My Morning: The Final Chapter

On Thursday, two students somehow feel entitled to have relations in your office.  You interrupt their passionate paroxysms.  He cries sexual harassment.  And wolf.  And for his mother.  She cries.  And cries.  And cries.

Come Monday, the Sexual Harassment Police call you to "talk" about "the incident."  You are asked to participate in a "fact-finding interview."  You ask the investigator what this about and are informed that its purpose can be discussed it in detail on Friday.  An hour later, you send the investigator an email asking for more information and the response contains nothing but a link to your employer's sexual harassment policy.

On Wednesday you call the Sexual Harassment Police to confirm the time of your "fact-finding interview."  The person who answers the phone informs you that your "hearing" will occur on Friday at 10:00 AM.  "My hearing?!?" you interrobang.  Only polite-like because you're from the South and in the South one interrobangs politely.

Given this sequence of events, would you suppose that the student had followed through with his threat to file a sexual harassment complaint against you?  The patently spoiled student swore a blood oath.  The investigator stonewalled you.  The secretary sprung a hearing on you.  Things had spun out of control. 

So you don't sleep well . . . and when you muster some winks you dream about tar and torn down-pillows.  You imagine yourself covered in the first feathering of countless young birds and everyone (denuded fowl included) points and laughs at you.

You wake from these dreams dripping sweat and craving chicken.  (You are determined to give those stripped striplings the what-for they so richly deserve.)  So you wouldn't sleep that much.  You would occupy the couch and watch terrible movies while your wife slept soundly in the bedroom.  You would fear the hounds this indulged undergraduate loosed upon you.  You would fear the investigator who refused to divulge details.  You would fear your shadow and inadvertently damn New England to another six bitter winter weeks.  Don't deny it.  You would . . .

. . . and in doing so you would involve yourself in the monumental misunderstanding that has been my life for the more than a week now.  Today I have been thoroughly detenebrated.  (Not defenestrated.  In this house only cats are defenestrated.  And only by other cats.  And in good fun.  Except for the defenestrated feline.  Who was fine.)  I have seen the errors of my cynical ways because today I learned that sometimes people are not out to destroy all I hold dear with hot tar and serious plumage.  Turns out no one filed a complaint.

Turns out the Sexual Harassment Police wondered whether I wanted to file one.  Why couldn't the investigator have told me this over the phone last week?  Why all the cryptic comments about coming in to discuss it?  Apparently that's protocol in sexual harassment cases.  The investigator prefers to question faces over voices.  The investigator also cannot fathom how I would think a complaint had been filed against me. 

From the perspective of the investigator, I had cancelled Friday's meeting and lawyered up as prelude to filing suit against the university for creating an environment in which I could be harassed.  When I lawyered up, they consulted their lawyers and all of this is nothing more than the result of an initial but fundamental misunderstanding: I took the student's complaint seriously because we live in a litigious culture.  The investigator thought I would have some common sense about the situation.  From there our attempts to aid each other according to the policies which bind us both were doomed to fail. 

What I want to know from you good people is whether 1) I have lost faith in humanity and need to learn to love my fellow man again or 2) treated this situation with admirable cynicism.  Sadly I seem to feel both options equally compelling.  But then I'm still swimming in suspect ambiguity and haven't learned my lesson.  I need to learn my lesson. 

And sleep.  All day.  And all of the night. 

[This melancholia has been brought to you by Wilco's Kicking Television, John Vanderslice's Pixel Revolt and Wolf Parade's Apologies to the Queen Mary.  Excellent albums all.  Music to despair your humanity to.  What more could you ask for?]

Comments

[Matt]

Ditto Kali

[MT]

Kali polite?! Parvati perhaps, Kali and Durga never.

[Kane]

Amazing how all that got blown out of proportion. It's shocking to think that ejecting unauthorised visitors from your workspace and take a threatening turn. Still, sometimes you have to take a hard line with people. I used to do that to my roommate on purpose as revenge for trying the 'sexile' technique.
Just remember,it is your place and you are the only one with a right to be there.

[Teresa Nielsen Hayden]

I'm so late coming to this discussion that I feel like I should use a different adjective altogether. I'm going to comment just the same.

