Chapter 9

Charles Gibson was the only African-American who was a university professor at NDU. A highly prominent scholar in the field of African-American literature, he had been lured to NDU from Duke University three years ago with a nine month salary of $125,000 plus guaranteed summer support money. Gibson loved being in the Washington, D.C. area where he received far more media coverage than he ever had before. He had rapidly discovered, though, that the quality of both the students and the faculty at NDU was not nearly as high as at Duke. Still, it was nice to be a big fish in a small pond.

Someone knocked on the door of his office. "Come on in," he called.

The door opened and in walked a very attractive African-American woman wearing what was obviously an expensive suit--something he would expect to see a young woman wear in an office but not on campus. He recognized that she was one of his students but did not know her name.

"Hello, Professor Gibson," she said. "I'm Genevieve Lacouture from your Introduction to African-American Literature class."

"Oh yes," said Gibson. "Please sit down. What can I do for you?"

"I know I shouldn't have waited until the last week of the semester to come talk to you," she said as she sat down. "I'm afraid I've been very busy with my part-time job this semester. In fact, I'm going there right after I talk to you. The point is this: I'm very worried about my grade in your class. You gave me a B+ on the midterm and an A- on the paper. There's only the final exam left, and I want to do as well as possible on it. So I thought I'd better come and talk to you about what I need to do to improve my grade.

"I'm a computer science major," she continued. "I'm taking this course to fulfill my humanities requirement. I'm not used to literature courses which contain a high degree of ambiguity."

Gibson was a little taken aback by this. "Computer science?" he asked incredulously. "Why are you majoring in that? Why aren't you majoring in African-American studies, or sociology, or something else that's relevant to black folks?"

"Well, to tell you the truth, I was just never very interested in all that. In fact," she confessed with some embarrassment, "I'm only in your course mainly because it's the one lit class that best fit into my schedule. I got into computer science when I was in high school. And, I'm proud to admit, I'm pretty good at it.

"Besides," she said with a knowing smile, "I think that a B.S. in computer science will get me a much higher paying job than a B.A. in African-American studies."

"So is money all that you're interested in?" asked Gibson, shaking his head. "I really just don't understand the black students here at NDU. All you're interested in is yourselves as individuals. You seem to have no concern for advancing civil rights or other black causes like my generation did. Why, when I was at Berkeley in the '60s..."

"Yes, yes," Genevieve interrupted, displaying some impatience. "We know you were at Berkeley in the '60s. You've mentioned it in class several times this semester."

Gibson wondered: Am I getting old? Am I repeating myself without knowing it? "The point I'm trying to make," he said, "is that my generation worked together for black rights. Yours isn't doing that."

Genevieve shrugged her shoulders. "Since your generation largely succeeded at this task, my generation can now move on to something else. Perhaps we could move on to discussing your expectations for the final."

Now Gibson was annoyed. "Your generation may think it can move on, but it is deluding itself. My generation worked hard for affirmative action. But affirmative action is now being destroyed bit by bit."

"I just see it differently," responded Genevieve. "Whatever benefits affirmative action may have provided decades ago, it's a program that has now outlived its usefulness. Educated African-Americans--especially ones with technical training--can get jobs as easily as anybody else. And isn't it better that corporations want to hire us because we have knowledge and skills they value instead of because they need to fill some federally mandated quota?"

"And look what's happening," Gibson continued, "to congressional redistricting to ensure black representation in the House. The courts are slowly but surely overturning it, resulting in the election of a less and less diverse House of Representatives with each passing election."

"My father says that the only thing redistricting to create congressional districts with black majorities ever accomplished," countered Genevieve, "was to ensure the election of white Republicans in all the surrounding districts."

"And it's the Republicans in Congress," thundered Gibson, "that have slashed social programs which help disadvantaged blacks."

"My father also says that it's these misguided social programs of the past that have provided skewed incentives to African-Americans, actually making it unprofitable for those on welfare to work their way out of it," said Genevieve. "We don't need welfare! We don't need special programs! We can succeed on our own!"

Gibson was disgusted. "Just what does this father of yours do for a living anyway?"

"He's a vice president at Dillo Petroleum Services in Fairfax," Genevieve replied proudly.

"Aha!" said Gibson. "He's one of those lucky blacks who succeeded thanks to affirmative action but who now want to end it for the rest of us."

"My father succeeded," Genevieve responded hotly, "through hard work and determination! His parents were poor immigrants from Haiti! They worked hard to send him to college to become a petroleum engineer! It wasn't easy--nobody handed him anything. He got where he is through his own hard work--and through his ability to work with others.

"I've traveled with my father to the Caribbean and to Africa," she continued. "Believe me: African-Americans are far better off and have far more opportunities than do blacks in those countries. And I wouldn't want to be a black person in Europe either. Whatever their situation here, nobody questions the fact that African-Americans are American. In Europe, though, blacks can never be anything besides West Indians, West Africans, East Africans, or even Americans--but never Europeans."

Gibson knew that immigrant blacks from the Caribbean and Africa as a group scored far higher than other African-Americans in indicators such as level of education and income. There was no consensus of opinion as to why this anomaly existed. Gibson couldn't explain it either. But at least now, he thought, he understood where this Genevieve was coming from.

"I don't deny," he said, "that blacks in the U.S. are far better off than blacks elsewhere. Nor do I deny that black progress received a lot of help from whites, especially during the 1960s and early 1970s. What I see now, though, is that a lot of that progress--affirmative action, congressional redistricting, and social programs--is being reversed, mainly by whites.

"It kind of makes you wonder, doesn't it?" he asked. "Why did whites go to the bother of furthering black progress back then only to reverse it now? Well, it just so happens that I have a theory about that. Would you like to hear it?"

Gibson didn't wait for her to answer. "In the past, whites were not an undifferentiated group in this country. You had the Irish, the Italians, the Scandinavians, the East Europeans, and others. Up through the 1950s, though, the whites that controlled America were the WASPs--the white, Anglo-Saxon Protestants. But thanks to all the changes resulting from the New Deal in the 1930s and World War II, these other whites became increasingly powerful and threatened to displace the WASPs.

"It was no accident," he continued, "that most of the white liberals in the 1960s were WASPs. They decided to support the cause of black progress not out of any love for us blacks, but as a way of controlling these other, rising white groups.

"Now since then, ironically enough, distinctions among whites have virtually disappeared. Whereas before whites tended to marry strictly within their narrower ethnic groups (WASPs with WASPs, Italians with Italians, etc.), these barriers have now completely broken down. WASPs can hardly be said to form a distinct group any more. I guess they all got bored with each other and married someone else--just as long as they were white.

"But also since then, something happened that the white liberals who supported black progress in the 1960s never seem to have actually expected: the creation of a strong, vibrant black middle class. Just like the WASPs felt threatened by the rise of other white groups in the past, whites as a whole feel threatened by the rise of blacks now. And just as in the past the WASPs sought to keep down those other white groups through supporting blacks, whites now seek to keep down blacks through supporting other groups. And do you know who those other groups are?"

Again, Gibson did not wait for Genevieve to answer. "Hispanics and Asians to some extent. But an even more insidious way of keeping down blacks is the white enthusiasm for the women's movement. And here their intentions are blatant: the women they mainly have in mind to support are white women. So right at the point where more and more talented black men are poised to move into the top ranks of society, they are being pushed aside by white women in the name of gender equality."

"If all that is true," responded Genevieve, "I wonder where that leaves me. It seems to me that as an African-American I would lose, but as a woman I would win."

Gibson shook his head. "This is the problem with today's young blacks--especially young black women. You don't seem to realize that what little you gain as a woman from the white-inspired women's movement would be greatly outweighed by what you would lose as a black."

"I'm not sure about that argument," said Genevieve. "It seems to me that progress for African-American women is hindered far more by African-American men than it is by white women. It's not white women who are getting black teenage girls pregnant and then abandoning them."

"I can see," said Gibson, "that their strategy of divide and conquer has certainly worked with you!"

"Maybe women of all races really have more in common with one another than with the men from their own. Maybe it's the false barrier of race that has kept women divided up to now," she countered.

Gibson shook his head again. "You know, I really don't understand today's young women--black, white, or whatever. You say you're for women's rights. But you've accepted restrictions on yourselves that the women of my generation never would have accepted." At least, not back in the 1960s and 1970s when they were young, he thought.

"What do you mean?" asked Genevieve.

"I mean all these new rules preventing relationships between men and women who work together. But when they do get together--as they inevitably do--and it's somehow discovered, it's always considered to be the man's `fault' that it happened."

"It is clearly inappropriate," Genevieve informed him, "for male supervisors to be pressuring their female subordinates for sex."

"Oh, Lord! Listen to you!" said Gibson. "Not every male is a supervisor to every female in an organization. And sex doesn't happen just because men `pressure' women for it."

"Are you sure about that?" asked Genevieve sarcastically.

"It seems to me," continued Gibson, "that if a man and woman who work in the same organization want to get together, it's nobody's business but their own."

"Can we please talk about the final exam," implored Genevieve.

"And what does it matter if they are supervisor and subordinate anyway? If they're both consenting adults, what does it matter? Who else's business is it?

"What if the shoe were on the other foot?" he continued. "With all these women getting ahead, they have subordinates now. What if a female supervisor wanted to get together with one of her male subordinates? Would you modern women oppose that?"

Genevieve did not respond.

"I can just tell what you're thinking," said Gibson. "You're thinking no female supervisor would want to get together with a male subordinate, aren't you? That wouldn't benefit her nearly as much as having an affair with a male supervisor, and then reporting him for taking advantage of her after she's gotten everything she can possibly get from him."

Genevieve did not look happy. "You know, I really don't think..." she began.

"Whenever I read these stories," Gibson plowed on, "about women charging male supervisors with pressuring them for sex after being in a relationship with them for a considerable period of time, I really wonder what the truth actually is. Women aren't all innocent little angels. Look at the way they dress! They're sure not trying to hide the fact that they're women!

"Let me tell you, things were a lot different when I was at Berkeley in the '60s. Back then, young women were trying to break away from sexual restrictions, not wrap themselves up in them. There was none of this nonsense about `inappropriate relationships' either. I remember that it was quite common for female students to have affairs with their professors. And nobody objected either--except the professors' wives, if they found out," he laughed.

"Professor Gibson!" exclaimed Genevieve.

"And the women were open and honest about it, too. I well remember how female students would boast about their conquests among the professors and the graduate teaching assistants."

Gibson had been a T.A. back then. There must have been half a dozen girls he ended up in bed with whom he met through their being students in his discussion sections. They had all been white girls too. Each had told him that she had never had sex with a black man before. He was `exotic' for them--just as they were for him. But so what? That was cool!

"With the new Victorianism that reigns at universities now, though," he continued, "male professors are scared that if they even glance at their female students, they'll be charged with `sexual assault' or some such nonsense!"

