“‘She intimidated me and others with expression like, “Baby, you make my pips squeak!” and “Get outta here!” (said with a broad New York accent that gave it a Mafia quality). When she wanted to interrupt students who were conferring with each other about points made in class, she would signal this by “slicing her throat” with her flat hand.’ Here is another one. ‘Professor Lieberman chose to focus on the sexual content of the plays under discussion. Her jokes often had a sexual coloring, too. This created an uncomfortable learning atmosphere for those of us who do not come from families that talk about such things at the dinner table.’ One more? ‘Professor Lieberman is obsessed with sex. Not a single class session went by without mentioning sex or things related to sex. She made me dread coming to classes.’”
Giles cuts in acidly. “These class sessions have filthy minds, mentioning sex all the time instead of studying grammar and syntax.”
“Mockery of grammar is no rebuttal of content, Giles. Anna?”
“I—I don’t know what to say.” And that is about all there is to it. But it is expected of me that I go on. “I am truly sorry. But I would ask you to take the whole class’s end-of-term evaluations into account before you declare me guilty of…sexual harassment.”
“Or an obsession with sex,” Giles adds. Bastard!
“Nick Hornberger has made sure that no one seems to be talking about anything but sexual harassment these days,” Elizabeth says caustically. “Unfortunately there are other issues. Anna, I understand you failed students for handing in their work late?”
“Not…as such. It says in the syllabus that I will take off a certain number of points for tardiness—just as I do for mild instances of plagiarism. We are talking about Madeline Harrison, aren’t we?”
“Amongst others.” Elizabeth nods. “Carolyn Turner complains that you advised her strongly against going for Honors in her English Lit Major.”
“Carolyn Turner is just about now realizing that off-the-cuff recall may have got her through high school, but it won’t get her through college, at least not this one. I predict that she won’t last out her third year. And with her grades, she shouldn’t even go for a Major in English Lit, let alone an Honors Major.”
Ma Mayfield leafs through the girls’ files.
“They both seem to maintain their Bs; Madeline less solidly than Carolyn, but nonetheless. They aren’t exactly failing, Anna.”
“If students’ grades even out as Bs,” Giles says, once more throwing himself into the fray, “it just goes to show, first of all, that everyone knows who the generous graders are, and secondly that we have a grade inflation going on. And a solid B is no recommendation for an Honors Major! In two years’ time she’ll be trying to get into grad school!”
“Ceterum censeo…”
“Yes, I know I keep harping on it, but I wouldn’t, if I saw a spark of acknowledgement in your eyes, Elizabeth!”
Giles is sitting on the edge of his seat, one hand flat on the surface of Elizabeth’s desk, and he is using it to underline his points in a manner very different from the laid-back professor lolling in his office chair. It makes me uncomfortable that he is once again fighting my battle for me, but it seems to have been his war before it ever became my battle.
“I’m not disagreeing with you,” Elizabeth says placidly. “All I’m saying is you cannot fight the system.”
“I’m not interested in the system. I’m interested in maintaining a bit of common sense, that’s all.”
“Your common sense.”
“Oh, please! How does it involve my class, race, or gender if I point out that allowing our students to tyrannize over us with their willful, rancorous evaluations will lead to the decay of our academic standards?”
“It doesn’t. But it involves our budget.” Elizabeth isn’t cowed by Giles’s intensity at all. My feeling that this is an old struggle between the two of them is confirmed when he throws himself back in his chair.
“Of course,” he says sarcastically with a nod. “Frank Harrison is a wealthy alumnus who gave generously to the university when his son studied here a few years ago, as had his father before him and his father before him.”
“Precisely.”
Giles knuckles his eyes in defeat and runs his fingers through his hair, like a cat worsted in an encounter with the neighbor’s dog.
“Apologize, Anna. Apologize and change Madeline Harrison’s grade. Behave like the submissive young professor they expect you to be. A few words and ten seconds of paperwork