Jan. 24

Scathing Online Schoolmarm

By UD

Provost Marty Krauss, whose field is mental retardation, wrote a letter to a professor at her institution, Brandeis University... a letter which did not have the effect she, its writer, intended. Instead of gaining the faculty member’s cooperation in what she asked of him, she alienated him, and, on top of that, ended up alienating almost the entire faculty of the university.

The provost has now provoked arguably the largest crisis in faculty/administration relations in the history of Brandeis.

This unfortunate result was not merely a matter of writing style, of course — the provost, on skimpy evidence, decided the faculty member had so wounded the racial sensitivities of his students that he must be severely punished, with speech monitors posted to his classrooms, required sensitivity training, and other humiliations.

But recall that Schopenhauer called style “the physiognomy of the soul.” Consider the provost’s writing style, and consider her soul as it discloses itself in her words.

Careful analysis will reveal that whoever appointed Krauss to her position failed to note certain, er, character issues.

‘I am in receipt of Jesse Simone’s letter to you regarding your violation of Brandeis University’s Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy. [I am in receipt instead I’ve read... regarding instead of about... Krauss uses regal language to establish a superior, threatening tone from the outset.] In accordance with the applicable procedures governing investigations under such a policy [Note the absolutely cold inhumanity of this language. It’s disgusting and disrespectful to write to your faculty as if they are machines.] ... I am charged with determining what corrective action shall be taken and/or sanctions imposed [and/or is always a nice warm touch].

[Note that Krauss has already disclosed, in this tight-lipped, robotic language, that she is enraged. Bad move.]

I, as Provost, am extremely concerned for the welfare of the University’s students. [I am the Great and Powerful Oz.] The University will not tolerate inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct by members of its faculty. [A bit confused there. inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct... What is racial conduct?] As a result of your conduct [Mommy’s repetitive thing here tells you she’s getting more pissed with every word. Watch out!], I have decided to place a monitor in your classroom to ensure that you do not engage in further violations of the Non-Discrimination and Harassment Policy. Assistant Provost Richard Silberman will serve in this capacity. [Wordy gal. Might just have put Silberman’s name in the previous sentence and saved herself the second sentence. But that would deny her the threatening serve in this capacity clause.] [And who knew that a Ph.D. in philosophy from Boston University was what you needed to qualify as a speech monitor? SOS has a Ph.D. in English from the University of Chicago. Can she give it a whirl? She finds the idea of sitting in the front row of a fellow professor’s classroom, staring at him while meticulously monitoring his every utterance — and, you know, occasionally taking mysterious notes — pretty sexy.] Furthermore, I have decided to require you [And that’s not all, baby! Wait for it!] to attend anti-discrimination training. The University will arrange and pay for a trainer [Krauss sure knows how to use a budget.], who will contact you in the near future. In addition to training, the trainer will assess your ability to conduct classes without engaging in inappropriate racial and discriminatory conduct [She likes this last phrase. Plus she can’t get enough of the Mommy word conduct.]. Your classes will continue to be monitored until I have determined [I! I! Krauss The Provost!] that you are able to conduct yourself appropriately in the classroom. [Bad boy. Mommy pissed. Mommy watching you!]

I sincerely hope that you will recognize the seriousness of this matter and take affirmative steps to correct your conduct. Failure to do so may result in further disciplinary up to, and including, termination... [Up to and including ... Not just up to, but it includes termination. Have I made myself clear?]’

Comments

Robotic responses

“[A bit confused there. inappropriate, racial and discriminatory conduct... What is racial conduct?]”

This is an important linguistic cue that demonstrates that repetition of these offenses has become an automated, catechistic response, like repeating a prayer in Latin without knowing or caring what the words mean.

It reminds me of a campus residence life document I read once that said something like, “This is a substance-free dormitory. That means students in the dormitory may not possess substances.”

RJO, at 1:50 pm EST on January 24, 2008

I work for the state government, and that read as a normal disciplinary letter to me. I thought the whole world had adopted that ridiculous tone.

Assistant Village Idiot, at 8:20 am EST on January 25, 2008

The Whole World

Dear Assistant Village Idiot: Do not despair. While much of the world, as you say, has adopted that ridiculous tone, there are still a few human beings left.

UD, at 8:35 am EST on January 25, 2008

Accused = Guilty

I love it. I have a letter from a student. Therefore, you are guilty, and now let’s talk about your punishment.Maybe I’ll write a letter accusing the Provost of “racial” conduct....

Dan, at 8:50 am EST on January 25, 2008

I wonder when lecturers in Women’s Studies will be subject to disciplinary action for saying offensive things about men?