There had been three other student girlfriends later when he was a young professor at Duke. These relationships had lasted longer. Unlike his girlfriends at Berkeley, these three had all been graduate students. Like the others, they had also been white. Now that he was thinking about it, he realized that none of his student girlfriends had ever been black. More to the point, he hadn't had any student girlfriend--whether black, white, or whatever--in many years. This was a result, Gibson thought, of the new Victorianism on college campuses. At least, that's what he hoped it was. He certainly hoped it wasn't because of the age difference between him and the students. It was funny how, with their coming and going, the students he taught remained in a constant age range while he got older. Not that being in his late fifties was really all that old, of course.

"Look what's happened right here at NDU," he went on. "The `unwanted' poster in this worthless student newspaper--nothing like what we had at Berkeley--claimed to reprint graffiti written in one of the women's bathrooms about a professor here. I think his name was Barnes. What did it say about him?"

"`Prof. Barnes touched me inappropriately,'" said Genevieve

He certainly wouldn't mind touching this Genevieve, he thought. It would probably do this over serious girl a world of good. "Oh, so you saw that?" he asked. "I guess everyone did. Well, I bet the whole thing is a fraud. I'll bet he never touched anyone. Some girl tried to get him to raise her grade, and when he wouldn't, she wrote this thing about him just to cause trouble for him."

Gibson had heard that Barnes was going up for tenure this year. If that was true, he knew that this statement published in the paper--no matter how false--would cause him quite a lot of trouble. The bitch who wrote it probably knew Barnes was going up and was deliberately trying to sabotage him. Well, she wouldn't succeed if Charles Gibson had anything to say about the matter. And he did: he was on the promotion and tenure committee for the College of Arts and Sciences this year. If Barnes really was going up, Gibson decided that he would get himself appointed as the guy's liaison to the committee. And that reminded him...

Gibson looked at his watch. "Oh, shit!" he exclaimed. I've got to get going. The organizing meeting for P&T committee is about to start."

Genevieve had no choice but to stand up just as he did. "But we didn't talk about the final!" she said with exasperation. "I really wanted your advice! I've got to do well on it if I'm going to keep up my GPA and have a shot at getting into a really good graduate school!"

This girl really had to lighten up, thought Gibson. "I tell you what," he said teasingly. "If you want an A in my class, just wear a shorter skirt than you've got on now to the final--and sit in the front row. You'll feel so good about yourself that I'm sure you'll do fine."

"Professor Gibson!" exclaimed Genevieve. "I can't believe you said that to me! Would you talk to a white girl that way?"

"Only if she looked as good as you do," he said laughing as he ushered her out of his office and closed his door behind him.

As she watched Professor Gibson stride down the hall on his way to his meeting, Genevieve made three decisions. First, she would wear pants to the final. Second, she would sit in the back row during it. And third, since she was carrying a felt tip marker in her purse, she would pay a visit to the first women's lavatory she could find.

Chapter 8

When several political science professors suddenly walked past her open door on the way either to class or a long-delayed lunch, Ruth Silverstein could tell that this year's departmental promotion and tenure meeting had finally ended. This meeting was always held in November during those years that the department had promotion and tenure cases to consider. The meeting was open only to departmental faculty who already had tenure--but not to the chair of the department.

After this meeting, a professor designated during it would draft a memo stating what the vote on the candidate had been and summarizing the discussion held. A second meeting would then be held a week later to review the draft and propose any modifications. This second meeting, though, was usually less well attended as the draft memo was available several days ahead of time for the faculty to review and informally suggest changes to its author--something most professors preferred to do privately rather than in front of others. After being revised by its author (without any further recourse to the rest of the department), this memo would be placed in the candidate's dossier, which already contained both the material he or she submitted as well as letters received from external reviewers. Unlike these outside letters which the candidate wasn't supposed to see, he or she would receive a copy of the memo written at this and all subsequent stages of the review process--the next step in which would be the memo from the department chair. The chair would also receive copies of the memos about the candidate generated at later stages.

As Ruth knew, the memo from the chair would have the greatest impact if the vote of the faculty was divided. In other words, if the faculty unanimously supported a candidate for promotion and tenure, a chair who recommended against this would be seen as out of touch with his or her department at later stages in the process. Similarly, if the faculty voted heavily against a candidate, a chair's positive recommendation would probably not do much good. It was when the tenured faculty was divided on a candidate that the chair's recommendation--whether positive or negative--was most likely to carry crucial weight later on.

As Ruth anticipated, it was Trond Knutsen who came into her office and closed the door behind him. He looked exhausted; it was clear that the meeting had been difficult.

"Our colleagues decided to punish me for my past sins as chair by appointing me to write memos for both Barnes and Sweezy," he said, trying to sound jovial.

"I'm not surprised," said Ruth. "After all, you had a lot of practice at this when you were chair. So what happened? What was the vote?"

"The vote was the same for both of them," Trond informed her. "Thirteen for, two against, and one abstention."

"That's not good," Ruth observed. As she well knew, one vote against a candidate for tenure was usually not harmful. Two votes against, though, was considered evidence of the faculty being divided. And since an abstaining vote (as opposed to an absence from the meeting) was given the same weight as a no vote, this meant that both actually had received three negative votes--evidence that the faculty was seriously divided. "So tell me what was said."

"These two dossiers brought out all the divisions within the department--young vs. old, male vs. female, research vs. service, and political science vs. public administration."

Ruth shuddered. It was this last division that concerned her the most.

Trond continued: "Let me start with Ann. Those for her pointed to her record of service to the department. They argued that she had put in her dues, and that she was owed tenure. And while it wasn't said explicitly, it was clear that those who favored her most strongly were the female members of the department."

This didn't surprise Ruth. She knew from her own experience that being female and carrying a heavy service load usually went together.

"But those against her argued quite strongly that her research record was woefully insufficient, and that awarding her tenure would be an embarrassment to the department. At a time when other units in the university are raising their standards, our voting to give her tenure would signal that this department is not doing so."

Before becoming acting chair, Ruth had--like most professors--focused on her own department and was barely cognizant of what went on in others. Since attending the monthly meeting of College of Arts and Sciences department chairs, she had begun to perceive that there was a hierarchy among departments in terms of how favorably they were regarded by the dean's office as well as the central administration. And the Political Science Department, Ruth had come to realize, was not at the top of that hierarchy here at NDU.

What all departments always wanted from the dean and the central administration was new faculty positions. What had been brought home to her through her interaction with other chairs and the college dean, Dominic DiSola, was that new faculty positions did not necessarily go to departments with the largest enrollments, like political science. They tended to go instead to the departments that brought in the most grant money, such as psychology, economics, and those in the natural sciences. Indeed, the fact that these departments were bringing in ever larger grants was a testament to President Michaelson's policy of seeding them with the bright young professors who were now bringing them in; the older faculty--teachers, not researchers--had not done much of this.

Ruth remembered how Trond had constantly exhorted the political science faculty to aggressively seek research grants. Doing this, it had appeared to Ruth before becoming acting chair, was extremely difficult for a professor with a heavy teaching and service load who barely had time to work on her own individual, unsupported research. It was, she realized now, a vicious circle: the department would not be able to raise its status at the university without establishing a record of regularly winning major research grants, but it was unlikely to win such grants unless it could somehow raise its status and acquire the necessary resources from the dean and central administration that would allow it to acquire the additional bright young professors who were most likely to win these grants.

This, Ruth thought, was yet another reason why she was annoyed with Rob Barnes. Winning himself an individual fellowship to go up to Harvard last year had allowed the department to redeploy most of his salary (Trond and Dean DiSola, she had learned to her amazement, had allowed him to keep part of it), but did not bring in any funds, including the all important overhead which major research grants came with, to the department or the university. Rob was someone who could--was in fact, she remembered, hired with the expectation that he would--bring in research grants. His winning an individual fellowship which benefited him personally but not the department or university was just one more sign of his unwillingness to be a team player.

"The fear was expressed," Trond continued, "that a strong vote from our department for a marginal candidate would be reversed by the college P&T committee. Instead of helping Ann, we would only be worsening our own reputation.

This was a consideration. Since becoming acting chair, Ruth had learned that while political science was not considered to be one of the best departments in the college, it was not considered to be one of the worst either. The departments which tended to get little or no additional resources were low enrollment ones like philosophy, religion, sociology, and geography, or worse still, high enrollment but low research productivity ones like foreign languages and communications. These last two departments in particular had a reputation for awarding tenure to time servers--and for having their decisions reversed at the college level. Ruth realized that it was crucial that the Political Science Department not let itself fall into this category.

"I think Ann would have gotten fewer votes than she did," said Trond, "except that the public administrators in the department were afraid that if she didn't get tenure, the department would eventually lose her position to the new Public Policy Institute."

This, Ruth knew, was a possibility to be taken seriously. No department had a rock solid claim to a faculty position once it was vacated. The dean could reallocate it to another department. Far more likely in this case, though, was the prospect that the provost could take the position away from the College of Arts and Sciences altogether and give it to the new Public Policy Institute that was being formed.

"By the way," asked Trond, "have you been able to learn anything more about how the search for the institute directorship is going?"

Ruth shook her head. "Ever since the provost decided that the initial screening should be done by an outside headhunting firm instead of the search committee, there's been no news. I heard that even the members of the search committee are not being shown the list of applicants until the headhunters present them with a short list of ten."

This had never been done before at NDU. Up to now, search committees for high academic administrative positions (deans, their equivalent, and above) had been carried out solely by search committees. Although supposed to conduct their business in private, information about who all had applied for whatever position was being filled had always leaked out. Individual professors would then lobby committee members they knew either for or against particular candidates. News of what was happening would sometimes reach some of the candidates themselves, who would then actively--and usually unsuccessfully--lobby the committee too. Creating a short list of ten from a hundred or more candidates was difficult enough by itself, but doing so in such a public manner made it more so. By entrusting this task to an outside search firm, the provost ensured that the short list of candidates for the institute directorship would definitely be conducted in secret.

"I also heard," she continued, "that after the search committee narrows the short list down to the four or five who will be interviewed, the names of those coming to campus won't be released until the day before each one actually arrives." What this meant was not only would there be no opportunity for any of the faculty to lobby to include someone on the short list, but there would be no time for anyone not on the committee to bump a candidate off the short list before being interviewed either. Since this new institute was likely to impinge more on her department's turf than any other, Ruth regretted more than ever that the Political Science Department had not managed to get one of its faculty members onto the search committee for this position.

"Rob's strengths and weaknesses were assessed rather differently," said Trond. "Those for him emphasized his stellar research record. His teaching evaluations also show that he is popular with the students--as do Ann's, I should note. On the negative side, there was some complaint about his going up early and not having all that strong a service record, but these weren't considered serious problems by the majority."

Ruth understood that Trond was one of Rob's supporters, as were virtually all the men in the department. Many of them, of course, had published little but served the department and the university much before getting tenure in their sixth year. Ruth thought it strange that they--unlike the women in the department with similar records--did not seem to resent Rob for going up early without having performed much service. But since there were only three women in the department besides herself who had tenure (undoubtedly the source of the two no votes and the abstention that he received), Ruth knew that what the department's tenured females as a group thought about Rob mattered little in this process. But what she as chair thought about him, she knew, would matter much in it.

