Sticks and Stones and Words and Harm

We were sitting in her office. I was trying to explain where we had gone wrong, not only in terms of character assessment but in terms of The College’s ethical checks and balance system. Or lack thereof. I rattled off the multiple events that ought to have warranted more scrutiny. I gave Her a precise cataloguing of what he had done, what we hadn’t done, and how it had harmed our students. We were at fault.

 The Dean didn’t like hearing that. Fault sounds like institutional negligence which sounds like a lawsuit. That’s not what I had in mind, but to be fair that’s why She was The Dean and I was not: She knew to keep the institution’s best interests foremost in mind.

She fixated on one word in particular: harm. “That word gets thrown around a lot,” The Dean said, exasperated, probably wishing that this mess hadn’t fallen into Her lap. “What is it we even mean by harm.”

There is something petty about turning a serious discussion into a semantic one. It is the coward’s way out. and in that moment I realized we weren’t going to talk right and wrong anymore because those concepts no longer held any meaning. Instead, She was going to push the conversation onto Her intellectual home turf, to transform a discussion about how we practice care into an academic lesson in moral relativism.  

Up until then, I thought we had a certain sameness of sentiment. The Dean was A Queer Woman in a time when academia was hostile to women in general, more fiercely yet to women who loved women. Such experiences leave scars. So harm, yes harm, Dean, Isn’t that what we call it? When men use their position of power over women? When an older man takes advantage of a younger woman in order to sexually sate himself? And isn’t that what it’s called when those with authority look the other way even though they know something is amiss? Dear Dean, isn’t that, too, harm?

**

we recruited him into the program early on. I’ll be honest, I was never a fan. he was rude, cocky. when I spoke, his eyes bore into me like he resented my voice. not the sound of it. the fact that I had one.

 he came with benefits, though. for one, he was married. she was sweet and pretty and had sparkling blue-green eyes – she was everything wives are supposed to be. Plus she was Latina, something he never let us forget. and maybe she would rein in the worst of his (white) (male) excesses, we said to ourselves. it was worth a try because, let’s be honest, they burnished the new program’s reputation with their wholesomeness.

and he poured his time into the program, too. he orchestrated trips to the beach, to museums, to Philadelphia. he organized flag football matches and water gun fights, holiday parties and game nights. in those days we didn’t even have the budget. he’d pay out of pocket, this married graduate students living on a graduate student “income,” his family living on a shoestring budget. through constant free labor he kept students happy but more importantly he made sure that the newly appointed Director would shine bright. I tried to tell them even then-- this was not dedication; it was obsession.

the students noticed. not all, but some. and when it’s just a few, they’re easy to ignore.

queer students of color, they couldn’t stand him. once they came to talk to us, and they felt the need to bring staff from the LGBTQ center as moral support. how it stung to realize a student needed support just to talk to us, to me. They asked us to do something about him. They asked us for protection, for action. it was a low kind of begging. I’d never been so disgusted with myself.

I was militant after that. I remember the Director took me out to drinks after the meeting, a gesture of pacification no doubt. she plied me with martinis. blue-cheese stuffed olives. extra dirty, just how I like them. “So what do you think?” she asked. those were the days when she still asked me for my opinion. when she still saw it as our program, not just her professional stepping stone to greater things. when she still kept her ego in check.

I told the truth, which is what always gets me in trouble, isn’t it. I can’t remember the exact words. but im sure I didn’t mince them: he needs to go.

the look in her eye. I knew the Director well enough to know that this was The Wrong Answer. she was going to have to bring this horse to water one way or another.

she came up with a few solutions, none of them direct, none of them effective. but that didn’t really matter. all that mattered was that we could tell the students we “did something,” we could keep The Dean from knowing anything, and we would continue to reap all the rewards of of his obsession.  it became our little secret.

** 

it was summer. the students had been acting squirrelly. they were hiding something – something big. I kept asking, but eyes would dart and wouldn’t dare meet mine. they’d only look at one another and tell me they couldn’t say, which really says it all, doesn’t it.

a few days later his wife called me. it was the end of summer, sticky with sweat. I remember I was at home, looking out the window, knowing but not knowing what was about to happen. she told me then that her husband was dating (is that even the word?) a student. she’d been covering it up for a while. why? for him? for herself? maybe it was for their newborn. this family that we’d wanted so badly, that we’d so coveted, so desired -- this family that fell apart on our watch.

I was livid. that throbbing in my neck and throat. I called the Director. I told her everything but I didn’t trust her to deliver the message. so I told The Dean, that compassionate mentor, that moral beacon, that feminist shero. the Director was blinded by her own ambition but The Dean, She would know what to do. I just needed to get the message to Her and we could set things right at last.

**

“What is it we even mean by harm.”

            She just graduated from high school. She’s a child. 

“She’s 18.”

            He’s 15 years older than her. He had no right.

“They’re both adults.”

            He’s a figure of authority, a leader in the program.

“She consented.”

            What is consent when someone much older, more powerful than you, someone who everyone will believe, whom everyone has already believed and protected – what is consent in that context?

“…”

if I were back in that room now, id know what to say. Yes, Dean, I would say, words have power. Yes, Dean, they can be used to incite, to alarm. But, Dear Dean, they can also be used to deflect, evade, deceive; to muddle, obscure, confuse. I am no child. I know all too well how the real world works. But Dean, I thought you did too and that we agreed to always be careful about choosing the side of power which is so blatantly bent on protecting those who do harm and silencing those upon whom that harm is visited. I suppose, Dean, that we have the same politics, but our values, they pull in opposite directions now. And so, I suppose, will we.