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December 11, 2002
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Dwyer is as Dwyer does
A reader has this to say about L'Affaire Dwyer:
This story is as old as the hills. The man was carrying on is a scandalous manner, but he had enough ability that everybody preferred to ignore it. But his conduct was bad enough that if it ever made the news he would have to go immediately. It seems to have shocked nobody that he fell for the reason that he fell. He must bear all the blame for his fate.Still, there is the question of who pulled the trigger and why. This can happen for good reasons and bad. If, for example, his conduct came to the attention of the police, they would be doing their job by bringing it out. If an activist brings it out for personal gain, i.e. destroys a man for personal gain, then the activist is guilty of a separate offense. In these kinds of cases there is often plenty of blame to go around.
There also seems to be a question of the professors and staff covering up the dean's misdeeds--this seems to indicate more housecleaning is necessary. And which idiot promoted a time-bomb to dean?
If the dean had shown two qualities necessary in a dean then he would still have his job: judgment and self-control. The right thing happened, but for the wrong reason. A typical mess.
It's true that Dwyer was casually known as the "Bill Clinton of Boalt." His own ex-wife describes him as "flirtatious" and charismatic, but she also notes that flirting is not itself criminal behavior, and that the flirting went both ways: "Perhaps he is flirtatious, but he is not a criminal," she said. "I would host parties for his students all the time. He had these young, beautiful law students falling all over him. He was warm, charming and witty. But that is different from sexual assault." Others have made this same point: "a lot of women are attracted to him, and he loves it," says a source in the L.A. Times. "People idolize him, and he feeds off that." What we are getting here is a description of a particular kind of personality--not a description of misbehavior per se. It's important not to leap from the information that Dwyer was something of a local sex symbol to the conclusion that he regularly took advantage of the situation. The sex symbol thing is a fact of academic sociology: every department and every school has faculty the students routinely and collectively fall for. That's not in itself an indictment--it's a description of the peculiarly Oedipal character of professional academic training.
As for the observation that destroying a man for personal or political gain is its own offense, I wholeheartedly agree. If Dwyer was popular with some women students, he was also unpopular among certain constituencies at Boalt. His appointment was protested by minority students at Boalt who felt that he was not fully committed to "diversity." His administration was actively protested by feminist students and faculty who felt he was not fully committed to gender equity. The Boalt Hall Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Caucus protested when Dwyer allowed the military to recruit at Boalt, citing university policy and stating that "given the importance of the military in safeguarding our society, none of our students (indeed, no U.S. citizens) should be denied the chance to serve in the military based on their sexual orientation." Stories about Dwyer's legendary sex appeal have to be taken alongside tales of his alleged insensitivity to the needs and concerns of oppressed groups. More than one reader has written to suggest that the reason Dwyer seems to find himself on the wrong end of university policy is that he had the wrong politics.