"As you might imagine," Trond continued, "those most opposed to Rob focused on this statement about him that was printed in the student newspaper--`Prof. Barnes touched me inappropriately.' And on this, Ruth, the faculty divided strictly on male-female lines. The men argued--quite heatedly--that such a statement written in a lavatory stall was meaningless. Just because such a statement was written there doesn't make it true. Indeed, statements written in lavatory stalls, by their very nature, must be considered suspect. The three women in the meeting, by contrast, argued just as heatedly that no woman would write such a thing if it was not true--or, at least, if she did not believe it was true. They thought that since Rob was going up early anyway, he should withdraw his application for promotion and tenure until this matter could be investigated and cleared up. That, of course, was a ridiculous suggestion."

"Was it?" asked Ruth.

"Of course it was," said Trond, obviously irritated. "Look, I've spoken to Rob at length about this matter. He told me that nobody has notified him about any sort of complaint being filed against him. He said he's had absolutely no problem with any of his students and that he has no idea who would have written anything like this about him in a lavatory stall or anywhere else."

"But wouldn't he say that even if--especially if--he did touch some girl `inappropriately?'" Ruth inquired.

"Rob says he cannot think of any incident that could have remotely inspired any student to write such a statement about him. He thinks the whole think is some sort of malicious prank perpetrated by someone who wants to derail his tenure application."

"That seems a little farfetched," commented Ruth. "I doubt if any of the students even know he's going up for tenure." She realized that just as Trond had revealed his support for Rob, Ruth was revealing her lack of it for him. "I suppose I could try to find out whether a complaint has been filed against him. The trouble, though, is that it could have been done at any of a dozen different offices--the NDU police, the dean's office, the Sexual Assault Services Office, the Minority Student Affairs Office, or several other places."

Trond looked increasingly annoyed. "Even if a complaint has been filed," he said, "that information is confidential. If a negative finding is made in the case of a faculty member, it is referred to the provost who is responsible for deciding upon any disciplinary action."

"Oh, so the chair is not automatically notified if a complaint against someone in her department has been filed?" she asked.

"No," said Trond. "The only way you would know is if the faculty member informed you--or if the complaint was made to you in the first place."

Ruth was relieved that nobody had filed a complaint about anyone in the department with her--yet. It would obviously be a nuisance to have to deal with.

"Some of these offices are so byzantine," Trond continued, "that they might not even inform the person accused that a complaint about him or her has been filed for months--if at all."

"So a complaint could have been filed against Rob without my knowing it," observed Ruth. "You know what bothers me most about Rob's case? It would be one thing if a sexual assault charge had been filed against him and I didn't know about it--or even if I did but it was kept confidential. Because of this damned `unwanted' poster, though, the whole thing is so public. If we recommend him for tenure, we'll be sending a message that we're not concerned about whether he gropes the girls here. It really would be better if he withdrew his application and submitted it again next year after everything has either been cleared up or forgotten."

"He's not going to do that, Ruth."

"Well, then, it will be his own fault if he's turned down as a result."

Trond sat back in his chair. "I can tell you this," he said. "The memo from the tenured faculty in the department that I am writing will make no reference to any anonymous, unsubstantiated charge made against Rob either in a woman's lavatory or the student newspaper. The memo from the faculty will be based on the material in his dossier alone. If you, in your memo, should choose to cite such a charge as a reason to turn Rob down for tenure, you will be leaving yourself open to a lawsuit from Rob later if he is denied tenure."

Ruth wondered: Was this a threat?

"And if and when the time comes at the end of the academic year for the dean to decide whether or not an acting chair should be confirmed for a full four year term," he continued, "I sincerely doubt that he would look favorably on her if she were facing a lawsuit filed against her by someone with an absolutely stellar dossier but whom she recommended not receive tenure on the basis of an anonymous, unsubstantiated complaint."

Yes, Ruth realized, this was definitely a threat. "Thank you for your report about the meeting, Trond," she said in an icy voice. "I will expect to receive your two memos after the meeting next week. That will be all for now." Looking surprised, he immediately got up and left.

The problem with Trond, Ruth decided, was that he didn't seem to understand that he was no longer chair of this department.

Chapter 7

Ann Sweezy knew she had to contain her enthusiasm somewhat, to try to appear objective, detached. She didn't want, Kate Morgan, the Washington Post reporter who had come to interview her, to see just how much she was loving this situation. And, Ann knew, she had to be a little bit careful about what she said. She was, after all, going up for tenure this year. But now that Robert Barnes had been "outed" in the second "unwanted" poster, she felt much more confident about her own prospects for success. For surely now Barnes would be forced to postpone going up for tenure--perhaps even resign from the university altogether.

Ann, for one, would not be sorry to see him go. He was an arrogant bastard. His disgustingly prodigious output of research publications made others in the department, including Ann, look bad in comparison. He was only able to accomplish this, Ann was convinced, through not doing his share of service work for the department like Ann did. A female professor like Ann would never have been allowed to get away with something like this. He had never even thanked her for taking on his advisees last year when he was at Harvard. Ann doubted that he was even aware that the previous chair, Trond Knutsen, had asked her to do this. Thank God he wasn't chair anymore! Being a woman too, Ruth was far more sympathetic to Ann's plight.

But ever since the appearance of the second "unwanted" poster, Ann gloated to herself, Robert Barnes had lost a little of his overweening self-confidence. It was Ann who had made sure that he saw it first. Having learned of its forthcoming appearance a day in advance from Tricia Raditz, Ann had come to campus early the next day and scooped up half a dozen copies of The New Dominion. She then went to her office and carefully clipped the back page off of each issue. Making sure nobody else was in the hallway, she quickly taped one of the "unwanted" posters right on Barnes's door. An hour later, she saw him walk past her open door (without, of course, saying so much as "hello" to her). She had gotten up and pretended to be working at her filing cabinet in order to watch what happened next.

When he reached his door, she saw him pause and then heard him say, "Good Lord! I can't believe this!" This second "unwanted" poster looked basically the same as the first one had, but there was only one item on it: "Prof. Barnes touched me inappropriately." Barnes had quickly ripped down the "unwanted" poster and brought it into his office. Ann had hardly been able to contain her elation! Each time she went out of her office that day, she made sure she picked up one or two more copies of The New Dominion. Since then, Ann had come in early every morning--even on days she didn't teach--and taped up a fresh copy of the "unwanted" poster on Barnes's door if one was not there. Barnes, of course, ripped them down on the days he came in to teach. But what Ann thought was particularly revealing about departmental sentiment was that nobody--not even the male professors--tore down the "unwanted" poster from his door on the days that Barnes didn't come in. Clearly, Ann deduced, support for Barnes within the department was weak!

"As I said on the phone," Kate Morgan began as she settled into the one guest chair (orange plastic) in Ann's office, "I wanted to talk to someone who taught women's studies here about this whole sexual assault graffiti business. Why do you suppose it's coming to light now? I mean, I know this `unwanted' poster phenomenon has publicized the graffiti. But the posters could only do so if the graffiti was there first to be publicized--unless, of course, the kids running the campus paper have just made the whole thing up."

"Oh, they couldn't have done that!" Ann quickly interjected. "As your own article in the Post reported, two very real sexual assailants who were tormenting two very real victims came to light as a result of the first `unwanted' poster. The New Dominion staff certainly didn't make that up!"

"No, what I meant to ask," Kate continued, "is whether this sort of graffiti has appeared before and just not been publicized, or whether its appearance is something new altogether. You've been teaching here several years now. Have you ever seen this sort of graffiti in the women's bathrooms before?"

Ann had not--aside, of course, from the typically non-specific graffiti identifying this or that particular male as a dickhead, shit-for-brains, motherfucker, or--most frequently--asshole. These complaints, however, did not detail specific charges of sexual assault. Nor, in fact, had Ann seen any of this more serious type of graffiti recently either. Maybe she was going to the wrong bathrooms.

"I would say that this sort of sexual assault graffiti has existed all along," Ann pronounced anyway. "This is the first year, though, that we've had a militant feminist as editor-in-chief of the campus newspaper. It's thanks to her that these cries of pain from assaulted women are finally being heard."

Kate nodded her head thoughtfully at this. "Yes, well--I suppose it's not the sort of thing that a male editor would have been in a position to notice, in that this graffiti only seems to appear in women's bathrooms."

Ann frowned somewhat. This comment seemed beside the point. "But it would have been visible to the paper's female reporters." Ann paused a moment to improvise. "Either they reported it to male editors in the past who refused to do anything about it, or they didn't bother to report it since they knew the males wouldn't care." That must have been what happened, Ann thought.

Kate nodded her head again. "Yes, it would have been visible to the paper's female reporters--and presumably to any other female, if she went to the right toilet. But I have yet to find anyone who remembers seeing graffiti like this in the past. And except for some of the women at The New Dominion I spoke to, I haven't found anyone else who has seen it this year either."

Ann was becoming a little annoyed. "So you really do seem to think that they made it up themselves?" she asked accusingly.

"Not at all," Kate assured her. "As you said, publicizing the graffiti uncovered a rapist and a stalker. And I'm positive that their victims--Irene and Victoria--had no connection with the student paper whatsoever. They knew nobody there even casually, much less somebody well enough to confide in who would have written the graffiti for them."

Ann was puzzled. "Why do you say that? Surely these two women wrote those messages themselves."

"I don't think so," said Kate. "They were identified in The New Dominion after Smith and Garcia were arrested, so I was able to interview them for my story in the Post. Both of them told me their sad histories with these two jerks, but both of them completely denied having written the graffiti which was published in the `unwanted' poster."

"So what are you saying?" asked Ann.

"I'm not saying anything," said Kate. "I'm trying to figure out what is happening here. That's why I came to talk to you."

"Well," said Ann, "I have never spoken to those two young women--Irene and Victoria. Since you have, you know more about them than I do. Maybe when you interviewed them they were too distraught to remember precisely what happened. Maybe they wrote out those messages unconsciously." Yes, that could be the explanation.

Now Kate looked puzzled. "Maybe," she said. After a moment she continued, "Why do you suppose The New Dominion published the graffiti in this `unwanted' poster format? Why not just publish them in the body of a news story, or just in a simple box by themselves with a brief explanation?"

Ann couldn't help but swell with pride. "Well actually," she admitted, "that was my idea."

"Oho!" said Kate conspiratorially, "I thought maybe you knew more about this than you let on!"

Ann smiled broadly. She knew she shouldn't be indiscreet, but this was just too delicious to let pass. Besides, she wanted Kate Morgan to regard her as a reliable source and come back to her in the future for information about what was really happening at NDU. "Is this off the record?" she asked coyly.

"If that's what you want, of course," Kate responded.

"Well, when Tricia Raditz first told me that she planned to publish a regular feature publicizing sexual assault graffiti, I was the one who suggested the `unwanted' poster format!"

"How creative!" observed Kate. "Have you ever thought of writing fiction?"

"As a matter of fact," Ann responded, "I do have this idea for a feminist novel. I can show you the outline if you like."

"Well, maybe we can talk about that some other time," said Kate. "Right now, I'm wondering if you can shed any light on this business with Robert Barnes--`Prof. Barnes touched me inappropriately,' I think the message said."

