'm the one in charge of giving her
a fair hearing and I'm not getting any cooperation from
the very people who want to get rid of her."

"Fair hearing, Henry? At Belmont, that's a contradiction
in terms and you know it. Hurry up and get dressed.
I'll get the car and meet you out front."





THE HEARING - DAY 2



Chapter 14


All of her witnesses were waiting in a high state of
excitement when Diana reached Howard Hall the next morning.

"Roz came in early," she was told. "She wanted to be sure
we got this room again today."

Roz brushed aside the praise, "Hey teach, I've got some
great news. The rest of the class is kicking in to make up
for what we lose in wages by attending the hearing."

Diana was delighted. The fact that many of her witnesses
were losing time at work to help her had caused a nagging
pain of remorse. Already, most of them had lost a day's pay
just sitting around waiting to testify yesterday.
While her witnesses occupied themselves in various ways--
studying, reading or conversing quietly, Diana sat down on the couch,
closed her eyes and sought to compose herself. Even though the panel
had instructed her to be there at nine with all her witnesses,
one never knew when the hearing would reconvene.

Good news indeed. What great people these were, she thought.
When the whole mess happened, this class of some two hundred
nutrition students had rounded up hundreds of signatures for
petitions sent to Lyle, Sam and the Pope. Many of the students
had gone to them in person to plead for justice.

Although most of the students were in the nursing school,
some came from the colleges of agriculture, arts and science
and special education. Collectively, they had filled out
and filed more nominations for me to be named Teacher Of The Year
than had ever been received before for one teacher. They were
devastated when the committee receiving these nominations
threw them in the wastebasket, following the instructions
of Henry Tarbuck.

Then there were some that went as a group to beg help from
the `Minority VP'--Dan Field. Dan talks a good game against
discrimination and even pretends to speak for the black community.
He's a brilliant, fascinating lecturer, a perennial favorite
with the students. They considered him to be the most impartial,
open-minded administrator they had ever known. His feet of clay
surprisingly revealed when he washed his hands of the students pleas
and sided with the administration, telling the students who
petitioned him for help that I am a criminal. At least the blacks
on campus weren't surprised by this. They had long ago discovered
he was not only a smart cookie, he was an oreo.

But, Diana mused on gratefully, Dan was the exception. Many pleaded
on my behalf. Someone once said that all it takes to stop evil
is for one good man to speak up and many good men, and women, did just that.
They spoke up for justice and fair play. They argued with administration
officials, citing example after example of male faculty misconduct
over the years that had gone nearly unnoticed and never punished.

They asserted that a witch hunt would hurt the Belmont image
and reflect badly on all who worked there. They all knew what
a farce the SmurFFs had always been and all this fuss over seven?
Sure, evaluations were used at times by administrators as justification
for not reappointing a faculty member, but even then, there had to be
a preponderance of negative evaluations.

It was of no avail. The administration was adamant. So much for wise
sayings but the fact that some people did try was heartwarming, Diana thought.

Roz broke her revere, gently. "It's time, Diana."


Was it her imagination or was the panel friendlier this morning,
Diana mused as she entered the room and took her seat.
I do believe besides saying good morning, most of them smiled at me.
Maybe things are looking up.

A chastised Randy returned to the witness chair. He looks
ridden hard and put away wet, thought Diana with amusement.

Responding to a question from Annette, he avowed that,
"The year that Trenchant didn't teach, we rewrote the lab manual.
We didn't use any material from the manual written by Trenchant."

When all on the panel had indicated that they had no more
questions to ask him, Henry asked Diana if she wished to question
the witness. To himself, he added, God help us if the little
twerp doesn't do what he's been told. Mark had assured him that
he and Lyle had a good long session with Randy and felt that
he had now seen the light and would behave properly.

"Yes, please. I'm confused, Randy. You have said that you
saw one evaluation that appeared to be more directed toward
one year than both years. You answered that this was one
of the reasons why you thought it was suspicious.

"Now these evaluations have no dates on them. Is it
not possible that both are from the same year?"

"No."

"How do you know that?"

"Because I don't remember which one was from which year,
but these are from two separate years."

"Did you mark them."

"No. I picked one out of each year's evaluations."

"But you don't know the specific year each came from?"

"No."

With further questions, Diana established that from the time
the evaluations had been given to Randy, they had not been
safeguarded in any fashion. Sometimes they were in a file cabinet,
sometimes on a bench or table in his lab.

At least twice, they had left his possession when the secretaries
had called for them to use in tabulating the synopsis for the dean.

It appeared that there was some confusion as to when he took
the `suspicious' documents to Lyle. "I don't know the exact date.
Certainly after the second year I was in the course--January or February."

"Lyle said it was a year later than that. He said it was last year,"
pressed Diana.

Interrupting imperiously, Anuse jumped in to lead him with
careful questions in a direction away from that subject.

When he finished, Diana summed up his testimony. "The `suspect'
evaluations were not dated. You testified that you didn't know
which one came from which year. You have no idea if all or any
of the remaining evaluations are authentic, is this all correct?"

Randy nodded glumly.

When Diana again referred to Lyle's testimony that Randy had
brought the critiques to him last year, Anuse again interrupted.
This time Trenchant held her ground and forcefully turned toward him saying,
"Excuse me. I believe this is my time to examine this witness!"

"Now, Randy, you have stated that none of the material in
my laboratory manual was used by you to create the manual you
used last year when I was not in the course. Do you want to
change that answer?"

"No."

The accused held up two large manila envelopes, thick with
their contents, saying, "I have here a copy of my manual
and the one you prepared. Clearly marked are the parts
in your manual that have been lifted verbatim from mine.

