On Friday, May 11, at 2 PM I had to go before the governing body of the faculty organization (MCCFO) to present my request that the Senate grieve the only item left under its discretion--the College's punishment for my alleged (and still unadjudicated) crimes:

1. disruption of the educational process (i.e., my answering student
questions about my 3-day suspension in February, 1999, "in defiance of" a
gag order forbidding me to speak to students about discipline or the reasons
therefore. Also, I had wantonly called this gag order "a gag order" instead
of "a privacy directive;"

2. destroying the "confidentiality rights" of the Complainant by sharing
her redacted complaint with students and faculty [as an illustration of the
new engine of censorship and oppression];

3. "retaliating" against the Complainant by writing and distributing a satirical lampoon of College and Complainant [especially their attempts to destroy free speech].

I faced some twenty colleagues and the Union's attorney (M. Cousens, whom I'd sued two years ago, for conspiring to destroy my career--and about whom Judge Borman said: "Would you want THIS man defending YOU?", offered in response to College attorney Brady's assertion that Bonnell was "well-represented" by said counsel.).  There were also about seven other teachers present as an interested audience. (In the past, such visitors had been ordered out of the room, to "protect" my "privacy rights, even though, throughout this dispute, I've always scorned such a dubious "benefit." On this occasion, prefaced by e-mails to the President of MCCFO and, now, personal affirmation, I pointedly waived my "privacy rights" so that, as F.I.R.E. puts it, the cleansing sun might shine in.)

For the first hour, after setting up of recording equipment, introductions of non-senators, establishment of rules of procedure, I presented my arguments as to why so horrific a punishment (half-year suspension without pay) was wholly inappropriate for so questionable
a catalogue of crimes. I asserted that Cinci's federal panel did not find that I had, indeed, committed the alleged offenses. The Court "merely" stated that if a professor should ever perpetrate such outrages, then certainly the College would have every right and responsibility to take corrective action. (The Union attorney disputed my interpretation, claiming that, in effect, the ruling for the College demonstrated my guilt on all counts.)

Then the seven visitors rose to speak on my behalf. I was surprised and gratified by their courage, for such witness was unprecedented.  Previously, only one colleague, in a strong letter to all faculty, challenged the Union's conduct in its cooperation with the College's
assault. As they spoke, their emotion (much of it due to intimidation or fear, I presume) was obvious.

Then each senator (most of them) spoke, saying:

1. It was clear that I had violated the gag order, with the Chief Negotiator, co-owner of the Union, repeatedly badgering me thus: "So, you admit that you spoke to your students, you admit that you knew Mr. MacQueen's directive forbade such conduct, but you proceeded anyway, didn't you? DIDN'T YOU? (The Union attorney agreed that I had committed a violation.  I was absolutely obliged to follow the order [I pointed out that I had followed the order, for three weeks, breaking the silence only because the dispute had appeared in the county newspaper and some students had read it and wanted to know what was going on. Even then, I only gave them the two-minute "short version." But any version was still a violation, said the attorney.  I then reminded him that I had asked for the Union's position on the seemingly unconstitutional gag order. But the Union put me off for a month, claiming it was waiting this attorney's opinion.] All an employee can do when given a disagreeable order is, comply perfectly and grieve vigorously.  [I neglected to point out to them that all my attempts to grieve had been denied; that, presumptively, I would have to remain gagged forever.] But Mr. Cousens reinforced what is becoming increasingly apparent all over the nation--that college professors are rented mouths that must speak whatever management dictates, management, it now being established, having the only valid claim to "academic freedom."  ….  When I got home, in fact, I read this report in The Chronicle of Higher Education's May 11th issue, about the firing of a professor in the 3rd Circuit: "... in the classroom, the university was the speaker and the professor was the agent of the university for First Amendment purposes," said the court. The infrastructure for the professorial Gulag is almost complete.)

2. My senatorial colleagues then argued that I was indeed guilty of all charges. They professed to be amazed that the College was letting me off so lightly. They were impervious to my plea to consider what precedent they were setting, what jeopardy they were placing themselves and all their colleagues in.

