Right Wing Nation

KC Johnson has an article about the lawsuit here; there is as much information in the comments as the original article (and Johnson promises a longer, more detailed article soon). I’m going to focus exclusively on the lawsuit, and let others discuss the ramifications of the “rape” case itself (Betsy Newmark has been discussing these issues extensively; for highly detailed discussions of the development of the case itself, see KC Johnson’s blog).

The lawsuit charges that Assistant Professor Kim Curtis, in the Political Science department at Duke, abused her authority by failing the two lacrosse team players in her class. Note that neither of these students was charged or implicated in the Nifong travesty.

We need to get one thing out of the way. There is no question that the Fs she gave the lacrosse team players were unwarranted. The university found that there had been a “calculation error,” and changed the students’ grades. So the question of whether she engaged in grade retaliation purely out of personal and political spite is settled. She did exactly that.

Nor is this the first time she had failed students out of spite. She has done the same with ROTC students in the past (see the comment thread in the Johnson article). So she has a pattern of abusing her authority solely to make some sort of self-righteous point.

This leads me to the first point: In a perfect world, the university would have disciplined her before, disciplined her in some way to ensure that she never did it again. Of course, in a perfect world, the university would have forced Cathy Davidson to resign from her position as Vice Provost for signing the Group of 88 statement — precisely because she was Vice Provost, and abused her position by taking a stand on the issue and signing that statement.

Then, in a perfect world, the university would have stood behind the principle of “innocent until proven guilty” for its lacrosse team players. Duke did not, because it isn’t a perfect world.

Had a colleague of mine engaged in grade retaliation, and merely to make some kind of perverse, masturbatory, leftist political statement only to herself, I probably would be calling for her head on a platter. There are things that just cannot be tolerated at any institution of higher learning, and failing students merely to make yourself feel all warm and fuzzy about what a good little feminutjob liberal you are is one of those things that can never be tolerated. And given that Kim Curtis isn’t tenured, the university could easily fire her and be done with it. Then, they should have done that the first time she did this — yet they did not.

Forget the university. Her course grade was based on three papers and “participation,” each 25% of the total grade. Twenty-five percent is far too much any faculty member should be allowed to weigh participation in any class (and usually is a way to subjectively bias grades). Her department should have said, “No.” But they did not.

If we look at this in isolation, then yes, I not only understand why she should be fired, but agree with it. However, this incident does not exist in isolation, and here is where I start having trouble with this whole situation.

Stop thinking of Duke, or Nifong, or the Gang of 88. I really don’t care much about the welfare of Duke, Nifong, or any of the brain-dead faculty on the Gang of 88 idiots. If Duke were forced out of business for all time, I wouldn’t care. I do care about the future of universities in general.

Universities stand behind their faculty because they should stand behind their faculty. Most people have no idea how many spurious charges are filed at universities against faculty, by angry, bitter students who feel they deserved an A even though they never went to class, never turned in assignments, and only took half of the tests. Universities have whole bureaucracies just to deal with student complaints. There is a reason university faculty are cynical about complaining students.

Most do not know that for well over a decade we have seen a growing fear of litigation at universities, and universities (and departments) have been adopting various policies as a result, such as archiving all student materials — including all email messages — for at least a year (as many as four years at some universities, I’ve been told), writing longer and more detailed syllabi to ensure that everything is in writing at the beginning of the semester, documenting all meetings and communications with students, and in one case, insisting that all faculty members record office hours and other appointments with students.

I would like to see this woman hang as much as anyone, but I don’t like the precedent this lawsuit will set. I bear no grudge against the plaintiffs; I blame the university and her department for not dealing with her sooner, and for allowing this travesty to happen.

Because make no mistake, this never should have happened. Grade retaliation is the grossest violation of ethics. Grade retaliation for no better reason than to make yourself feel good about what a wonderful feminist liberal you are is reprehensible.

The other problem is that this is neither a political issue nor an academic freedom issue. Even if Duke fires her, this situation will ripple through the academic community as a political and academic freedom issue. Instead of decrying this woman for degrading the academy as a whole with her abuse, academics will rally round her. There will be columns in the Chronicle, no doubt wailing about the Bush Administration “silencing” opponents and holding Kim Curtis up as a martyr. The AAUP will issue some idiotic, knee-jerk statement on Kim Curtis’s behalf. There will be choruses of kumbayah and hand wringing and leftist narcissism and imagined martyrdom across America’s universities because of poor, “silenced” Kim Curtis. And universities will strengthen their culture of leftist groupthink, because nothing encourages leftist groupthink like imagined martyrdom.

Even if Duke does not fire her — although I suspect they will, given the damage they have done to their reputation already — the leftist academic community will use her to further their self-interest and tighten their control on universities. There will still be hand wringing and kumbayah singing and protests and “statements” and letters to editors, and poor Kim Curtis will still be “silenced.” Only if academics feel enough shame about the Duke “rape” tragedy will they prefer to just ignore this and hope Kim Curtis goes far, far away.

That’s the best case scenario. Unless Duke finds some way to end this lawsuit before it goes to court, the damage to faculty across the United States will already have been done.