"In addition, I have given the references of whole paragraphs
that you have copied from published radiology text books
and used without citation in your manual.

"I am prepared to offer this to the panel as evidence that
you are not telling the truth."

"This has nothing to do with the Termination For Cause
action that this hearing is all about," interrupted Henry.
"You must keep to the subject." How did I ever get into this fix,
he thought. Aloud, he continued, "Since this material does not
bear directly on the matter at hand, it cannot be allowed
into evidence. Please continue."

"I have no further questions."

Whew, she gave up. Henry wiped his brow. That was close,
I figured she'd keep picking at him until he blew up and spat-
tered all over the room. Hurriedly he said, "You're excused,
Randy. Please tell Ian to come in before you leave."

Randy shared in the relief felt by the chair of the panel.
He ran lightly up the stairs to the witness room. "You're on
next, Ian." He was surprised when Ian fairly catapulted out of
the room, grabbing his arm as he passed and nearly hurled them
both down the stairs. "What in hell is the damned hurry?"

Safely away from the second floor, Ian steered Randy into
an alcove from where he could see the stairs. "That Mark!
Honestly, Randy, he's been driving me crazy. Talks a blue streak
all the time. Ask him the date and he'll discourse for hours on
end before he gets to the point. Holding any kind of a conversation
with him is as impossible as stopping a hurricane by shouting at it.

"I kept trying to get away. Once, I said I had to take a piss
and the son of a bitch came along with me, whizzing away in the next urinal,
without missing a word. I tell you, the man should be muzzled."

"Well, it looks as if he isn't going to follow you into the
hearing room, Ian. Calm down. They're waiting for you in there."

"Yeah, in a minute. Tell me first, Randy, how was it?
Anything I should watch out for?"

"Nada." Randy had regained his usual swagger. "Not a thing, old bean.
Between us, we'll give the bitch the old one two. . ."

"We're waiting for you, Ian." Henry said from the doorway
of the hearing room.

"Oh, right. I'm coming right along. Just had to get things
straight about who takes the review session today since I could
be tied up here, " blubbered Ian, apologetically. As he reached
the door, he turned and looked back up the stairs apprehensively.
Seeing no one, he breathed a sigh of relief and entered the hearing room.

Ian Heathson was of average height. His most striking features
were his mop of blond hair and pale blue eyes which flitted about,
examining the room, looking everywhere except at Diana.

When asked to substantiate the testimony of Lyle that he and Randy
had found `suspicious' SmurFFs, Ian told a slightly different story.

He hadn't found any himself. Randy had found them. "He showed
them to me and I was flabbergasted. I had no reason to suspect
that something like that would happen."

Having said that, he reversed course and said, "I always thought
there was some kind of manipulative action going on with the students,
because we used to get critiques that were totally inconsistent
with what we were doing in the course. So we always felt there
was something going on."

When Henry asked what he did next, he stated that Randy had
brought the `suspect' SmurFFs to Lyle and, "indicated our concern."

Given the packet of SmurFFs that had been sent to the
document examiners and asked to identify them as the ones found,
he said, "I can't remember, I didn't memorize them."

When asked how he got along with Diana, he admitted that,
"they got along fine until the year Randy. . ." Stopping
abruptly. . . "Well, I noticed problems all along."

Esther, who had apparently read the complete set of student
evaluations for the years in question, entered as evidence
by Diana, suggested that his evaluations had become more positive
each year before Randy came into the course.

He professed to not knowing for sure, but thought, "The first year
I taught was not good, the second year, considerably better
and the third, a hair better, not much.

"The fourth year, well. . ."

Easy now, Ian, thought Henry, that was the year that Randy
started teaching.

As if he had heard Henry's silent coaching, Ian testified
as if his life depended upon it--his professional life did.
He told a long heart-wrenching tale of the terrible student
evaluations he received in the radiology course. He had very nearly
not been reappointed a couple of times but Lyle had fought for him.

Over and over again, at every opportunity, he came back to
the years of deleterious critiques passed in by the students.
Obviously, this had to be because Trenchant manipulated the students.

"Some of the things commonly written on the critiques were,
`Why isn't she lecturing?' `Course is totally disorganized'
and this is wrong because I am not a disorganized individual;
the course is very well organized."

"Did you ever have her lecture to see what the students'
reaction would be?" asked Jane.

"We'd talked about it," he replied.

Ian continued, "Along with the many comments to have her lecture,
the students wrote how she was the only one who knew anything about
radiology and that Randy and I should get out of the course
and let her teach it. As I looked through the SmurFFs
these comments just jumped out at me. When I was a student,
I never wrote such things about my professors."

There was, however, a change in the critiques the year the accused
was not teaching the course. "A complete flip-flop, Ian asserted.
"The students liked the course and the people who taught it."

Henry ducked his head and smiled grimly thinking that these
`flip-flop' SmurFFs would damn well not be seen by the panel,
I'll see to that. Ian is really stretching the truth here since
those SmurFFs he's talking about are more flop than flip. True,
the students didn't lambaste Ian and Randy that year as they
had in the past, however, in a way, they were just as bad.
Nearly every critique carried the name of the student and the date.
The few comments they contained were bland almost to the point
of being insulting. Most of them contained no comments, as the
student just checked off the `average' number for each category
under evaluation. Those that contained comments were all typed.
Well, if the panel or Diana asked to see them he would simply say
that they had no bearing on the issue.

Henry returned from his reverie just as Ian was saying
". . .there were even some SmurFFs submitted by the students
for Diana, which I couldn't figure out why since she wasn't
even teaching the course this year."

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