Dear Macomb Daily Editor:

     The letter from Kenneth Farhat that you published on July
13, 2001 is remarkably perceptive.  Mr. Farhat says he believes Macomb
Community College "used its superficial complaint against Bonnell to retaliate
against him for some prior employment conflict."   The "conflict" Mr. Farhat
refers to took place in 1996, and illustrates MCC's contempt for all of the
First Amendment, not merely the portion dealing with free speech.
      MCC does not like freedom of the press, either.  In 1996 the campus
paper, The Student Voice, published an interview with me that included an
ironic, light-hearted self-deprecation of me as the "campus pervert in
residence."
    This playful "acknowledgment" was a reaction to some persons' biased,
ignorant impression of my in-class persona.  A top college official, before
the assembled faculty in August of that year, announced that "there is no
room for perverts on this campus."
     The witch hunt began not long after.  And there is no longer a Student
Voice published, or heeded, at MCC.
      Farhat wrote that he is "also surprised that an administrator hasn't claimed he or she was threatened during the investigation." In effect, he is correct again.  MCC tweaked the usual mendacity by absurdly claiming that I "retaliated" against the woman who wanted me censored; and that, without ever identifying her, I violated some supposed "right to confidentiality."
     This patent nonsense did not succeed in the local federal district, but
did find oblique tolerance in Cincinnati.
      I hope one day to have the honor of functioning as
Farhat's teacher. That is, if I can ever return.  MCC has suspended me five
times thus far: 3 days without pay; four months with pay; two summer
months without pay; two weeks without pay; and one semester without pay.
     Since the faculty "union" refuses to protect me, I may well be
suspended serially, forever.

John C. Bonnell
Professor of English
Macomb Community College