"That arrogant bastard!" Ann said emotionally. "You would not believe what a total, pompous jerk he is!"

"You don't seem to like him, Ann," Kate observed, concern in her voice.

"No I don't!" Ann replied. She then related the whole story about how she was forced to do so much service work in the department that she had little time for research while he had been allowed to do his research without doing any service, how this all came about under the previous sexist male chair of the department, and how unfair it all was. But this time, Ann was a little more discreet: she didn't mention how the two of them were going up for tenure this year.

"No, that doesn't sound fair," Kate commented. "But aside from that, do you really think he's the type who would touch his female students `inappropriately?'"

"Aren't all men that type?" Ann shot back. "I'm sure I don't have to tell you what male professors must be thinking when they see these young girls who wear next to nothing in their classrooms and in their offices."

"Yes, yes, no doubt you're right," said Kate. "But thinking about their female students is one thing. Actually touching them is quite another. Do you think Barnes is really the type who would touch any of them?"

"I certainly have no reason to think that he wouldn't touch them if he thought he had the opportunity," responded Ann.

"I'm not so sure," observed Kate.

Ann was beginning to wonder just whose side this woman was on. "Why on earth do you say that?" she asked.

"Well, as long as this conversation is off the record, I'll tell you," Kate said, sitting forward in her chair. "You know, I don't exactly wear a badge stating that I'm a reporter. And sometimes, if I happen to fall into conversation with someone, I don't even mention that I am.

"The other day, I was passing through this hall. I saw Robert Barnes was in his office, so I asked if I could speak to him. It just so happens that I was wearing something of a short skirt then," she said, indicating a point on her thigh significantly higher up than the hemline of the skirt she was now wearing. "The sweater I had on didn't exactly hide how I look either.

"When I went inside his office, I closed the door behind me. The poor man went into a panic! He immediately jumped up and opened it again, saying something about how he was looking out for someone who might pass by. We talked for about ten minutes. He never touched me once--inappropriately or otherwise. In fact, he sat as far away from me as he possibly could the entire time. He didn't even tell me if he thought I looked nice. He certainly didn't do anything for my ego that day! However true the graffiti items published in the first `unwanted' poster may have been, I think the one in the second poster about Robert Barnes was either a mistake or a lie."

Ann shook her head in disbelief. "The `unwanted' poster must have put him on his guard. Besides, it's my understanding that his door was closed when he inappropriately touched a female student."

Kate's eyes opened wide. "My, you do seem to know a lot about this, Ann," she said, sitting back in her chair.

Ann realized that she had been indiscreet, but she didn't want this reporter casting doubt on the veracity of the `unwanted' posters--this second one in particular. Letting Kate know what was really going on involved some risk, but it was also a golden opportunity to really discredit Barnes. In fact, if the story got into the Post, Barnes would probably have to resign at once, in total disgrace! Ann decided to show her the paper Tiffany Rodriguez had written for her Experiential Learning in Women's Studies practicum detailing what Cindy McMann had told her about Robert Barnes and their meeting with Ellen Stenkovsky of SASO. "I can't let you keep this," Ann said as she got the paper out from the top drawer of her desk, "but I can let you look at it here."

"Thanks," said Kate, taking the paper and reading through it quickly. There was one section in particular she turned back to. "It says here that he touched this girl's shoulder." Kate looked up at Ann. "Not a breast or even a thigh. This doesn't exactly sound like sexual assault to me."

"It was her bare shoulder that he touched," Ann pointed out. What was wrong with this woman? "All the elements of what we call a quid pro quo case were present: they were alone in his office with the door closed discussing her grade--which he exercises power over--when he first humiliated her and then touched her suggestively. As the paper says, he was clearly signaling her that he would raise her grade in exchange for sex."

"`Prof. Barnes touched me inappropriately,'" Kate repeated. "I suppose that refers to this incident with," she glanced at the paper, "Cindy McMann."

"I'm sure it does!" said Kate.

"But do you know for sure? Did Cindy tell you that she wrote that graffiti message in the woman’s bathroom?"

"No," responded Ann. "But I don't know what else that graffiti message could have been referring to--unless there's another female student Barnes assaulted!" If this was true, Ann hoped this second student would step forward and file a formal complaint. Then Barnes would really be history!

"Let's assume that the message in the bathroom does refer to Cindy McMann," said Kate. "Either Cindy wrote the graffiti herself--or someone wrote it for her."

"I don't think the latter happened," observed Ann.

"Why not? It appears that someone did this for Irene and Veronica. Why not for Cindy too?"

"Who would do such a thing?"

"How about you, Ann?" Kate asked, looking straight into her eyes. "You don't seem to like Robert Barnes much."

"I did no such thing!" Ann replied hotly. "You are going too far! What are you trying to prove?"

Kate raised her hands above her head, as if in surrender. "I'm sorry!" she said. "But a reporter has to think about all possible angles." She lowered her hands back down. "I doubt that it would be possible to prove that anyone in particular wrote that graffiti anyway.

"Another possibility, though," Kate continued, "is that this could be a case of mistaken identity. I understand there is another Professor Barnes here at NDU--in the biology department."

"That would be Jenny Barnes, the environmental policy specialist," said Ann, shaking her head. "I don't think so! Women just don't behave that way. Besides, we have Tiffany's paper indicating that it was Robert Barnes who touched someone inappropriately. I have no doubt that the graffiti refers to him."

"You're probably right," said Kate. "Still, the possibility of mistaken identity should not be discounted. Do you remember that one graffiti item that appeared in the first `unwanted' poster--`Charles Truehart fondled me?'"

"Yes?"

"The article appearing in The New Dominion about the reaction to that first poster interviewed a student named Charles Truehart who denied having done any such thing."

"That's what you would expect from someone like that, though, isn't it?" Ann asked smugly. She knew men.

"He might have been telling the truth," continued Kate. "I looked through the NDU phone directory afterward. It turns out that there's another Charles Truehart here--a food service manager, apparently. Maybe the graffiti was actually talking about him, not the student with the same name."

"I didn't know there was anyone on the staff by that name," said Ann. Like most members of the faculty, she did not know the names of more than a handful of the non-academic staff besides those in her department's main office. And except for Ellen Stenkovsky, she didn't consider any of them to be worth knowing. She made a mental note to say something to Tricia Raditz about there being another Charles Truehart on campus.

Kate looked at her watch. "I've really got to be going," she said. "This has been a most interesting conversation."

"Thanks for coming by. So tell me? Are you going to write a story about this Robert Barnes business?" asked Ann hopefully.

"I don't think I can," responded Ann. "What Brian and Oscar did to Irene and Victoria was news. They committed criminal acts, and they were arrested. The only thing I have on Robert Barnes is that he touched some girl--sorry, woman--on the shoulder. Neither Cindy nor the graffiti author said that he explicitly asked her for sex, or that he got any."

"But..." Ann began to protest.

"I'm sorry," Kate interrupted, handing Tiffany's paper back to her. "This might make exciting reading here at the university, but what actually happened--if anything--seems pretty obscure to me. Everything I write has to compete with dozens of hard stories--murders, rapes, robberies--for space in the paper. Not even all these make it in. What little I have here about Robert Barnes would never make it past my editor--who, by the way, is also a woman. I'm afraid that this story is going to have to `await further developments,' as we say, if it is ever going to make it into the paper.

"Can I call you if I hear of anything?" asked Ann.

"Of course," Kate replied. She reached inside her handbag and retrieved one of her business cards for Ann. "The number's on here, but since I'm often away from my office, just leave a message on my voice mail—-or send me an e-mail."

"Okay," said Ann. "And here's my card in return."

Both then stood up, shook hands, and said good-bye. “I should have told her that Barnes is going up for tenure this year,” Ann said to herself after Kate had left.

Chapter 6

Ellen Stenkovsky, the director of the Sexual Assault Services Office (or SASO, as insiders called it), was sitting on a toilet, with her pants and panties down around her ankles, in the woman's lavatory on the third floor of the Student Union Building. This, however, was just for cover in case anyone came in while she was there. It was ironic, Ellen thought, that it was sometimes necessary for her to bare her ass in order to cover it. For Ellen had not come there to use the toilet. She had come there instead to further the revolution--the women's revolution. And the weapon she would use to do this, as she had before, was the black felt tipped marker she was holding in her right hand.

There were plenty of women here at NDU who were women's rights activists. But they were not revolutionaries. In comparing the women's movement at the dawn of the twenty-first century to the socialist movement at the beginning of the twentieth, as Ellen was fond of doing, she saw most of the women's rights activists of today as being the equivalent of yesterday's social democrats. These people believed what they were doing was revolutionary, but they were really only reformists who worked within the established system. Yet how much progress could women make if they played by the rules set by reactionary males to perpetuate their own patriarchy? Not much, Ellen knew, especially when so many women sold out to the patriarchy by accepting positions of authority within it.

Ellen, though, could see through this: most of these positions possessed very little real authority. But by gratifying the egos of those women chosen to fill them, the patriarchy usually succeeded in turning them into defenders of the status quo system which had promoted them. And those few women who filled positions that really were powerful were chosen primarily for their willingness to keep other women in subjugation.

Unlike these social democrats of the women's movement, Ellen was the equivalent of a Leninist--a true revolutionary who knew that no real progress for women could be made just playing by the rules of the patriarchal system. Whatever space allowed to women by the patriarchy, of course, had to be exploited to the maximum. But there was no reason for a true revolutionary to allow the patriarchy's rules--which were illegitimate anyway--to limit her activity. It was obvious to Ellen, if not to the mere social democrats of the women's movement, that if the patriarchy maintained its dominance over women by means of the rules it had established, then the revolution was going to have to smash those rules in order to end its dominance. And that is exactly what Ellen was doing there in that stall in the women's lavatory.

But like a good Leninist, Ellen was a realist. She knew that there were limits on what the women's revolutionary movement could accomplish at present. There was no question of actually seizing control of the state, as Lenin and the Bolsheviks had done. This, however, was where she parted company with Lenin--who, no matter what he accomplished as a revolutionary, had still been a male. It was not necessary for the women's revolution to succeed by seizing control of the state in the violent, messy sort of revolution that men typically perpetrated. For in addition to everything else, the women's revolution embodied a revolution in how to make revolution! It would occur through women seizing the initiative in gender discourse, through ignoring the rules the patriarchy had established to maintain its dominance, and by creating a new matriarchal order--situation by situation, institution by institution--until one day women would control everything in the world that was worth controlling.

Ellen's battlefield was NDU. Like everywhere else, the women's revolution at NDU faced three obstacles: 1) an entrenched patriarchy--headed here by President Michaelson; 2) co-opted women who helped prop it up--such as Ruth Silverman, the chair of the Political Science Department; and 3) ineffective, play-by-the-rules, "social democrat" type women's activists--such as Ann Sweezy. Then there were women, such as Provost Jeannette Bobier (who was in charge of, among many other things, the Sexual Assault Services Office which Ellen directed) who switched back and forth between being a women's rights activist (though only, of course, of the play-by-the-rules variety) challenging the patriarchy on the one hand and defending it on the other, as her own personal career interests dictated.

