True to form, Henry adjourned the second hearing with lies--
it didn't matter, he reflected, we have the power.
The hearing panel met the next day. Each person was given a copy
of the report that Henry had prepared. "Read it and when you have finished,
come over here and sign this original. I will require that you turn in
your copies today. You are to keep this report in confidence."
"When is Diana to be notified?" Timidly, Esther asked the question,
raising her eyes from the document she was reading.
"In good time. When it is deemed appropriate." Henry was terse
in his reply, warning that no further questions from the other
members of the committee would be tolerated.
Following this, Esther sent a letter to The Pope asking him
not to terminate Diana. Later, she would show copies of
this letter to the staff and faculty women who criticized
her for signing such a malicious report. "We had to sign it.
We had no choice, but see--I tried to help her!"
Henry sent a copy of the hearing panel's report to Diana late in March.
It was in the form of a memorandum addressed to The Pope. Even though
the report had been signed early in February, it was dated March 31st,
as were all the signatures at the end.
The report of six pages had four parts: Factual history;
Procedures followed; Findings on considerations; and Recommendations.
Surprise, surprise--after maintaining in two separate hearings
that the committee only gave a report and would not recommend any action.
Actually there was little in the report that came as any surprise.
The so-called `Factual history' was a composite of the testimony of Lyle,
Ian and Randy. It was carefully written. It reported that,
"Lyle had discovered several `suspicious' student feedback forms. . ."
when in fact he had said two.
The report was redolent with accusation. Phrases such as
". . .she forged. . ." and ". . .department could not
tolerate forgery. . ." were found throughout and put in a context
difficult to justify. One of these sentences read: "Given the opinion
of the handwriting experts that she had `forged student course
evaluations in a manner designed to denigrate the performance
of co-faculty members', the chairman of NERD decided to seek
termination for cause." Thus the document examiners were not
only given credit for identifying a person's handwriting,
but Henry claimed they were able to read the intent of the person
whom they said wrote the material examined. Nowhere in the
hearing were their clairvoyant abilities established.
Indeed, the entire section contained nothing of the events
as testified to by Diana and her witnesses.
The section on the `Procedures followed' was again taken
from what Henry had decided were the procedures followed
and wickedly slanted against Diana. It did not mention that
the reason thirty-two additional standards were sent to the
second document examiner was because he could not make a decision
on the basis of the standards sent to the first one. Instead, it
claimed that the second document examiner confirmed the results
of the first. It also omitted to add that the standards sent were
abysmally poor copies from microfiche, covered a period of 25 years
and included handwriting and printing of many different people.
Henry thought the section called `Findings on considerations', was a gem.
After he had finished writing it, he had leaned back in his chair
and mentally patted himself on the back. Here was contained the only
mention that there had been other testimony entered into the hearing.
Here, in the entire six page report, only 10 lines were devoted to
the witnesses for Diana. The testimony of Sarah, he tersely
dismissed with: "One student witness identified one of the suspect
critiques and claimed that she (the student) had written it,
but the claim was not substantiated because the student
would not have her handwriting examined."
Months later, the investigator for the Attorney General would note
that incident in the transcript of the hearing and make the following
comment in her report. "Did the committee really expect that the
hired experts could, at a point when opinions had been stated under oath,
seriously undertake a fresh analysis of the questioned document?"
Henry's report gave no indication that the standards were
unauthenticated or why Diana was not asked to write for
the document examiners to produce authenticated ones.
All of the testimony of Diana was totally ignored. It was as if
she had never appeared at the hearing--a non-person status like
that maintained against her by her department since the accusation
was first made.
Of course it follows that the `Recommendation' section would state,
true to the faculty handbook's rhetoric, that termination was recommended
since Diana had demonstrated a lack of professional and moral fitness.
THE COURT AND ATTORNEY GENERAL