Evil Pundit, at 9:55 am EST on January 25, 2008

Collapse of Higher Education

Every time we get a glimpse of how our tax money is wasted at so — called institutions of higher learning, I for one, am disgusted and angered. Both ‘UD’ and the Provost involved, much less the mysterious professor about whom this concerns, just reeks of incompetence, pettiness and irrelevance.

There is going to be a taxpayer revolt, the sooner the better. Feel safe and secure in your centuries old bastions of tenure and privilege? The bigger they come the harder they fall. The internet is just coming of age.

cottus, One who pays for this crap, at 10:25 am EST on January 25, 2008

Can’t you just see it now?

And what exactly does the monitor do if the professor starts off on a comment that is “racial or discriminatory". Are they required to arise, blow a whistle (get it, whistle blowing...) and stop the lecture, or maybe penalize the professor by making him stay after class while they report to the almighty provost to determine the next penalty phase. And Assistant Village Idiot- I agree that it still seems to be the norm, with real people being the exception.

P. Foster, at 10:40 am EST on January 25, 2008

She reminds me of Professor Umbrage from the Harry Potter books...scribbling notes and making teachers uncomfortable while they teach.

jazzy, at 11:10 am EST on January 25, 2008

brandeis

My son goes to Brandeis. He reports that they are overly pc about everything...finds it annoying.Part of the problem, I believe, is that the school began to find a home for Jews at a time when good colleges had quota systems. Now, about 50% of Brandeis is non-Jewish, and they bendover backwards to make sure they are doing the right thing.

nate zuckerman, at 1:10 pm EST on January 25, 2008

Dolores Umbridge Rides Again!

Isn’t this the kind of bureaucratic monster that J. K. Rowling so skillfully skewered in Harry Potter #5? May Brandeis needs to find a herd of centaurs...

Clioman, at 2:10 pm EST on January 25, 2008

Lawyer Language

I agree with the Assistant Village Idiot (and thanks, by the way, for making me type that phrase) that we are perhaps giving Provost Krauss too much credit for the language and tone of the letter. My guess is that it was vetted by a university attorney who made generous edits to conform with his or her lawyerly standards. I very much doubt that such a letter would leave the Provost’s office without some sort of review.

While I’m here, memo to “cottus": When your revolting taxpayers come to my office, pitchforks in hand, could they please arrive during my office hours. I’m awfully busy these days. In the meantime, thanks for informing us that the “internet is just coming of age". I trust you will soon follow in kind.

Unapologetically Tenured, at 2:45 pm EST on January 25, 2008

Totally

Oh, totally written by a lawyer. Why use one when five will do?

A Lawyer, at 4:10 pm EST on January 25, 2008

The Lawyers

Hey. She signed it.

UD, at 4:10 pm EST on January 25, 2008

[The internet is just coming of age.]

Actually the blogosphere is just coming of age. The internet, in the form of command-line-only and yet very sophisticated and organized forums (Usenet and IRQ, the former now being known to most as “Google Groups"), way back before the masses, meaning millions of AOL users finally got full net access instead of just AOL’s (or The Well’s or the cream of the crop, Compuserve) internal mostly lightweight forums. There was a great collective moan when the well-read libertarian groups were suddenly inundated one fine day in the 1990s by dreaded “AOL idiots", meaning people who really had not done much reading on political issues other than read the newspaper, and who SPELLED IN ALL CAPS and I think worst of all, for a time destroyed the pecking order in which everybody knew who was a serious scholar, who the underground activists were (see below), and who the village idiots were. So an amount of chaos was created for several years, especially as the Main Stream Media started its series of Internet scare stories about kiddie porn, identity theft, stalking, “hacking” etc.

It has been the natural competition between bloggers for popularity, finally with about a dozen main ones becoming household “brands” due to their brevity, astuteness of their social-injustice radar, sense of humor, consistency and overall lack of doublespeak and thus overall lack of being competently criticized or debunked. Instapundit, being No.1 or nearly the top, has earned it, whereas the my old standby Andrew Sullivan sold out and started twisting words too often.

But my god were the early adopters of Usenet, the over-organized fixed-topic group equivalent of what now takes the form of this little box I’m writing into, meaning comment threads on blogs or myriad other forms of media sites...those early adopters were radically libertarian! One of the more politically active groups dealt with the equivalent of contemporary DRM copy protection, which was the sudden emergence of perfectly unbreakable digital message encryption, which to this day is regulated as not being legal to “export” to certain countries, as if they were radioactive ores. It’s no longer news, except things like the recent court decision that some suspected pedophile could not be forced to “self-incriminated” himself by telling the court his password. Why was this an issue? Because not even NSA supercomputers can decrypt freely available “PGP encrypted” messages, created by the activist members of the early net-based “cryptography movement.” This is one of the reasons funding is pretty good still for quantum computing, since over time, as personal computers double in speed again and again, the situation for the spooks gets worse, not better...unless they can build a quantum computer that can factor large prime numbers in seconds instead of billions of years.