Ellen was not sure what to make of the provost. It had been Bobier, after all, who had chosen Ellen, out of many applicants, to become director of SASO. But the provost was, Ellen knew, extremely stingy when it came time each year for her to allocate SASO's budget for the following year. Nor was the provost predictable when she reviewed appeals of decisions made on cases decided upon by the Sexual Assault Complaint Review Committee, which Ellen served as an ex officio member of. Sometimes Bobier upheld the committee's decision, but sometimes she overruled it. Ellen prided herself on being able to see through other people's little games, but she found the provost's to be impenetrable.

Ann Sweezy, Ellen smiled to herself, was a different sort of woman altogether. Ann was a "play-by-the-rules" women's activist, and not even a particularly effective one. But Ann actually thought of herself as a revolutionary! When she and Ellen had had lunch a few weeks ago, Ann had told her with such pride how Tricia Raditz of The New Dominion had told her she was thinking about a feature in which graffiti from women's lavatories at NDU "outing" sexual assailants would be published regularly in the paper now that she had become editor-in-chief. Ellen applauded Ann for allowing Tricia, who was extraordinarily busy with the paper, to undertake this activity (plus write a paper about the results of doing so) for her Experiential Learning in Women's Studies practicum which Tricia needed to do for the women's studies minor. Ann had taken special delight in relating to Ellen how she told Tricia that this was to be a "clandestine practicum"--something which was so sensitive that Tricia was not to reveal that she was getting academic credit for it.

How stupid Ann was! With Tricia publishing the "unwanted" poster on the back page of her paper, this was hardly a clandestine activity! All Ann really wanted was to keep her own involvement in the affair a secret. Yes, Ellen could easily see through her little game. But if Ann was blabbing about it to Ellen, she was probably blabbing about it to others too. Tricia, Ellen suspected, would in fact not say anything about this project receiving academic credit from Ann, but Ann's own big mouth might lead to her role in the affair coming to light.

All Ellen had said to Ann at the time was that she thought this was an excellent idea--one that was long overdue. Ellen had not told her that Tricia had actually discussed this idea with Ellen first. Further, Ellen had not told Ann, Tricia, or anyone else (nor would she ever tell them) that it was she, Ellen Stenkovsky, who had written the first two graffiti items which appeared in the "unwanted" poster: "Brian Smith is a rapist!" and "Oscar Garcia is stalking me!" In fact, she had done this in the exact self-same women's lavatory she was sitting in now. It was the perfect place to do this since the offices of The New Dominion were located on the same floor as SASO, and so this was the bathroom used by Tricia Raditz and other female staff members on the paper, and hence the one where they were most likely to read (as well as to, Ellen noted, frequently write surprisingly literate) graffiti.

If it were ever discovered that Ellen had written these messages, she knew, it would, at minimum, cost her her job. But just because doing this was against the patriarchy's rules did not make it wrong; in fact, it was absolutely the right thing for her to do. Nor was it in any sense dishonest. For Ellen had not made these messages up out of the blue. She had distilled them from two sexual assault cases filed last year with SASO that had not been resolved satisfactorily due to one of two problems that routinely plagued such cases.

In the first case--"Brian Smith raped me!"--the victim, Irene Pappas, had come to SASO only several months after being raped, as was typical in these cases. Irene primarily wanted counseling for herself as well as assistance persuading her professors to allow her to complete last fall's course work late (she had stopped coming to school altogether after it happened). Ellen had arranged these things for her, but while Irene admitted that she knew who her attacker was and that he had been her boyfriend, she refused to identify him either to Ellen or the NDU police. Ellen tried to persuade her to identify him since if she did not, he was likely to rape again. But as in so many such cases, Irene refused to tell--fearful, Ellen suspected, that her assailant would definitely attack her again if she did.

It had not been hard, though, for Ellen to identify him. She simply called Irene's mother, who readily told her that her daughter's relationship with one Brian Smith had turned sour a few months ago, though her daughter had not given her any details as to why.

In the second case--"Oscar Garcia is stalking me!"--the other recurrent problem was present: the young woman being victimized--Victoria Torres--had filed a complaint with the NDU police, but they could not or would not do much of anything for her. Here again, a young woman wanted to break off her relationship with a young man with a violent temper who (why were they all the same?) refused to let her go. Convinced that she was seeing someone else (which, of course, would have been her business and not his), he often waited in his car near her apartment and followed her to wherever she drove to. She tried speeding through yellow lights to get away from him, but he would just follow on the red afterward. And when she was at her apartment, she would receive harassing phone calls--often late at night--in which he would either shout at her abusively or say nothing.

Ellen had helped Victoria contact the police in every jurisdiction where this Oscar Garcia had stalked her, but they all indicated that there was little they could do unless and until he either attacked or forcibly obstructed her. Victoria had gotten an unlisted phone number to stop the harassing phone calls, but he had managed to get hold of it within days. In the meantime, Victoria was not getting enough sleep and her grades were suffering--all because, as far as Ellen was concerned, the ruling patriarchy condoned all but the most egregious forms of sexual assault.

In both cases, the "unwanted" poster had brought about positive results very quickly. Some students had apparently cut the back page from the paper and taped the poster on Smith's dorm room door. He, of course, tore it down, but the poster kept reappearing. Young women residing in the same dorm as Smith and their parents bombarded the university administration with phone calls demanding his immediate expulsion.

More importantly, the "unwanted" poster pushed Irene--as Ellen hoped it would--into filing charges against him preemptively for fear that Smith would assume that she had written the "Brian Smith is a rapist!" message in a lavatory stall. According to the story in the following week's New Dominion, his fellow students cheered when the police came and arrested him in his dorm shortly afterward. It was this public humiliation of a sexual assailant which Ellen particularly relished.

Since Oscar Garcia lived off campus, his neighbors did not know about the "unwanted" poster. Garcia's friends (apparently he had a few), though, did see it and pointed it out to him. Assuming that it was Victoria who had written the "Oscar Garcia is stalking me!" message, he became enraged and attacked her as she approached her car in her apartment parking lot. Oscar, though, had been so busy stalking Victoria that he did not even notice that half a dozen New Dominion reporters were stalking him. As the student paper later reported, the three male reporters in the group (males were good for something some of the time) rushed Oscar and subdued him while one of the female reporters summoned the police on her cell phone. Victoria had suffered several cuts and bruises. This might not have happened, Ellen knew, if the "unwanted" poster had not been published, but nor would Oscar Garcia's stalking have been halted either. As she had been told that Lenin had once said: "If you want to make an omelet, you've got to crack a few eggs!"

Ellen had heard from Tricia that President Michaelson and the university's legal affairs office had been very unhappy about the "unwanted" poster. Michaelson had even had one of his minions call the paper's faculty adviser to "suggest" that no further "unwanted" posters be published until the legality of doing so could be "clarified." But because of the posters overwhelming popularity on campus--especially among the women--and because the first one had resulted in the arrests of Smith and Garcia, the "central administration" (as it styled itself) backed off. In fact, in his comments appearing in The Washington Post's Metro section article about the two arrests and the role played by the "unwanted" poster in bringing them about, Michaelson implied that he had known about and approved of it in advance! What a shithead! Michaelson would do or say anything if he thought it would bring him good publicity.

Tricia Raditz, of course, was absolutely elated. She was determined to do more "unwanted" posters even if--indeed, especially if--the administration objected. Ellen was quite proud of herself for not succumbing to what she considered to be the petit bourgeois temptation to brag about her role in the affair. Ellen had told no one--absolutely no one--about what she had done.

Ellen wondered, though, whether Tricia suspected something. She had commented recently how strange it was that two of these sexual assault messages should be found in the same bathroom on the third floor of the Student Union Building--not a place that received a lot of foot traffic. Ellen had responded that she was not surprised. Since this was the floor where SASO was located, this was where women would come to file sexual assault complaints. If they had it in their minds to file such a complaint, then this would be a logical lavatory to write such graffiti in if they were going to do so anywhere. Besides, Ellen had asked her, did the female staff of The New Dominion visit every other woman’s lavatory on campus as often as they did the one near their office on the third floor of the Student Union Building? Perhaps they would find as much--or more--such graffiti in them. And now that the first "unwanted" poster was out, Ellen had told her, she suspected that many more women would write their complaints about sexual assault in women's lavatories all over campus.

Ellen had not written the third graffiti item that was published in the "unwanted" poster: "Charles Truehart fondled me!" Tricia or her reporters had found this instead--which was good. Publishing this other complaint had also gotten some results. Rumor had it that Charles Truehart was being shunned by the women in his classes, who either made a point of sitting far away from him, or if they couldn't, exaggeratedly crossing their arms in front of their breasts for protection whenever he appeared to be looking their way. His former girlfriend, Cindy McMann, had slapped his face when she first saw him after seeing the "unwanted" poster, but he had not filed any sort of complaint--he didn't dare! Truehart, though, was quoted in the next issue of The New Dominion stoutly denying the charge that he had fondled anyone. Ellen was quite confident, though, that he was not telling the truth since women, she believed fiercely, never lied about these matters. Still, whoever it was who had "outed" him had not yet come forward with a complaint. She had better, Ellen thought, if she didn't want it to happen again.

In the larger scheme, though, Ellen knew that these three guys--Smith, Garcia, and Truehart--were relatively unimportant. Students all, they were just pawns whom the patriarchy could easily sacrifice while remaining firmly entrenched itself. In order to really damage the patriarchy, it was necessary to strike at its upper ranks. And thanks to Tiffany Rodriguez bringing Cindy McMann into SASO to complain about Professor Robert Barnes, Ellen exulted that she was now in a position to do just this.

In one sense, what Barnes had done to Cindy was not as serious as anything that the three males featured in the "unwanted" poster had done: he had not raped her, stalked her, or even attempted to fondle her. Cindy had been clear on this last point--Barnes had touched her on the shoulder and nowhere else. In touching her, though, Barnes had done something that none of these other males had done to their victims. For unlike any of them, Prof. Barnes was in a position of authority, and thus his behavior vis-a-vis a student had to be held to a much higher standard than was expected of a male student vis-a-vis a female student.

And from what Cindy had told her (with frequent prompts and reminders from Tiffany), it seemed clear to Ellen that Barnes had not met that higher standard. The incident Cindy related possessed all the elements of a quid pro quo sexual harassment case: 1) they were in his office discussing her grade--the very thing that he exercised control over; 2) the door to his office was closed (Cindy couldn't remember which of them had closed it); and 3) after ridiculing her so much that she started crying, he then touched her shoulder and suggested that she could improve her grade after all. The clear implication of this, of course, was that he would raise her grade if she provided him with sexual favors.

Victims of sexual assault were usually distraught when they came to SASO, but Cindy seemed more distracted than usual. Instead of answering Ellen's questions about the incident with Professor Barnes, Cindy seemed intent on grilling Ellen for information on whether the person who had written "Charles Truehart fondled me!" had filed a complaint against him with SASO and who she might be. Although not strictly ethical, Ellen had finally told Cindy that nobody had filed a complaint against Charles as of yet just so Cindy would concentrate on describing the incident with Barnes.