Given your circumstances, getting lawyered up was neither a sign that you'd lost faith in humanity, nor a piece of wiseguy cynicism. It was a rational wager.

Would it be reasonable for the student to charge you with sexual harassment, or for the school to pursue the charge on the student's behalf? The answer is no on both counts. Furthermore, most students and most schools wouldn't do it: a separate issue.

At the same time, one has to acknowledge that weird shit does happen. And when it does, it's guaranteed to take you by surprise, because you're reasonable and weird shit isn't. That goes double if your employers have adopted one of those "zero tolerance, zero brains" policies on some issue. I know someone who was sure she was innocent, and that her position was reasonable, and therefore walked unlawyered into an administrative inquiry where w.s. was going on. She went through years of pure hell before she fought her way clear of the consequences, and she came close to losing her professional credentials along the way.

Even if the people running an administrative inquiry are operating on real-world logic, situations will arise where the easiest way for an institution to get out of a sticky situation is to pin all the blame on you. Going in with your own lawyer makes that option less attractive to them.

(It was the temp's fault? No kidding. When did you last hear of a temp who was given the authority to decide when an administrative department was going to contact you, and what they were going to say when they did it?)

This whole area of behavior is one of the places where Pascal's Wager is valid. On the one hand, the consequences of getting unnecessarily lawyered-up are fairly benign. On the other hand, even if the chances are small that you've fallen into a weird-shit situation, the potential consequences of going into one of those undefended are so appalling that lawyering-up is an appropriate response.

We can't live our lives on the defensive, constantly assuming that at any moment some interaction might erupt into weird malign awfulness. Hiring a lawyer acknowledges that fact about us. If we never left ourselves open, we wouldn't need lawyers.

[Emmy]

Admirable cynicism.
Sadly.

[Alex Leibowitz]

"1) I have lost faith in humanity and need to learn to love my fellow man again"

It seems, from your summary of events, that humanity loves itself far too much already for your further love to do it much good...

[Scott Eric Kaufman]

Touché. The point to you, my friend.

[Rob]

I too work in academia. Having worked here long enough to be thoroughly disgusted with the entire operation, I've learned two things that would have worked very well for you. 1. Always carry a camera. 2. Blackmail is morally acceptable in acedemia because most people choosing this profession are the biggest pussies ever and do not have the intestinal fortitude to take care of business. Had you flashed a couple quick pics the students would have been sufficiently embarrassed enough to keep their horny little mouths shut. All the hearings and all the other crap would have been avoided. Course it was rather rude of you to not let them finish.

[anon]

Don't know if this has already been mentioned in the comment stream, but probably the best thing to do in a case like this is immediately call campus police. That may seem like an over-reaction, but if people are having sex in a weirdly inappropriate place like that, it's possible that it's not consensual.

There was a case like that a long time ago at my alma mater. Two people were having sex in an unused classroom, and were observed by at least one passing student. Turns out that the woman was being sexually assaulted and was subsequently strangled to death.

[Amanda Jane]

"That may seem like an over-reaction, but if people are having sex in a weirdly inappropriate place like that, it's possible that it's not consensual."

I agree, especially since she has been described as crying, crying, and crying.

[minmeemee]

The students should be dealt with. suspended, or expelled etc... W

[minmeemee]

The students should be dealt with. suspended, or expelled etc... W

[eyeball]

I think you were really silly not to march down to the guy's office as soon as the email arrived and say "WTF"? I mean really - this isn't Ross's "The Human Stain."

cheers.

[GAry 7]

Obviously, the male individual had no savwar (criminy, it's French and my spell checker is worse at this than I am) faire,,,
John, upon unexpectedly intruding into his own bedroom and catching his wife with another man, said"Oh! Excuse me. Please continue,,,"

If the indicated male CAN continue, he has savwar faire

GAry 7

[A Response]

Everyone overreacted. Put your guns away. It's all good.

[Anne]

I read the post where you pointed out the update to this post, but clearly that was the funniest thing I have ever read in a long time!! Don't you dare coming in your office without knocking because people may have sex in there :)))