3. Then many of them described their own classroom personae and techniques, assuring me that I have much to learn about sensitivity and respect. (One senator said the Complainant had taken two or three of his business courses. He said "Susie" approached him toward the end of the semester and identified herself as the Complainant. Susie said she had
never felt comfortable or able to be open in any class since I had satirized "Virginia," her anonymity-preserving "identity" in the satire, and "Virginia's" sincere efforts at censorship. I reminded the Senators that this devastated woman had appeared on the TODAY show in May of 1999, and that, during her poised appearance, she told the nation that her upset with
me was over anecdotes I had shared about some comic moments in my own fumble-ridden sexual history. In distinction from the College, she had no objection to my language, but only to references to sex, even though such references were triggered by the literature we were studying. My colleagues then chastised me for talking about sex in a way that might make ANY student uncomfortable. A teacher of nursing, for example, said she has occasion to
talk about sexual function frequently but, because of her respect for and sensitivity ["I think long and hard before I say what needs to be said"] to her students, she has never had any complaints against her. When I pointed out that I have had only one official complaint in 33 years, she was unimpressed. [This same woman audibly sighed, at the beginning of this, my
latest ordeal: "I hope THIS doesn't take all day!"]

4. Another speaker, a teacher still on probation (and hardly at liberty to disagree with the College or its most important bureau--the Union) went on at great and highly emotional lengths about how he had had to suffer at the hands of unruly students as the adjunct replacement for a dislodged full-timer.  Somehow, my violating the gag order was involved in his four months of pain years before.  He went on to say, as a teacher of political science, how critical it was for him, and hence for every teacher worthy of the name, to censor himself every moment in the classroom, no matter what the cost in stress--no, in agony.  When each class ends, he's almost paralyzed by muscular tightness, particularly in the region of chest and heart.

      5. Then, to conclude the two-hour session, one of the Grievance Coordinators pointed out                         that I have never exhibited any remorse, that, even during this very meeting, there were no signs of contrition or clues that I had learned anything of reformative value. Perhaps a half-year suspension was insufficient to get my attention; perhaps a more drastic punishment was
indicated.  In his peroration, he confessed that the Virginia satire "was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen in my life."

After some debate as to how to formulate a motion, or whether to divide the motion so as to permit a vote on each crime and its punishment (defeated), a roll call vote was conducted. As with two previous requests of mine for grievance more than two years ago, the motion was framed as a positive-negative, so that YES meant NO (support denied). The tally was 16 YES, 2 NO, 1 abstention, 2 absent.

AFTERWORD [NOT IN THE ORIGINAL]:  The President, also acting as chairperson, subjected one of the visiting teachers to typical sarcasm and an attempted reduction to embarrassment.  This teacher had been one of three censored by the College a year and a half ago.  The College ordered them to remove the word "Violence" from a conference they had conducted successfully for five straight years: Conflict and Violence Resolution Conference.  It was less than a week before the conference's commencement, such that resistance or delay by the teachers would effectively terminate the event.  Numerous commitments to various speakers, some traveling from out-of-state, had already been made.  The professors acquiesced. Before I had known of this compliance, I had approached this man, this top Union official.  He suggested that the teachers involved contact him; maybe the Senate should be advised.  But the three teachers decided that it was better to swallow hard and save the conference.  They might have had reservations about the Union's commitment to act swiftly in the interests of freedom.  These teachers have never made much of this act of oppression, of censorship, but I have.  Now, the President was implying that, since the teachers never resisted, perhaps it was a virtual non-event and all parties had best shut up about it.
      An unrelated event one year later: The Chief Negotiator cited above addressed the assembled faculty in January, 2001.  There was to be contract negotiations, for the first time in perhaps ten years.  When asked what the language in the Collective Bargaining Agreement meant where it asserts--as the first of enumerated TEACHERS' RIGHTS-- that "the teacher shall be entitled to freedom of discussion within the classroom on all matters which he considers relevant," this man said that he had no idea.  He said he had not been on the negotiating team thirty years ago when such terms were installed.  He said it would have to be left to some arbitrator or some judge to tell us what they mean.  A new contract was approved on Wednesday, May 9, 2001.  The above language remains undisturbed.  However, perhaps the Chief Negotiator was correctly cautious, now that Cincinnati has spoken.  There is no freedom of speech in Michigan, Ohio, Kentucky or Tennessee for any college professor who says anything any complaining student doesn't like, or anything the parent of any student doesn't like, or anything any high administrator doesn't like.  The contractual language is a fossilized reminder of that vigorous but brief excursion into free expression that characterized the Sixties and the Seventies.  The First Amendment is evidently dying of old age, or it dies because no one with judicial power utters anything but empty platitudes in its defense.