Despite Ellen's and Tiffany's urging, Cindy had not been prepared to file a formal, written complaint at that meeting. As was her privilege, she had just made an informal, oral statement. As in previous quid pro quo sexual harassment cases where the student had only filed an informal--and hence, anonymous--complaint against a professor, Ellen advised Cindy not to go back to Barnes's office without first notifying SASO, but to attend all remaining classes in her course with him religiously. She should even try to learn to write analytically, as Barnes had suggested (Cindy appeared crestfallen at this, but Tiffany offered to give her some tutoring). Ellen explained that it was essential for her to do everything possible to get an "A" in his class legitimately. By doing this, it would be more difficult for him to discredit her complaint about receiving a low grade due to her refusal to comply with demands for sex with a claim that the low grade was due instead to lack of attendance and poor performance on assignments. Cindy had agreed and the meeting ended with Ellen admonishing her to report any further untoward behavior on the part of Professor Barnes to SASO immediately.

All this had taken place last week. But while Cindy was willing to wait until the end of the semester before pursuing the matter any further, Ellen was not. She had, of course, received complaints from students about unwanted sexual advances from professors in previous years. Many of these cases had been far more serious than Cindy's charges against Professor Barnes. It had been highly gratifying to Ellen that she had been able to help get some--though by no means all--of these jerks fired. Doing this, however, took a long, long time due to the patriarchal insistence on "due process" which discouraged female victims from filing or pursuing complaints against male professors who assailed them sexually.

Now, however, there was the "unwanted" poster which could be used to expedite such cases. And just as Ellen's "outing" of Smith and Garcia had resulted in their quickly being arrested, she calculated that "outing" Professor Barnes would force the central administration at the university to deal with his case far more quickly than it would through the ordinary complaint channels which the patriarchy obstructed through shrouding them in "confidentiality." Ellen saw through that little game! The patriarchy, though, could not protect one of its own so easily if a case received negative publicity.

What, though, should she write on Cindy's behalf? Ellen had at first thought of "Prof. Barnes fondled me," but this was too similar to what had been written about Charles Truehart. Nor was it quite accurate. She also considered writing, "Prof. Barnes hit on me," but this overstated what Cindy had actually said--Ellen was far too scrupulous to do this. But then, sitting there on the toilet, Ellen was inspired to write, "Prof. Barnes touched me inappropriately." This was indefinite, yet suggestive. Yes, this was perfect. It would definitely shake up the patriarchy--provided, of course, that Tricia or someone else from the paper saw it before the Spanish-speaking janitorial staff--being unable to distinguish serious from frivolous graffiti (in English anyway)--scrubbed it away.

* * *

Three hours later, Ellen was back in her office, waiting for the call from Tricia that had not yet come. It was six o'clock in the evening. Regular university offices were closed, but The New Dominion staff was just settling down to work. And so, she anxiously noted, was the janitorial staff that, a quick trip into the corridors of the third floor revealed, had just arrived off the elevator. Luckily, they had started at the opposite end of the floor.

Ellen did not want to be the one who brought any of these sexual assault graffiti items to Tricia's attention for fear that this would eventually result in her being suspected of being their author. Nor did she want to have to write the message again after the janitors washed away the original. She had no way of knowing whether anyone had seen what she had written yet, and she didn't want to risk anyone growing suspicious after seeing the same message appear again after being erased. There would be no reason for anyone to suspect Ellen in particular, but she didn't want any doubt to arise over the integrity of the sexual assault graffiti.

It was getting late. Ellen decided that she had better call Tricia and tell her she had just seen a new message in the women's lavatory when the phone rang. It was Tricia!

"Ellen!" said Tricia breathlessly. "I've been meaning to call you all afternoon! Did you see it? There's been another message in the women's room right here."

"You're kidding!" replied Ellen, feigning surprise.

"I'm not kidding," said Tricia. "And it's not about just some small fry student either. This time, we've caught a big fish professor!"

Chapter 5

Tiffany Rodriguez, dressed as usual in a long pair of jeans, t-shirt, and an unbuttoned long-sleeve flannel shirt, was sitting at her desk in her dorm looking through the latest issue of The New Dominion. She was, she knew, just postponing work on a problem that she hadn't yet figured out how to solve.

Tiffany was a senior majoring in Spanish and minoring in women's studies. She would have majored in women's studies, but there was no such major or department at NDU. The minor was known as an "interdisciplinary" one with courses and faculty drawn from several established departments. This was all the resources, Professor Ann Sweezy had told the students in the Introduction to Women's Studies class Tiffany had taken with her, which the patriarchy running the university would give to this emerging new field which it saw as a threat.

This semester, Tiffany was taking Professor Sweezy's upper division class on Current Issues in Women's Studies. This was going fine, which was not surprising: Tiffany was a serious--a very serious--student. The women's studies minor, though, also required students to enroll in an Experiential Learning in Women's Studies practicum. This was not a regular course per se, but was to be taken concurrently with a regular women's studies course. The student was required to become involved in a community- or campus-based service project which would enable the development of "competencies" in the women's studies field. A paper describing the project and what the student had learned from it was required for the practicum.

Tiffany had no problem writing papers. She was having trouble, though, identifying a project to work on related to the Current Issues in Women's Studies class. Tiffany had asked Professor Sweezy for ideas, but she refused to help, insisting that Tiffany come up with a project on her own. She had said that Tiffany was too academic and needed to become more practical. It was people with practical skills who would be the ones to advance women's causes.

Tiffany attributed Professor Sweezy's emphasis on practicality to her background in public administration. The problem for Tiffany, though, was time. She was already taking a full load of courses and working over twenty hours a week. She simply didn't have the time to serve as an unpaid volunteer for any university offices or community groups dealing with women's issues as several of the other students in the class were doing. Further, the Experiential Learning in Women's Studies practicum specifically excluded projects for which a student received payment. Being paid was allowed in the Internship in Women's Studies, but unlike the practicum which was required for the minor, internships were elective.

What Tiffany really wanted was to design a project that would benefit specific women--maybe even just one woman. She was a little skeptical about some of the projects that other women in the class (everyone in the class happened to be female) were working on which purported to help women in general, even if just in the community or on campus. Tiffany's academic nature led her to question whether volunteer work for a semester in an ongoing program would provide "added value" that would not accrue otherwise, and how this could be measured even if it did. She wanted to prove that she really was practical--more practical, in fact, than the other women in the class who were less academically sophisticated than Tiffany (surely Professor Sweezy could see this). Of course, she wasn't sure what the practicum projects were that all the other students in the class were doing. A few, like that overbearing Tricia Raditz who was in charge of The New Dominion, were being very secretive about theirs. That was not very sisterly.

Whatever they were doing, however, time was slipping away from Tiffany. Professor Sweezy told her after class today that she had to come up with something by next week or drop the practicum. But what?

Tiffany's thoughts were suddenly interrupted when her roommate, Cindy McMann, burst into the room. "That Barnes is a bastard!" she announced in a bitter voice. Cindy then threw herself onto her bed, sobbing.

Tiffany quickly got up from her chair and closed the door to their room. "Cindy, what happened?" she asked with concern.

Cindy picked herself up and sat cross-legged on her bed. Slightly calmer now, she launched into her story. "Remember the midterm I showed you on which he so unfairly gave me a B+?"

Tiffany went and sat on the edge of her own bed, nodding her head in acknowledgement.

"Well, I went to his office to confront him about it," Cindy continued, "and he just ridiculed me!"

"What did he say to you?" asked Tiffany, her eyes growing wide.

"Well, when I first told him that I wasn't satisfied with the grade he gave me, he just snapped back saying he wasn't satisfied with my exam. Then when I told him that you had read it over and that you said it was good, he just laughed at me and asked, `Who's the professor--her or me?'"

Tiffany wished Cindy had not mentioned her name to Professor Barnes. Yes, she had read Cindy's midterm over after it had been returned to her, and yes, she had said she thought it was good. But she had also emphasized that she thought Cindy should go talk to him and seek advice on how to improve her writing. Tiffany, in fact, saw the point of Professor Barnes's comment at the end of Cindy's exam calling for less description and more analysis. Tiffany had not said this herself to Cindy out of fear that they would get into an argument--as they had this past Sunday. Besides, Tiffany was not Cindy's professor; it was Barnes's job to give her guidance about her writing, not Tiffany's. But not through ridiculing her!

"He kept telling me," Cindy continued, "that I needed to write analytically, not descriptively. But instead of telling me clearly what `writing analytically' means, he just confused me--deliberately!"

"How do you mean?" asked Tiffany. She really was fond of Cindy. Cindy, of course, was not Tiffany's intellectual equal, and Cindy knew it. Tiffany realized that she wouldn't have liked her as much--indeed, not much at all--if Cindy hadn't known this. Cindy, though, seemed happy to look up to, seek advice from, and admire Tiffany in the intellectual realm--something that Tiffany found deeply satisfying. But Tiffany also admired Cindy. If left to her own devices, Tiffany knew that she would have little--if any--social life. Cindy, though, met people easily and attracted a stream of visitors to their room, some of whom Tiffany became friends with too. Tiffany knew that she would never have met them if Cindy had not been her roommate, and so Tiffany was grateful for her friendship. Nevertheless, Cindy's sociability was not always something positive as far as Tiffany was concerned. In fact, it had been the cause of their confrontation this past Sunday.

Cindy had a boyfriend. That didn't bother Tiffany, but what did was feeling pressured by Cindy to leave their room when he came to visit so that the two of them could be alone--obviously to have sex. This was not a situation Tiffany was used to. The woman she had roomed with during her first two years at NDU had not had a boyfriend; she and Tiffany would still be roommates except that she transferred to UVA. Tiffany's roommate last year did have a boyfriend, but she had always gone to visit him at his place; they were now living together.

The situation that arose with Cindy, then, was not one Tiffany had been prepared for. Each Saturday evening since the start of this school year, Tiffany had felt pressured to leave the room--sometimes quite late at night--when Cindy and her boyfriend had begun kissing on Cindy's bed. They had not actually asked her to leave. Indeed, they didn't even seem to be aware that she was still there. Each time, though, Tiffany had announced that she was going to the library and left--partly out of fear that they would copulate right there in front of her if she didn't. And each time she had been so angry at feeling pressured to leave her room when she hadn't wanted to that she couldn't do any studying, but just sat in the current periodicals section of the library looking through feminist journals. Each time there had also been the little problem of trying to calculate when it was safe to return. She tried to telephone, but Cindy had always turned her cell phone off, and so all Tiffany would get was her voice mail. This either meant that Cindy was still busy with her boyfriend and Tiffany should stay away, or that they had finished, Cindy was asleep, and Tiffany could go back.

Each time, Tiffany had returned to the dorm precisely after one hour, knocked softly on the door, and quietly re-entered their room when there was no answer. Luckily, the boyfriend had left and Cindy was asleep on each occasion. But then Tiffany felt annoyed because, after Cindy had inconvenienced her, she now felt she had to tiptoe around the room so as not to waken her. Tiffany's anger would then keep her lying awake for hours and would still be there the next morning, freshly aroused by Cindy waking up in an annoyingly happy mood.

