From: bfrg9732@uxa.cso.uiuc.edu (Brian F. Redman)
Subject: Imposters in the Temple -- Part 6
Summary: Intellectuals are destroying our universities
Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana
Date: Sun, 26 Jul 1992 20:08:16 GMT
Keywords: treachery trickery deceit deception


Imposters in the Temple:
American Intellectuals are Destroying our Universities
and Cheating our Students of their Future

by Martin Anderson

Part 6  --  More Hubris

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Hubris - n. overweening pride or self-confidence: Arrogance

"The Greeks believed that each man had a fate (moira) 'assigned to him 
and marked clearly by boundaries that should never be crossed,' and 
that he should bear the limits of his human condition 'with style, 
pride, and dignity, gaining as much fame as he can within the 
boundaries of his moira.' And, if he should be 'induced by Folly to 
commit an excess (hybris) with regard to his moira, he will be 
punished without fail by the divine vengeance personified as 
Nemesis.'"

Anderson sees this academic hubris as leading to four basic types of 
corruption which he says "pervade the academic intellectual world 
today. The first three -- professional, political, and personal 
corruption -- afflict the faculty. The fourth, institutional 
corruption, afflicts the administrators and trustees." What is 
especially important, according to the author, is how the academic 
intellectual community has reacted to these transgressions -- in most 
cases either ignoring the transgression or only meting out nominal 
punishment. Previously, we have seen examples of the professional and 
political corruption in academe. This leaves personal and 
institutional corruption to be examined.

		-- Personal Corruption --

As an example of personal corruption in the world of academic 
intellectuals, Anderson looks at sexual harassment in higher 
education. This perennial problem of sexual attraction between 
professor and student can easily turn into a flagrant abuse of 
authority. Sexual harassment occurs when the teacher uses the power he 
yields over his students to coerce sexual favors. "The power a 
professor holds over a student, especially a graduate student pursuing 
an advanced degree, can be difficult to imagine for anyone who has not 
been in that position... the professor's power can approach that 
exercised by a warden over a prisoner, by a master over a slave." The 
threat to one's career carries a lot of weight.

Female students are especially at risk, however "It can be argued that 
some of this sexual activity between professor and student not only 
may have been consented to by the student, but may indeed have been 
initiated by the student." Still, according to the author, it is 
incumbent on the professor as the professional in this situation to 
follow a code of ethics which absolutely prohibits sexual relations 
with his students *while they are his students*.

Anderson gives as an example of sexual harassment a recent case which 
occurred at Harvard. This case involved a young, untenured female professor 
named Terry Karl, and an older, tenured male professor named Jorge 
Dominguez. Both were in the same department and Dominguez was a person 
to whom others would turn for evaluations of Ms. Karl's work. Thus, 
Dominguez wielded power over Karl's future career.

According to press reports, the incidents of sexual harassment 
occurred over a two-year period during which time Ms. Karl was invited 
to Dominguez's home while his wife and children were away, was 
introduced at a party as "my slave" by Dominguez, and finally was 
assaulted. Ms. Karl stated that "During that period I was afraid, not 
just for my physical safety but also for my career. After working so 
hard to earn my doctorate degree and achieve a major academic 
position, I was forced to choose between pleasing this man or losing 
everything I had worked for."

Ms. Karl made repeated complaints to the administration about this 
situation. Finally, after two years and similar complaints about 
Dominguez from other students, Harvard agreed to investigate the 
charges.

The Harvard officials concluded that Dominguez had abused his 
authority as charged. "Naturally one assumes that Jorge Dominguez was 
summarily fired, and that Terry Karl was consoled and comforted and 
today is a happy, tenured professor at Harvard... Wrong. This is what 
happened..." After the case was resolved in Ms. Karl's favor, she was 
advised by the dean of the faculty of arts and sciences that she 
should leave the university. "The reason given was that Jorge 
Dominguez had tenure and she did not. [Dominguez] was given a years 
leave with pay. So, in effect, Harvard solved one of its sexual 
harassment problems by suggesting that the victim go away, and by 
giving the alleged perpetrator a year's paid vacation."

In frustration, Ms. Karl filed a complaint with the Equal Employment 
Opportunity Commission. But Harvard still refused to take any 
disciplinary action against Dominguez. In the end, Ms. Karl left 
Harvard.

