Book: Wild Justice

R >> Ruth M. Sprague >> Wild Justice




"In contrast, at Belmont the evaluation process is a joke--
even the, er, enriched acronym, SmurFFs, this university
has chosen to call the evaluation forms for student feedback
attests to this."

"Were you ever given specific instructions relating to
the evaluations?" asked Diana.

"Yes, Dr. Lyle Stone, at the beginning of the course,
told us that there would be evaluations periodically and that
it was very important for us to fill them out since they would
provide feedback on the course content and the instructors.
He also stressed that they would be confidential.

"I remember being impressed, thinking, Oh great! Then instead
of a proper evaluation procedure, the forms were left in piles
at the end of rows to be filled out during the lecture or
taken home to do. Just get them back before the end of the week,
they told us."

"Did you ever initiate a conversation with Lyle Stone regarding
how you felt about document examiners and student confidentiality?"

"Yes, right after the lecture, the first part of this May,
Roz Peel and a couple of other students and I went up to him
after lecture.

"We told him that we were concerned that our student evaluations,
which we had been told were confidential, and which we had been told
had a specific purpose, had been sent outside the university without
permission or knowledge of the students."

"Would you be referring to these documents?" Trenchant got up
from her chair and walked around the table until she came to where
Jennifer was sitting and handed her exhibits 3 and 4--the SmurFFs
Jimbo Jones was reported to have discovered.

"Yes."

"What happened then?"

"He said that no student evaluations were sent out
and that our confidentiality had not been breached.

"I disagreed with him and said that I had seen copies of
those evaluations and the report of the document examiner.
He started yelling then and became very defensive. He said that
the only evaluations that were sent out had been written by you.
We said that if he knew that, why send them out. Then he got
abusive of you and said like you were crazy to do something like that.
He said that they sent them to a document examiner because they
knew you wrote them. He said he would never do that with
any evaluation that a student made out."

"Can you recall anytime during the first semester that I had
an injured wrist and couldn't put instructions on the board?"

"Yes, it was in December--exam week, the 9th through the 13th.
I did some of it for you."

The panel started to bombard Jennifer with questions. Good,
Henry thought, apparently they aren't interested in her direct
evidence relating to the incapacity of Diana as they are totally
ignoring that testimony. Instead, they are giving all
indications of being hurt by her denunciation of the way
the evaluation process is carried out at Belmont.

A typical faculty reaction, Henry chuckled to himself as he listened.
They aren't asking questions, they're defending our evaluation process
by giving long speeches. Here's Anuse explaining at length that the
university takes student confidentiality very seriously and pays
a great deal of attention to evaluations. He's trying to stroke
the witness into backing off from some of her allegations and it
appears to be working. . .no, not any more, he went too far.

Jennifer was quite sharply reminding Frank that she had
written her concerns to various administrative officials
around campus and the fact that student evaluations had been
misused had been confirmed.

I'd better help, thought Henry. "You must understand that
Lyle Stone had to give the answers he did because by that time
he knew the results of the examiners report and anything he said
was referring to that."

The witness, however, remained adamant. It was her distinct
impression that Stone had already convinced himself that Diana
had written the critiques before they were sent to the examiners.

The witness, however, remained adamant. It was her distinct impression
that before they were sent to the examiners Stone had already convinced
himself that Diana had written the critiques.

Henry was massively uncomfortable with what this suggested.
It wouldn't do to have the panel hear much more of this.
He commenced another long speech, explaining that Lyle couldn't
have said anything like that because it was not Lyle Stone that
sent the `suspect' SmurFFs out--it was Mark, the university attorney.
"So you see, you must have misunderstood," he concluded, patronizingly.

Before the witness could respond, Anuse professed not to understand
why it made any difference how the evaluation was conducted.
He went on and on in this vein in a querulous, whining voice.

Once he had wound down, Esther started to muddy the waters
because she didn't understand what was sent out and when.
"Are you saying all the SmurFFs were sent off campus?" she asked.

"No, the discussion is about these `suspect' evaluations,"
explained Jane, indicating the exhibits.