Tiffany would never have done this to Cindy. Of course, Tiffany did not have--had never had or even felt the desire for--a boyfriend, and so was not in a position to do unto Cindy what Cindy had done unto her. It's not that she had ruled out having a boyfriend. But she certainly would never have one whom she considered to be her intellectual inferior. She had never met a male, though, who wasn't. Nor did males ever seem to recognize this deficiency in themselves--which, of course, was the most obvious proof of its existence.

In addition, Tiffany was frightened about the possibility of contracting AIDS. She recognized that males were so obsessed with sex that they would do anything--even risk contracting AIDS--to get it. She did not, though, understand how women could be--it had to be acknowledged--promiscuous. Tiffany had never felt such an overwhelming desire for sex that she would seek it no matter what the possible consequences. That was just not sensible. Such urges could and should be controlled.

Finally, she had too much studying and work to accomplish at this point in her life. A boyfriend--even one with progressive views--would at best be a distraction. What she really feared, though, was that a "boyfriend" would turn out to be a "boyenemy" and try to prevent her from accomplishing all the things she needed to accomplish. That's what men did to women. This had been demonstrated to her repeatedly both through the readings and lectures in her women's studies classes as well as her own personal observation. Why didn't Cindy seem to understand something as basic as this?

"At first he told me," said Cindy, "that he wanted me to tell him what I thought about Hobbes's theory of international relations. But later he said he didn't care what my opinion about Hobbes was."

The blowup had come on Sunday when Cindy's boyfriend (Tiffany could not--would not--remember his name) came back to their room. Tiffany was determined that she was not going to be forced out two days in a row. As the two of them began kissing on Cindy's bed, Tiffany continued to work on her computer at her desk. When after a few minutes Cindy asked if it wasn't time for her to go to the library, Tiffany had turned around and said, "I think it's high time you two went there--and maybe did some reading up about AIDS." Cindy and her boyfriend, obviously embarrassed, quickly got up and left the room.

Two hours later, Cindy returned alone, and the two of them had then exchanged angry words. Cindy had criticized Tiffany for not leaving the room earlier that day; Tiffany had said that pressuring her to leave the room on several occasions was far ruder. Cindy had accused Tiffany of being jealous of her for having a boyfriend, and of being too stiff to ever have one herself.

Cindy later apologized for having made Tiffany feel pressured to leave the room in the past (Cindy, much to Tiffany's amazement, said that she hadn't realized this bothered her), and promised that it wouldn't happen again. They agreed to put the episode behind them. Still, some of the things Cindy had said about her had stung.

"Oh, and you know what else he said?" Cindy continued. "He said that the view that women are inferior to men is just as valid as the view that women are equal to men. Can you believe that?"

Tiffany's eyes opened wider. Up to now, she thought that Cindy had been overreacting, even if Professor Barnes appeared to have been rude. But this was different. This was serious. It was an affront to all women. "I can't believe he'd say something that blatant!" commented Tiffany.

"And do you know what else he did?" asked Cindy. "He put his fucking hand on my shoulder! Can you believe that?"

Yes, Tiffany could believe it. It was a very pretty shoulder, especially bare like it was in the sleeveless top Cindy was wearing. "No!" exclaimed Tiffany. "He touched you like that? Was the door open?"

Cindy thought for a moment. "No, it was closed."

Tiffany knew that this was extremely serious--too serious not to do something about. "Cindy," she said solemnly, "that was a sexual assault. Professor Barnes assaulted you sexually."

Cindy looked puzzled. "I...I'm not sure..."

"Oh, come on, Cindy!" Tiffany interrupted. "A male professor touches a female student on the shoulder--on her bare shoulder--in his office with the door closed when she came to ask him to raise her midterm grade? That's a classic quid pro quo case."

"Quid pro quo?" asked Cindy.

Poor Cindy! She really wasn't very bright, thought Tiffany. But that's exactly why she needed to be protected. "You know: `You scratch my back, I'll scratch yours.' By touching your shoulder, he was signaling that he would change your grade---for a price."

"Yeah?" asked Cindy.

"Of course!" said Tiffany in exasperation. "What else?" She thought of something else. "What did you do when he touched you?"

"I...I got up and left," replied Cindy.

"Good for you!" Tiffany praised her. "But look, Cindy, this isn't over yet. You're still in his class. He might either make this little proposal again or he might retaliate against you for not giving him what he obviously wants. You've got to put a stop to him--not just for yourself, but for all women. Because you know that if he's done this to you, he's probably done it to other sisters too."

"Maybe I should file a complaint," said Cindy. She suddenly laughed. "I overheard him say that he is going up for tenure this year. I wouldn't mind doing something to mess that up for him!"

"So he's going up for tenure, is he? That's important to know," observed Tiffany. "It means we have some leverage over him. I know that once they get tenure, it's almost impossible to get rid of them no matter what they do. If something is going to be done about Barnes, it has to be done now."

"Perhaps I should say something to the chair of the Political Science Department, Dr. Silverstein," mused Cindy. "She's a woman! I had gone to her office to complain about Barnes just after leaving his office. She was in some meeting. I waited fifteen minutes until it was over, but then she ran out saying she couldn't talk to me because she was late for something else. I'll call her office now and make an appointment."

"Forget her!" Tiffany said emphatically. "Professor Sweezy told us in class that Silverstein had sold out to the patriarchy here long ago. Why else would the male powers-that-be let her become chair of the department? They put her there, Professor Sweezy told us, because she was willing to keep other women down."

Cindy laughed again. "I'm not surprised if the male powers-that-be don't consider her a threat, considering Silverstein looks more like a man than a woman," she said.

Tiffany frowned. She wished she could teach Cindy that for a woman to criticize another woman's appearance was neither progressive nor sisterly. Tiffany and Professor Sweezy, by contrast, had criticized Silverstein on principle, so that, of course, was different. But Tiffany decided not to take this up with Cindy just now: she had to go one step at a time with her.

"Let me show you something," said Tiffany who then got up from her bed, picked up the copy of The New Dominion from her desk, and sat next to Cindy with it on the other bed. "Have you seen this yet?" asked Tiffany, showing Cindy the inside back page of the paper. There was a quarter page ad that read, "Report sexual assault and other unwanted sexual behavior to the Sexual Assault Services Office" along with its room number in the Student Union Building, phone number, and e-mail address.

Cindy took the paper in her hands, giving the ad a cursory glance. She then closed the page over and looked at the very back page. "Hey, look at this!"

The outside back page was done up to look like a wanted poster from the days of the "Wild West." Instead of reading, "Wanted!" however, the banner headline at the top read, "UNWANTED!" In smaller type underneath appeared, "Sexual Predators at NDU Revealed!" And in smaller type still was printed, "The female staff of The New Dominion witnessed the following cries of pain written on the walls and the stalls of the women's lavatories at NDU."

And below this in quotation marks:

"Brian Smith is a rapist!"

"Oscar Garcia is stalking me!"

"Charles Truehart fondled me!"

At the bottom of the page was printed, "Don't tolerate unwanted sexual behavior! Out it!"

"I don't fucking believe it!" shouted Cindy.

"It's a sad comment on what women have to endure here," observed Tiffany. "You see, you're not alone."

"Did you see this about Charles Truehart?" asked Cindy.

"Is he someone you know?" asked Tiffany.

"Surely you haven't forgotten," said Cindy. "He's my boyfriend! But it looks like he's been hitting on someone else at the same time! God, men are all assholes!"

Tiffany was embarrassed. Yes, of course: that was his name. Secretly, though, she was glad that he had been "outed." Now Cindy would no longer be entertaining him in their dorm room.

"You know what I think?" asked Tiffany. "I think you should report this incident with Professor Barnes to the Sexual Assault Services Office. If you like, I can go over with you to lend moral support. Do you want me to call and make an appointment?"

Cindy nodded her head. While Tiffany talked on the phone, she just sat on her bed staring at the unwanted poster page. After putting the phone down, Tiffany came back over to where Cindy was sitting. "It's all set!" she said cheerfully. "You have an appointment next week!"

And, Tiffany thought, she herself finally had a project for her women's studies practicum, one that she knew Professor Sweezy would approve of: helping guide Cindy through this sexual assault crisis she was experiencing.

Chapter 4

"It still seems funny," said Ruth Silverstein, laughing gently, "for me to be sitting in the chair's chair and you to be sitting in the guest chair." She was talking to the previous chair of the Political Science Department, Trond Knutsen, in what was now her office.

"I sat in that chair long enough," Trond returned. "I don't want to ever sit there again. And when the time comes, I'll bet that you'll be happy to give it up to someone else too."

Ruth wasn't prepared to give it up yet, though. She had only just become chair--actually, acting chair--on September 1. After just over a month on the job, she had found it to be exhilarating in some ways. As a department chair, she was invited--in fact, expected--to attend important meetings with senior administrators at the university with whom she had had almost no contact with before. This would give her, she hoped, the opportunity to interact with them and make a positive impact on university decision-making. And just by virtue of her being chair, she had begun receiving invitations to serve on important committees both in the university and outside it in the profession. She had even been invited to give some talks herself.

On the other hand, she had also found that being a department chair had many frustrations. The OTPS (other than personnel services) budget for the department was small--only $30,000 for the year. This did not go very far, though, in a department with twenty-one professors and an office staff of four. Not only did this sum have to cover the postage, telephone, photocopy, office supplies, and other miscellaneous charges for this group, but it also had to pay for professional travel. Back in the old days, Ruth remembered, the department faculty did not present papers at professional conferences all that frequently, and so travel money was available for those who did. Now, however, more departmental faculty--especially the younger ones--were presenting papers at conferences. This, of course, was excellent for the visibility of the department, but a real strain on the budget. Although she had chafed at it when Trond was chair, she felt that she had no other choice but to continue his policy of allocating no more than $250 in travel money per professor per year--a sum which obviously did not go very far.

What she had also discovered in just the past few weeks was just how uncooperative the department's faculty could be. It took a lot of work to keep a department running smoothly. The chair depended on faculty members to participate in departmental meetings, to serve on departmental committees, and to vigorously defend the department's interests on college- and university-level committees.

Much to her dismay, though, she found that it was often very difficult to get some of the faculty to do these things, or to do them well even when they consented to serve. Some of the tenured faculty she had asked to serve on committees had simply refused, saying that their plates were already full. Nor could she force them to serve: they already had tenure and they knew that the chair did not have the power to reward extra service with higher pay.

This, however, was to be expected. She had herself refused some additional service responsibilities that Trond had asked her to perform when he was chair. But she, of course, had been justified: she was then, after all, performing the time consuming task of running the department's MPA program. What she had not expected, however, was that even some of the tenure track faculty would turn down her requests to serve on various committees. They said it would get in the way of the research they needed to get done in order to be awarded tenure! The worst offender by far, though, was Rob Barnes. As far as she was concerned, he was just a little too big for his britches.

