I continue to get mail telling me that I've missed the point about John Bonnell, and that he is a pervert who does not belong in the classroom. None of the mail is from his former students; it is all from people who have read the accusations against him and have allowed their imaginations to linger credulously over the absurd caricature the Macomb Community College administration presented as fact. Likewise, commenters at Invisible Adjunct continue to pronounce Bonnell guilty, despite the lack of evidence to support the accusations against him.

The thought process, I think, is that anyone who is the subject of such hideous accusations must be doing something to bring them on; moreover, anyone who gets suspended without pay because of such accusations, and who does so multiple times, must not only be doing something to bring them on, but must be stupid to boot. These sentiments--and they are sentiments, not reasoned positions--seem to me to be the convenient conclusions of well-intentioned bystanders who are not familiar with the phenomenon of the academic witch hunt, and who have never personally seen or experienced just how unrelentingly sick university administrators on a moral mission can be. Readers who are thinking this way are making understandable mistakes--but they are not making innocent ones; they are colluding with the MCC administration by crediting the outrageous claims against Bonnell because they are outrageous, and in the process they are sacrificing a man for the sake of their own moral comfort. It's easier to believe Bonnell is an uncontrolled pervert using his classroom to get rhetorically off on a captive audience of students less than half his age than it is to accept that sometimes people really do get badly, repeatedly, relentlessly screwed, with no recourse, and no prospect of justice or reparation.

Julie Sergel, who took three courses from Bonnell while at MCC and whose statement to the MCC Board of Trustees defending Bonnell I reprinted Thursday, has posted a comment on Invisible Adjunct that speaks directly to the point I make above:

I cannot help but comment and agree with those of you who recognize that the "personal anecdotes" attributed to Bonnell are out of bounds. Some of them sickened me to read, but probably not for the same reasons that they disgusted you. I am nauseated by the fact that so many otherwise intelligent people take these allegations as fact, and that a man such as Bonnell is being so defamed. Between 1996 and 1998 I took three classes with Bonnell - unfortunately he only taught three classes - had he been employed to teach more I probably would have listed my major as "Bonnell." No one disputes that Bonnell was akin to use the whole language, including many of the words cited when called for. But the stories, these horrific stories, fall somewhere between totally distorted and overblown accounts BASED on comments actually made, and bald-faced lies. One post cited that even his numerous student supporters have not attended ALL of his classes. This is true, but after years of classes, you begin to recognize the boundaries set by a professor - both those which he does and does not cross. Furthermore, since his latest suspension, I have had the privilege of getting to know this man - I may say as a fellow educator, although I must admit that I still look upon him with an air of admiration and humility - and having become acquainted with him on a personal level, I am even more aware of his level of integrity and propriety. Does he stretch the boundaries? Yes. Better and more effectively than anyone I know. Is there anyone out there who doubts that this is the best - if not the only - way to learn and to grow? Is he an offensive, perverted, prurient exhibitionist? The only way I can express the extent to which I disagree with this opinion is to say "HELL NO!" I patiently await a challenge by someone who claims otherwise, but let me qualify this because I'm sure there are many out there just waiting to dismiss or refute my claims. Let me hear from someone who knows firsthand that Bonnell is guilty as accused, who felt harassed by him, AND who is justified enough in their claims that they aren't afraid to sign their names and have their claims scrutinized by the public, as have been the accusations against John Bonnell.