"Well, that's all right then," Esther explained in a motherly
tone to the witness, "those SmurFFs never left. The examiners
came here yesterday and looked at them." Esther had become more
of a space cadet than ever, thought Jane. And obviously,
Henry and Anuse are disturbed by this.

Stupid broad, thought Henry. He signaled Janet that the
hearing was off the record and gathered the panel into a huddle
to straighten out Esther before she did some real harm.

When the hearing reconvened, all the players went round again
with paternal and maternal advice. Rather than asking for information
from the witness, they took turns telling her that she hadn't heard what
she was testifying about. Obviously, she was mistaken.

"Now, I'm sure you see that no one was trying to attempt to
have any student identified by having a document examiner look
at these," cajoled Anuse.

"That's what you say. But I think what you have done is illegal.
I really think it is illegal and if I find a way to do it,
I am going to stop it. . ."

Anuse tried to interrupt, but Jennifer was on a roll. "We had
an oral contract. Dr. Stone stood up in front of the whole class
and told us what the evaluation forms were to be used for.
And they weren't, they were used for something else and that is not right."

Henry was stung into action. He interjected to assure her that
she must not worry because the administration would never violate
a student's confidentiality or go back on its word to them.

He thought he was pouring on oil, but Jennifer knew bullshit
when she heard it. "I don't believe it," asserted Jennifer stoically.

Diana took this opportunity to reinforce Jennifer's testimony
with another example of the kind of honesty and fair play
that the administration practiced. "You are arguing with my witness,
not questioning her. She has good reason for her belief.
When I came into this hearing, it was with the assurance
from my department chairman and the chairman of this panel,
both senior administrators, that I had been given all
of the material that would be presented as evidence relating
to the handwriting examiners.

"This proved to be unequivocally false. The evidence you
have introduced, Mr. Chairman, contains many documents
that were never given to me to examine before the hearing."

This started another bout between Diane and Anuse,
who apparently able to read Lyle's and the chair's mind,
kept insisting that what Lyle and Henry meant was that Diana
had been given all of the material available at that date.

Henry rushed in to agreed that yes that was what was meant.
"Lyle gave you everything he had at that date."

"Then it was incumbent upon this committee to see that I
had all of the evidence before the hearing."

"But," protested the chair, "we didn't get all the evidence
ourselves until today."

"Then it shouldn't have been presented until I had an
opportunity to examine it! I am finished with this witness."

Henry quickly announced that there would be a break.

When they were back on the record, Henry announced,
"Once the witnesses for Diana complete their testimony,
we will call Lyle back to clear up the misconceptions
this last witness has introduced. Also we will call
Ann Biggot, and Mark. . .," To straighten out the
panel on the document examiners, he thought to himself.
He continued, "while we are at it, we should probably hear from Jimbo."

Apparently, thought Jane, if he hears anything contradictory
to what he's already established as correct, someone has to
come back and explain it away.




Chapter 20


The next witness was Roz Peel.

Throughout the ordeal of the hearing, Roz had been the
sparkplug of the outfit. Her high spirits and unquenchable
optimism lifted the whole group of witnesses.

Here was a young woman who had known severe adversity in
her life which she had battled and continued to battle.
Few knew the particulars because she was a very private person.
She didn't feel that anything was accomplished by bleeding all over
other people about her own troubles. It was much better for her
and others to be positive and upbeat.

When she identified herself and was sworn, she told the
panel that she was a full-time student in the College of
Agriculture and worked part-time at the Belmont print shop.

A petite woman in her late twenties, she sat back in her chair,
larger than life and twinkled merrily at the panel. Her good humor
was so contagious that the panel, as one, smiled back at her.

She readily confirmed the testimony of Jennifer, announcing clearly
that she was present when the conversation with Lyle took place.
"He said many times that no student evaluations had ever been sent
to the document examiners. When we asked him how he knew beforehand
that none of the ones he was sending were student's, he replied that
he knew who had written them before they were sent away to be analyzed."

Diana asked her to think carefully, "Are you sure that he
meant that he knew this before the documents were sent and
not as a result of the report of the document examiners?"