"One of the things I wanted to talk to you about," she said, "is your agreement with Rob Barnes about when he would go up for tenure. As you can see," she said pointing to a thickly packed three-ring binder, "he's already prepared his dossier. But it's just his third year. That's awfully early. I would prefer that he wait a year. Besides, this is Ann Sweezy's sixth year, when she has to go up. Her publication record is not as strong as his, and I'm afraid that if they both go up together, she's not going to look good in comparison."

Both Ruth and Trond were intimately familiar with the academic year-long process that promotion and tenure decisions took. The candidate prepared a dossier detailing his or her teaching, research, and service record, attaching copies of publications. The candidate also submitted a list of half a dozen tenured professors at other universities who were prominent specialists in the candidate's area of research. The chair would select three professors from this list, plus select at least one other not on it, to serve as external reviewers who would write a letter evaluating the candidate's suitability for promotion and tenure.

Sometimes it was difficult to assemble a group of external reviewers for a candidate. But once this had been done and their letters received by the chair, they would be added to the candidate's dossier. The dossier would then be considered by and receive a written recommendation which would be added to the dossier from 1) the tenured members of the candidate's department; 2) the chair of the candidate's department; 3) the promotion and tenure committee of the college or school the candidate's department was located in; 4) the dean of that college or school; and 5) the provost. Although the candidate would not be allowed to see the letters from external reviewers (at least, not officially), he or she would receive copies of the recommendations received in these five stages.

These recommendations, though, were purely advisory. The final decision would then be made in a sixth stage by the president. If the president's decision was positive, the dossier would be sent on to a seventh stage--ratification by the board of trustees--but this was a formality. If the president's decision was negative, the dossier would not be sent to the board of trustees. Candidates who received a negative decision during their "up or out" sixth year normally received reappointment for one last year during which they could appeal the decision--as well as search for another job. If their appeal was unsuccessful, there would be no further reappointment at the end of that seventh year.

"I have to tell you, Ruth," said Trond. "Rob and I had an agreement from the time he was hired that he would go up in this third year. He's had this expectation all along. I don't think we can tell him now that he can't. If you did, we might well lose him. Considering what a young hot shot he is, I don't think the administration would appreciate that. And besides, anyone who wants to can decide to go up early for tenure."

But virtually no one did, Ruth thought, without the blessing of his or her chair. "But Trond: that boy has not done one lick of service at the department, college, or university level. He turned me down flat when I asked him to serve as the department's representative on that new committee that's supposed to revise the general education requirements."

Trond rolled his eyes at this, and she knew why. No one was happy with the existing gen ed requirements, but no one could agree on how to revise them. Committees to do this had been appointed in each of the last five years. Even when they did, after months of rancorous debate, agree on a plan to present to the faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences, the faculty had unfailingly voted it down.

"When I asked him why he wouldn't serve on it," she continued, "he actually had the nerve to tell me that it was just something he wasn't interested in! Can you believe that? Whoever said that assistant professors have to be interested in the work of a committee before being assigned to it?"

"Now look, Ruth, you and I both know that Rob's research record more than qualifies him for tenure."

"But why shouldn't he do service work the way Ann has--the way most of us, including me, did? If he gets away without having done his share before he gets tenure, do you think he's ever going to do any for us after he gets it?"

"That's not the point, Ruth. We all did a lot of service before getting tenure because we didn't do all that much research. Rob has done a lot of research, therefore he doesn't have to do as much service. And you know as well as I do that a dossier like his is going to sail through without a problem. He's the kind of person the administration wants here at NDU."

"But look Trond: I am really worried about Ann. That book she's been working on since before she even came here is finally coming out. But the publisher is SPA."

SPA was short for Scholastic Press of America, Inc. It was not a university press, but a "scholarly commercial" one instead. In the academic world, scholarly commercial presses were considered to be much less prestigious than university presses. And while some scholarly commercial presses were quite reputable due to their being as selective about what they accepted for publication as any university press, SPA was not in this group. Indeed, it had a reputation for being willing to publish just about anything (but only printing a few hundred hard back copies which they sold for $40-60 each just to libraries). Ruth, though, knew that this reputation was unfair as she understood that poor Ann had had a tough time getting her manuscript even through SPA's review process.

"Ann's had as much time as anyone to write and publish," said Trond. "She only has herself to blame if she hasn't."

"Oh, come on, Trond! You know as well as I do that she's undertaken a backbreaking load of service work ever since she came here. You certainly didn't spare her in that regard."

"Hey, I admit that I asked her to serve on several departmental committees and that she never said, `No,'" Trond acknowledged. "But I never asked her to serve on committees outside the department. She volunteered for that herself. In fact, I tried to dissuade her from volunteering for that Sexual Assault Complaint Review Committee because it might eat up her research time, but she insisted on doing it anyway."

Yes, Ruth knew that Ann was a highly enthusiastic committeewoman. At department meetings, she had the annoying habit of wanting to argue on and on in defense of her position even when it was clear that the rest of the faculty didn't support her and wanted to move on to something else or end the meeting. Still, she had been a real trooper about taking on extra student advisees when the faculty member they had been assigned to was on leave. She had taken some of Rob Barnes's students last year when he was at Harvard, but Ruth doubted that Rob was even aware of that.

"I don't want to beat this to death, Trond, but here's the point: Ann has to go up this year but Rob doesn't. I tried to persuade Rob to wait a year so that Ann's dossier won't be compared with his, but he, of course, wouldn't budge. My only hope is that you might be able to persuade him."

Trond shook his head. "I'm sorry, Ruth, but I can't help you. I'm far more worried about losing Rob than I am about losing Ann. Don't you see how embarrassing it would be for our department if someone like Rob decided to go elsewhere? And while I hope Ann gets tenure, it won't be the end of the world for the department if she doesn't. I think we both know that if her position suddenly opened up, we would be able to fill it with someone far more qualified--someone more on Rob's level."

"God, what a typical way for a man to think!" Ruth exclaimed. "You use a woman for all she's worth, and then toss her aside when you're done with her!"

"If gets shot down this year, she can always appeal next year," said Trond.

"Oh, won't that be fun for us all!" rejoined Ruth. As both knew from previous experience in the department, dealing with someone going through the emotional strain of a marginal up-or-out tenure application was hard enough, but was nothing compared to dealing with someone who had been denied tenure and was appealing the decision in a terminal seventh year.

"All right," she continued, "I didn't think I could convince you to get Rob to delay going up, but I promised Ann that I'd try. She became frantic when she realized that Rob would be going up at the same time that she was. But she's just going to have to get over it. Besides, there's something else we need to talk about--this new Public Policy Institute."

Unlike Rob Barnes, this was a subject which they shared similar views on. The entire Political Science Department had been caught off guard by the announcement of its creation last month; no one from the department had been involved in the planning for it. Worse yet, Ruth's memos to both the president and the provost pointing out the overlap between the department's and the new institute's research interests and suggesting that the former play a role in shaping the latter had so far received only evasive answers.

To top it off, Ruth and Trond had between them blown what little opportunity the department may have had to select the institute's first director. Shortly after President Michaelson's press conference announcing the creation of the institute, the provost had sent an e-mail to all faculty announcing that the five faculty members on the selection committee for its director would be chosen by mail ballot, and called for nominations. Without consulting each other or anyone else in the department, Ruth and Trond had both sent back an e-mail to the provost asking to be placed on the ballot.

When she and Trond had realized that both of their names were on the ballot, they had naively hoped that they both would be elected to the selection committee. Whether by accident or design, though, each of the other five professors listed on the ballot was the only nominee from his or her particular department or school. Although Ruth didn't know for sure, she suspected that these other departments or schools had rallied their faculty members to vote for their nominee. While political science was one of the larger departments, its votes ended up being split between Trond and Ruth. These factors were what made the difference in a low turnout election--as most faculty mail ballots at NDU were.

In retrospect, it seemed obvious that if only one of them had run, he or she probably would have been elected. This was not the first time that the Political Science Department had proven itself to be far less adept at university politics than other departments. Ruth was pissed at Trond for not checking with her before nominating himself for the ballot. There was no point, though, in engaging in recriminations over this now that it was too late to do anything.

"You know," said Trond, "this Public Policy Institute may really spoil our plans for building up our department's public administration program.”

She knew--only too well. Over the past few years when she and Trond had hoped that an expanding MPA program would allow them to receive permission from the central administration to add faculty to the public administration section of the department. They had even hoped to get permission from the dean of the College of Arts and Sciences to grant a one class course release per year for one PA faculty member to devote serious attention to writing grant proposals. They feared, though, that this was a lot to ask, and so they had postponed asking for it.

Grants were wonderful things not only because they provided the direct costs to do whatever had been proposed in them, but also a substantial additional amount for "overhead"--that is, money to subsidize the ongoing operations of the university. The department would be able to keep a portion of the overhead received on any grants awarded to it--something that could do much to augment the meager OTPS budget provided by the central administration. The College of Arts and Sciences would also get a cut--thus helping to improve the department's standing with the dean. But grants awarded to this new institute would provide no money from overhead either to the department or the college, but just to itself and the central administration. It would be especially galling if, as the report about the president's press conference in What's New at NDU stated, professors would be encouraged to solicit grants through the institute and hence not through their departments.

"I think," said Ruth, "that this might be a good time to approach Dominic with our request for a course release for grant proposal writing." Dominic DiSola was the dean of the college of arts and sciences.

"Yes," agreed Trond. "Dominic should be our ally in this." He had not always been the Political Science Department's ally in the past, but this new institute threatened the college's interests as much as it did the department's.

"I don't think that it will come as a surprise to you," said Ruth, "that I would like to receive a regular four-year appointment as chair after this one-year acting appointment. Now, if our external chair search had succeeded, that would have added one more person to our faculty allocation. If I remain as chair, I wonder if we can get the dean to give us the extra position we would have gotten for an additional PA slot."

"That's possible," said Trond slowly. "I think he might go for that. The question is, of course, can he get the provost to go along?"

"Yeah, I know it's a long shot," she responded. "But we've at least got to try." One way, of course, to get that extra position would be to re-open the external chair search. Ruth would either have to compete with others for the job or step down from it after her year as acting chair. She did not want to do either.

"You know something?" she asked, with a malicious twinkle. "If Rob Barnes really did leave, we could convert his slot from an international relations to a public administration position. Maybe I should tell him that he can't go up this year so that he'll get mad enough to go somewhere else."

"Ruth!" exclaimed Trond. "That wouldn't be right! Besides, if you tried to convert his position to PA, the IR faculty really would revolt."

The Political Science Department had three main components: public administration, American government and politics, and international relations. There had been talk among the IR faculty about seceding from political science and forming their own department, but fortunately they were not agreed on this--although Ruth doubted they could do it even if they were.

"It was just a thought," said Ruth. "Of course, since Ann's in public administration, losing her wouldn't allow us to gain another PA position, but only to replace her."

"If we're lucky!" said Trond. "The dean could give her slot--or Rob's if he left--to another department. But assuming Rob stayed and Ann left, the dean might let us keep her position but could give it either to American government or IR." Both being PA types themselves, neither Ruth nor Trond wanted that.

Ruth looked at her watch. "Whoops! There's a chairs' meeting I've got to get to."

"Better you than me!" said Trond grinning as they both got up and left.