AKMA’s Random Thoughts

I'm always a little horrified when I read posts at, for instance, Invisible Adjunct, where people ask "is it really such a bad idea of students and professors to have sexual relations?". Then I feel sort of retrograde and wrong that the issue is so cut and dried to me (answer: YES!!!) when more comopolitan types are considering it.

The only problem with Wolf's article is her zealousness. The facts speak so loudly for themselves that her slightly inquisatorial prose jeopardize their force by appearing tendtentious. I mean really - if you were a Dean and got a phone call from a public intellectual publishing an article in a major journal about an issue that you knew was politically sensitive, would you have done better?

But regardless, the one lesson I take away from this is that I owe it to myself and others to never, ever behave like this.

And here's the Chronicle's take on the same issue.

I find myself agreeing with Camille Paglia on this one—if Naomi Wolf's aim really is exposing systemic problems at Yale, she would have been better off approach the problem from that angle, not making an accusation against Harold Bloom for something that happened twenty years ago and cannot be corroborated by any reports filed or interviews given twenty years ago. And if Ms. Wolf cannot provide any evidence of systemic problems beyond a couple of deans avoiding her phone calls, then she's guilty of turning a single incident into a scandal involving the University.

Also, the story of the call with Pagnam does not ring true. He calls her after she talks with the president's office, remembers that nearly a year ago she'd say her help with fundraising would be predicated on Yale's having appropriate grievance procedures, then suggests, a year after the initial fundraising drive, that she review their procedures and help with fundraising if they're okay? I find that to be a very, very unlikely story.

"Ms. Paglia added that she would be interested in seeing evidence of a widespread sexual-misconduct problem at Yale. When she was a graduate student there more than three decades ago, she said, her fellow female graduate students 'were having affairs right and left with faculty members.'" (chronicle of higher ed)

By contemporary definitions of sexual misconduct at almost all schools "female graduate students ... having affairs right and left with faculty members" is "evidence of a widespread sexual-misconduct problem at Yale. "

That was common everywhere twenty years ago, though. Naomi Wolf is alleging systemic problems at Yale now, especially in the grievance procedures, and I don't think widespread sexual impropriety twenty years ago and a few grievance cases the defendents were dissatisfied with (which weren't upheld in a court of law, incidentally) do much to prove those allegations.

God, Wolf is a bad writer. If she would just say x was in the room, y was in the room, x did this to y, rather than making it a melodrama--the lovely virgin in the meaty hands of King Kong--I think your average Joe or Jane might take her more seriously. As it is, you immediately suspect Wolf of punishing Bloom for his famous irreverence toward certain of her sacred cows.

God, Wolf is a bad writer. If she would just say x was in the room, y was in the room, x did this to y, rather than making it a melodrama--the lovely virgin in the meaty hands of King Kong--I think your average Joe or Jane might take her more seriously. As it is, you immediately suspect Wolf of punishing Bloom for his famous irreverence toward certain of her sacred cows.

God, I'm stupid for pressing Post twice.