Roz's reply was good natured but firm. "Yes, I am certain.
We asked him the question several times because we found
his answer a little odd, I mean, why would he bother to have
them analyzed if he knew who wrote them?

"He said clearly, more than once, that no student evaluations
had been sent because he knew beforehand who had written the ones sent."

"Did he have any opinion on why I would do such a thing?" prompted Diana.

"He said you had a psychological problem. He inferred that you were sick
but he was not a psychologist so he couldn't define it."

"How did he conduct himself during your conversation?"

"He was very angry and seemed threatened by us.
I backed away many times when he raised his voice and shouted.
I thought it was a little strange that two undergraduate women
would be a threat to him--maybe he needs psychological help!"
Roz turned to the panel with a big smile to share the joke with them.

Diana placed her hand firmly against her mouth and looked down
at her notes until the bubble of mirth that threatened to overcome her
had dissipated, then continued with her questioning.
"On a different subject now--do you have any contact with medical students?"

"Yes. Working right in the medical building as I have
for the last three years, I get to know a lot of them."

"Last year, during the first semester--that would be from September
through December--do you recall any impressions you might have gotten
as to their feelings about the radiology course?"

"Yes. They felt that the professors knew very little about
what they were teaching so it was a waste of time to go to lectures."

"Now," interposed Henry, "we are getting into secondhand information
and we should be hearing from the medical students themselves."

"Fine," rejoined Diana. "If you can get them over here, do that.
I would be happy to have them testify.

"In the meantime, you wrote in your letter to me that I could present
whatever I felt was germane and since the medical students are not allowed
to come, this is the best I can do."

"It will be noted that it is secondhand information,"
said Henry haughtily. He pretended to appear unconcerned
with the testimony and adopt Anuse's strategy of ignoring
anything Diana might say that was bothersome.

"I agree. The testimony should be labeled clearly as secondhand."
Diana pounced on Henry's depiction of Roz's testimony.
"Now let us go back over the testimony your witnesses
gave which alleged that students had been manipulated for years by me.
Let us get all of the student evaluations for all of the years,
that your witnesses testified to, but never produced.
Let us get all of the prior information out into the open
and let's honestly label it for what it is--secondhand information."

Henry rolled his eyes back in resignation, "Get on with it."

"Thank you. Roz, during the three years that you knew
freshmen medical students that were taking the radiology course,
did you ever hear any of them say that I had tried to influence
them in any way or told them how to write their evaluations?"

"Certainly not!" Roz was very firm on this. "If they could
be such pushovers as to be influenced by a non-tenured faculty
member, the university should reevaluate its admission policy."

"Thank you, I have no more questions."

Henry knew he had to make a desperate attempt to trip up
the witness in semantics. Always before, this had been the
purview of Frank Anuse but this time Frank sat silent,
and for good reason. He had known Roz for some time
and was not about to go for two out of three falls with her.

"You must be aware that there was no way in which your
evaluations could be tied to a specific student because
there was no student handwriting sent," challenged Henry.

"How was it known that no student handwriting was sent?"
questioned Roz, serenely.

"I just want to assure you that no student handwriting was sent."
A flush began to appear on his brow.

"Are you trying to say that no student standards were sent?
If so, I understand that. But SmurFFs with student writing
on them were."

"Yes, SmurFFs were sent, but there was no way in which one
could identify them." Henry was unaware that he had caught
himself in his own semantics and made an interesting admission.

Roz wasn't going to let up or get sidetracked by it from
the main argument. "That is not relevant to what we are
discussing. It was wrong to send those evaluations,
whether so-called standards of ours accompanied them or not.
Because technically, that was our writing."

Henry slumped in his chair in desperate need of an antacid,
as the others on the panel asked questions relating to the
nursing nutrition course. Suddenly Frank Anuse leaned forward
and interrupted the questions. "Do you remember a time when
Diana had a sprained wrist?"

"Yes. She sprained it late in November and some of us helped
put notes on the board for the final labs in December."

Blocked on that issue, Anuse tried to maneuver her into agreeing
that it should be wrong for anyone who was not a student to fill
out evaluations. "It could be very harmful for a faculty person,
couldn't it?"