		-- Institutional Corruption --

"For more than a century, intellectuals have led the attack on big 
business, condemning monopoly and conspiratorial practices such as 
price-fixing... So it was a bit of a surprise when, in the fall of 
1989, the Justice Department announced it was investigating whether a 
large number of our elite colleges and universities had deliberately 
violated federal antitrust laws by conspiring to fix tuition fees and 
the level of financial aid." When the investigation was complete and 
the schools involved agreed to stop their meetings, the attorney 
general investigating this case declared that "this collegiate cartel 
denied [students and their families] the right to compare prices and 
discounts among schools, just as they would in shopping for any other 
service."

This price-fixing scandal was followed by a major financial corruption 
scandal that rocked the world of higher education in 1991. "By the 
middle of 1991 a large number of our most distinguished universities 
found themselves under investigation by the federal government, 
accused of claiming fraudulent expenses for government-sponsored 
research projects." This scandal began in 1990 when government 
auditors first questioned hundred of millions of dollars in overhead 
charges (i.e. electricity, heat, building upkeep, etc.) for research 
conducted by Stanford University. The following expenses for which 
Stanford was either fully or partially reimbursed by the federal 
government are a partial list of those uncovered early on in the 
investigation:

o -- $184,286 in depreciation charges, primarily for a 72-foot yacht 
named "The Victoria." This yacht was used on weekends by the Stanford 
Sailing Association, which included faculty, staff, and alumni.

o -- $218,230 in operating expenses for a privately owned chancellor's 
residence.

o -- $707,737 for the administrative costs of running a commercial 
shopping center for profit.

o -- $2,164 to send a public affairs official to Paris for an alumni 
conference.

o -- $2,000 for alcoholic beverages served at a pre-football game 
party for selected faculty.

o -- $17,500 for a wedding reception for the president of the 
university and his new wife.

o -- $3,000 for stereo systems, soft drinks, and rock bands to 
entertain students.

o -- $400 for a floral arrangement for the dedication of the Stanford 
stables.

o -- $45,250 for a retreat at Lake Tahoe for the Stanford board of 
trustees.

o -- $1,300 per year for upkeep of a massive sphinx sculpture gracing 
the tomb of Stanford's founder, Leland Stanford.


Other "research" expenses pertaining to the household of Stanford's 
president, Donald Kennedy, included the following:

o -- $750 to enlarge his bed.

o -- $1,610 to install a shower curtain and two window shades in his 
bathroom.

o -- $184 for bedsheets from Neiman-Marcus.

o -- $2,500 for fabric for a bedspread and draperies.

o -- $2,910 for a pair of antique Voltaire chairs.

o -- $1,200 for a nineteenth-century Italian fruitwood commode.

o -- $4,000 paid to a catering firm.

o -- $2,500 to refurbish the downstairs piano.

o -- $3,000 to line the bedroom closet with cedar.

o -- $2,000 per month for fresh flowers.


But Stanford University was by no means alone in its exploitation of 
federal taxpayer dollars. "Of fourteen additional universities whose 
financial records had been checked, all 'so far had charged 
inappropriate costs to the government,'" according to the budget 
director of the Department of Health and Human Services. Some examples 
are as follows:

o -- The California Institute of Technology charged $20,000 for a 
three day meeting by the board of trustees at "the Smoke Tree Ranch in 
Palm Springs." This included $8,500 for a dinner party.

o -- The University of Texas charged off "a dozen engraved crystal 
decanters from Neiman-Marcus" as a research expense.

o -- The president of the University of Pittsburgh charged off his 
golf club membership, opera tickets, a trip his wife took to Grand 
Cayman, and travel expenses to football matches in Dublin.


The author provides a lengthy list of such extravagant expenses, all 
billed to the U.S. taxpayer as "research expenses" by these 
universities. He then re-emphasizes his view that what is especially 
salient in all of this is the lack of response by the academic 
community to these scandals. He charges that this lack of response 
"often reflects a pervasive hubris, a deep conviction that the regular 
rules of society do not apply to academic intellectuals."

Anderson closes the chapter with the following: "When one reviews the 
corruption that pervades the American academic intellectual world in 
the 1990s -- the corruption of teaching and research, the political 
corruption, the personal corruption, the institutional financial 
corruption -- it is difficult not to believe in a destructive force at 
work, a fatal hubris. The one thread that seems to link all these 
corruptions is the intellectual arrogance of the players, their sense 
of being superior, their tendency to view others with disdain."


---------------------------------------------------------------------

Synopsis/Review by Brian Redman
"Ah yes, Armageddon. I remember it well."
End Part 6


Newsgroups: alt.activism