The case of John Bonnell has raised, at Critical Mass and elsewhere, numerous questions about academic freedom, faculty rights, classroom propriety, pedagogical responsibility, sexual harassment, and speech codes. Something else the case speaks to: the power individual students have to destroy the careers--and even the lives--of teachers they don't like. On campuses today, the accuser is always right--even when he or she is blatantly in the wrong.

A reader writes with a case that illustrates this point:

A short story of an alternative case, one that I know too well. Sometimes these stories don't turn out quite as badly as Bonnell's has. Sometimes they (University Administrators) do the right thing.

Reading Bonnell's words reminds me of what my mother, now a retired professor, said in response to an incident that happened to her several years ago.

Near the end of career she took on a graduate student who proved to be problematic. She put a lot of energy into helping him, getting him funding (tuition, stipend), defending him against other detractors and giving him chance after chance to make deadlines. He did not work out, had no output to speak of, and eventually failed his oral/qualifying exam (in which the advisor does not participate). He then proceeded to file grievance after grievance against my mother, including accusations of academic dishonesty and disability harassment. He wrote to her funding agency, and made numerous claims about stealing money, ideas, harassment, all of which were shown (by the agency's investigations) to be false.

The University had multiple hearings, and in the end supported her, and dismissed him from the program. He proceeded to file a civil suit against her. At this point, most Universities cave in, but hers didn't. They hired an outside law firm, indemnified her (so if it did go against her, he could not take her life savings, he was asking for fiscal damage well beyond her means).

The most interesting part, from our perspective is when his lawyers came with an offer to settle for a small amount of money (far less than a law suit would cost) and a Ph.D degree. The University said, "no, we won't settle, we care about money, but the principle is more important". The trial was unpleasant and exhausting. The local news portrayed her as an cold manipulative academic, and him as a poor, unrecognized genius who was caught in the gears of the ugly, uncaring University machine. Despite such publicity, the University stuck by its guns. Ultimately, the court found for my mother, and in fact awarded her a small amount of money for character defamation.

She wasn't being censored, as is Bonnell, but the ultimate impact is similar. Academic jobs aren't particularly flexible (I know doctors who have moved from hospital to hospital). Neither Bonnell nor my mother could just move to another University, even if one is next door. As far as any grievance goes, what really happened can almost never be shown, and a tinge of ugly controversy follows you for the rest of your career. Administrators too often take the position of maintaining the image of the University, as opposed to looking at the facts, and in this case, surprisingly they didn't.

In the end, people don't consider the ultimate cost of these cases. The principles spend huge amounts of energy and time on administrative procedures, hearings, and defense. People like my mother and Bonnell have to let go of working on what they love, and what they do well. In the end, even if you are vindicated, you look at back at years of time and think: what a waste. There are fundamental principles worth fighting for, despite a simple cost/benefit analysis suggesting that the cost of these grievances far outweighs any benefit to the University, or even the person bringing the greivance. The people like Bonnell and my mother will, in the end, carry these costs.

Thanks for writing.