"Two evaluations out of two hundred?" twinkled Roz. "I think they
would have survived. But to more fully reply to your question,
it has not been proven that the evaluations in question were not
filled out by students."

"Oh that's because you haven't heard some other testimony."
Anuse said happily and firmly back in control.

"I agree that I have not heard all of the testimony.
However, if that testimony was important, and it must be
since you appear to believe it, why wasn't the hearing open
as Diana requested? If it had been, I would have been here
to hear the testimony you put such stock in and would be able
to evaluate it for myself."




Chapter 21


Professor Diana Trenchant was sitting at her desk preparing for
the evening laboratory. Roz had just left with Jennifer to talk
to as many students as they could find. It had been Jennifer's
idea and she had brought Roz along to help talk Diana into it.
Ever since Jennifer had asked her what was wrong and Diana had
explained and shown her the copies of the SmurFF's she had been
accused of writing, Jennifer had been pondering what to do.

She was older than most of the students and had seen enough
of life to know that one had to fight or be trampled.
She didn't want to see a good teacher trampled.

"You mean they have accused you of writing these and demand
that you resign?" She was dumbfounded. After she had looked
at them more carefully, she asked, "Is this all of them?
Five medical radiology and two nursing nutrition?"

"That's it."

"This sucks! And this paper is the graphologist report?"
Jennifer used the scientific designation, graphologist,
rather than the term document examiner. "Look here,
these are what they call standards, did you write these?"

"I could have, I suppose, but the dates on them are so long
ago that I just don't remember for sure."

"Well, two of these evaluations are printed. There is no printing
among the standards. Look, I know a little about graphology
and I know that they can't compare printing to writing standards.
This looks like a setup. We need to put a crimp in Lyle Stone's tail.
It's unconscionable that he would send student evaluations to a graphologist."

Later, when Roz had come in, she had asked Diana if they could tell
the other students in the class about the two nursing nutrition SmurFFs.
"We'll ask them to come up and see if they can identify if they wrote these.
Then we'll check with the med students and have them do the same.
Somebody must have written these and we need to find out who."

Diana agreed but only if no pressure was put on anyone.
"This must be absolutely voluntary. I will copy some completed
forms from last year's class and put them with these two
to be identified. No one will know which two are critical."

Later in the day, several groups of students had wandered in
to look at the pile of evaluations, shake their heads and wander out again.

That is until Jenny Smythe bubbled her way in. Jenny was
from England. Her husband was a doctor associated with the
medical school and she was continuing her education while he was
posted here. She pounced delightedly on one of the forms,
"This looks just like Sarah's writing. Sarah and I sit together
at all the lectures and I've seen her handwriting so many times.
I'll go get her!" And Jenny was off with that efficient British
walking gait that one associates with woolen socks and moors.

The next day, Sarah appeared at Diana's door, tentative
and a bit apprehensive. Sarah was a shy young woman barely
out of high school. Raised on a farm, she had not yet assumed
the mask that so many of her more sophisticated classmates wore.

"Jenny said I should look at some evaluations because you
have some trouble because of them."

"Yes, thanks for coming by. They are on the bench there."
Diana pointed.

Sarah put down her books and started to look through the SmurFFs.
"Jenny's right. This one is mine." Sarah said, mournfully.
"I was so hoping it wouldn't be."

She handed Diana one of the forms. It was one of the two
that had been sent for analysis. With this proof that the
graphologists had erred, Diana's hopes were raised and then
quickly lowered when Sarah declared that she was afraid to
testify at the hearing which was to be held soon. She was
apologetic about it. Her folks had told her not to get involved;
that it might mean trouble for her if she admitted to what
she had written.

Roz and Jennifer, by this time, were well into their campaign
protesting the sending off-campus of the student confidential evaluations.
They were unhappy that Sarah wouldn't testify, but they respected her feelings.

Later on in the week, Sarah appeared at Diana's office door again.
"You know," she said softly, "I think my parents are wrong on this.
I wrote something that got you into trouble and I should stand up
and admit it. Only, I'm so scared. But I know I have to do it.