My point is that the cat was out of the bag already, long ago, but that it has taken time for the *effective* democracy of *mass* public opinion to finally organize itself, via blogs, into a home grown, grass roots replacement for the formerly lies-of-ommission-dishonest main stream media who only investigatively reported on small chain store muffler shops or unfavored politicians, but never academia or the intelligentsia, or...the MEDIA!!!

NikFromNYC, at 10:35 pm EST on January 25, 2008

Brandies Provost’s Letter

I am an online educator at a large university. I have learned that there are times when a very brief email can be interpreted as too abrupt or unfriendly. I view the provost’s problem as an example and reminder that there are certain situations that absolutely require face to face communications only.

I am not approving the provost’s choice of words, but suggesting that the communication apporoach of listening and interactive live conversation would have been a method more suited to the situation with possibly and more amiable outcome.

In all honesty, I have had my share of mistakes in communicating with people. I have found that being honest and promptly apologizing is often the best policy.

Joan Morris, instructor at USF, at 11:30 am EST on January 26, 2008

Brandeis

Beautiful job — you’ve shown that attention to language is hardly “purely academic.” I have watched my alma mater (class of 62) change from a haven for intellectuals into a bastion of fashionable “progressivism", and Krauss clearly sees her role as Provost as chief enforcer of this orthodoxy. I notice the President seems to be incommunicado...

MARTIN WIENER, Professor of History at Rice University, at 5:20 pm EST on January 26, 2008

face to face; and thanks

Joan Morris:

Very important point — The more sensitive the situation, the more crucial direct communication becomes. The provost did the opposite of what she should have done. Instead of writing an inhuman letter, she should have initiated a human conversation.

Martin Wiener:

Thank you very much. Kind words.

UD, at 11:55 am EST on January 27, 2008

Not a “Taxpayer” Institution

To “cottus,” who comments:

“Every time we get a glimpse of how our tax money is wasted at so-called institutions of higher learning. . . There is going to be a taxpayer revolt, the sooner the better. cottus, One who pays for this crap”

Brandeis happens to be a privately funded university. It’s funded through donations, endowments, substantial tuition, etc. No “taxpayer funds” are involved.

Regardless, this situation is ridiculous. The provost has been suitably reprimanded, herself, in gaining the justifiable disgust of the entire faculty, and probably a substantial portion of students and alumni. Perhaps she’ll find herself on virtual probation, as well.

Barbara, Brandeis alumnus, 1965

Barbara, at 3:55 pm EST on January 27, 2008

Two Fold Twilight

Ok, no question, the administrative actions in this case were innappropriate given the evidence we have all followed (actually lack of evidence is more apporpriate).

BUT, we do not know what, if any conversations took place behind the scenes. This letter smacks of standard “administrativese” and undeniably follows a certain format. Why is that format used...the answer is US! There are too many (in a few is too many) who played semantic games when they receive letters or comments that are human and express a measure of directness. These few complain, bring in the unions, file grievances, and have the letter retracted, bludgeon the writer, and then brag of their morale and intellectual superiority. If you have never “enjoyed” lunch with a colleague who has done this then your are fortunate. It is little wonder adminstrator’s cover themselves with carefully worded statements of power and abfuscation. Any armor is good armor after you have been bitten for being “human.”

Face it, if you want open and human conversation, you have to create an environment for it. That means laying into BOTH the administrators who do this AND the faculty who twist things out of the human element. Their is ample guilt on both sides of the aisle to point two fingers here (you can pick which two, and in what configuration, you would like to point them).

So, scolding schoolmarm, I believe Shaw has a segment of Man and Superman about Don Juan in Hell. Perhaps, as faculty, we should note that we have been observed lecturing the kettle on its blackness by the devil himself. And ours are truly the only actions we can control. Let us point the fingers equally here.

Disgusted Twice, at 9:45 am EST on January 28, 2008

Scathing, Not Scolding

Disgusted Twice: I take your point (though your comment’s got a very human sloppiness to it that makes your point a little hard to detect), and I agree that faculty’s to blame in this as well.

But I don’t mean that Krauss needed to get all warm and cuddly — you can produce administrative, and even legally vetted, language that isn’t condescending and insulting.

UD, at 2:35 pm EST on January 28, 2008