"I'll go to the hearing but that's all I'm going to do.
I don't want to get mixed up any further in this and I don't
want anything at all to do with those. . .those. . .graph
whatever people. You know, whoever it was that said this
was your writing is nuts. . .I wrote this."


Sarah shuffled carefully into the hearing room, shaking with
an advanced case of stage fright that threatened to upset her
very balance.

As she had told Sarah she would, Diana got up from her chair,
walked around the table and stood beside her after she had been
identified and sworn. "Did you take the Nursing Nutrition course
last school year, Sarah?"

"Yes."

"And did you make out a course evaluation for Dr. Jamison Jones?"

"Yes."

"Is this that evaluation?"

"Yes."

Diana turned to the panel. "This witness has just identified
this evaluation from your evidence packet C, exhibit four."

Before Diana could continue, the panel erupted in a
veritable frenzy of questions, all talking at once.

"What is that number?"

"What was she handed?"

"What is written on it?"

When there was a pause in the clamor, Sarah, holding exhibit
four said again quietly, "Yes, this is mine."

"This is not one that went to the document examiners, right?"
Henry was frantic.

"The witness has just identified document number two of exhibit four,"
repeated Diana.

As the panel again started to question Sarah, Henry struggled
for control. Face blanched, hands compressed into fists so tightly
that the nails bit into his palms, he listened powerlessly as Esther
got the first question out. "Sarah, how can you be sure that this is yours?"

"Because I recognize the handwriting; I know what I wrote, that is why."

"I'd like to conduct the examination of my own witness,
if I may," snapped Diana as the panel broke out in a flurry
of questions after Esther's initial one. This angry outburst
shocked the panel into silence, temporarily.

In a more relaxed voice, Diana nodded toward them and said,
"Thank you. Now, Sarah, have you been pressured in any way
to make this identification or have you been promised anything
for doing it--by me or any other person? Remember, you are
under oath to tell the complete truth."

"No."

"Thank you. I have finished the direct examination of this witness."

"May I see packet C to make sure I understand," said a very flustered
Henry Tarbuck.

Esther started in on Sarah. Even though Sarah had given
her class and student status at the beginning of her testimony,
Esther asked for it all again. Perhaps she thought Diana was
ringing in an impostor. Others on the panel took over as Esther
paused for breath.

Sarah carefully answered each question, becoming confused only
when two or three questions were thrown at her at the same time.
She established who she was and how she had found out about the
"whole business."

"Tell me again when you took the course?"

"Is there a date on the form?"

Raising his voice in the way that men will in the presence
of women as an effective way of silencing them and holding
the floor by intimidation, Anuse drawled conversationally,
"What you claim is interesting. This document was identified
by the document examiner as being written by Dr. Trenchant."
He fixed Sarah with a patronizing grimace. His attitude plainly
said I don't believe you, little girl.

Sarah replied, "I know that."

"Well, we should see a sample of your handwriting."

"You have a sample. It is right there on that paper I identified."

"No, absolutely not. It cannot be. You have made a mistake.
That SmurFF has been identified by experts as being in Diana's handwriting."

"We'll take some of your writing to the document examiner.
That will settle it." Esther beamed at having such a great idea.

"No. You already have a sample of my writing. I won't have anything
more to do with those people. Look how they made this mistake.
I don't like how those people are." Sarah did not have much faith
in document examiners--she of all people had reason not to.

"Well, we can do nothing here with this. It is just hearsay or. . ."
Frank's voice trailed off as he looked to Henry for a ruling.

Frank Anuse is trying to sweep the evidence under the rug,
thought Jane. He came into this hearing with his mind made up.
Any attempt Henry and Anuse have made toward impartiality is a sham.

Diana addressed the panel, speaking forcefully. "Sarah has
identified the evaluation under oath. You have that document as
a sample of her handwriting. I think that is sufficient and you
are upsetting her with your badgering."

"Well, the analysts are convinced that you wrote it."
Anuse had turned ugly again.

"Handwriting evidence is not always conclusive," retorted Diana.

Anuse turned his hostility toward Sarah. "How do you recognize
that as yours?" Ignoring the fact that this had been asked and answered.

Patiently, Sarah said, "Because it is. It looks like mine
and that is what I wrote."

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