Re: G. Demas Memorandum of January 5, 1998 [sic]

In response to your memorandum with the subject "Disciplinary suspension," I would urge:

First: you do not specifv which of the many definitions you intend of the word "vulgar;" vague and/or comprehensive as your usage may be, this potentially important term is devoid of sense, and your charge, having no clear referent, must be deemed groundless;

Second: again, you do not stipulate as to which of the several definitions of "obscene" you intend, and your usage, as with "vulgar" above, comprises at once either too much or too little, and therefore has no clear meaning and must be rejected as groundless;

Third : you allege that I announce(d) an intention to swear, and did actually swear, using "such words" as you list, but this is false, and could never be substantiated, as I have never offered sacral oaths, have never made solemn promises or vows, nor used profane oaths to curse any animate or inanimate entity while employed as a professor at this institution;

Fourth: your allegation with regard to "serious 'butt-fucking" [sic] after being dead for two weeks" is grotesquely garbled; I suggest you refer to the satire, now in your possession (see MacQueen memo of 1-8-99), entitled "Yes, Virginia, There Is A Sanity Clause," page 4, for proper context and usage;

Fifth: you allege that I used, with regard to President Clinton's relationship with M. Lewinsky, the euphemism "blow job" instead of the plain English "cocksucking" or "sucked his dick." The precise nature or intent of this allegation is unclear to me; if it is not another mistake on your part, I would be inclined to let it stand as stated, with the mental reservation that it may not rise to the level of even a three second suspension;

Sixth: you allege that I remarked "two or three times that 'tits on a nun are as useful as balls on a priest';" actually, I said an approximation of your misquote only once (per class), to wit: "The not unusual simile heard among many Roman Catholics: 'as useless as tits on a nun,' is not counterbalanced by an equivalent simile with regard to men of the cloth, such as 'as useless as balls on a priest,' because of the prevalent (chauvinist) notion that women are to be evaluated only on the basis of their sexual attractiveness and function." This observation is made by me with reference to Joyce Carol Oates' erotically and romantically thwarted nun in the story "In The Region of Ice." If this concept is disturbing to you, you might want to write to Ms. Oates at Princeton University, where she is honored as writer in residence. I am sure she would find your upset very interesting. (I did not include this explanation in the "Yes, Virginia," piece because that was written on December 10, 1998, before you preferred this charge on December 18, 1998;

Seventh:, you assert that your warnings about language have pedigree, having been emitted in fits and starts going back to 1993. But, as I state in" Yes, Virginia," a prejudice or vicious value enjoys no increment in the credible or the admirable merely because it has festered a lengthy time (see page 5). Moreover, if not being deliberately dishonest, you are certainly mistaken about the tenor and apparent intent of these earlier pronouncements. If you review the memorandum dated September 15, 1992, you will perhaps note that the concepts of "sexual harassment" and the use of so called "profane, vulgar, or obscene language which is unrelated to course content and educational purpose" were closely tied together, as points on a continuum. Since 1992, various conflations and separations of the concepts have been indulged by the office of Human Resources in order to "support" whatever threats or punishments seemed serviceable at the time. (See page 8 of the 1992 document, where Mr. Wendt discusses how "actions and speech may cross over the line and be considered sexual harassment." This "line" and any "cross over" have been abandoned by those who hound me, because they know there can be no support for charges of sexual harassment against me. They hope, apparently, to fabricate a linguistic Chimera with the power to devour me.)

Consider further the cited memo, which mainly contains a legal opinion (not a statement of incontrovertible fact or a recitation of ineluctable Michigan or United States law, but an "opinion") submitted by your legal counsel, Hunter Wendt. After reviewing some of the language and implications of two cases he deems relevant (the high school [!?] incident in Mailloux v. Kiley, 1971, and the Martin v. Parrish college-level ruling in 1986; critical to this latter ruling is the fact that it gee-shucks up from the Bible Belt-and may not fmd comfort and support in our redneck of the woods- and stirs something less than universal sympathy for Mr. Martin because he "continued to curse his class [emphasis added with words such as 'bullshit,' 'hell,' 'damn,' 'geddamn' and 'sucks."' I have never utilized Mr. Martin's

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pedagogical terrorism, though 1 do esteem his old fashioned, fundamentalist English. [It was good enough for Elizabethans and it's good enough for me.] But condescension and insult, even as modes of motivation, stick in the craw. One hesitates, at least for now, to say this method has no socially redeeming value because more than a few of my profession's athletic confreres swear by its efficacy. But, to refresh your appreciation of my non-"harassing" and non- "hostile" proclivities, review my objection to "Virginia's" loathsome misrepresentation on pages 6 and 7.), Mr. Wendt goes onto address the be-dangs if you do and the gosh-darns if you don't inherent in trying to steer between the relevant, good "fucks" of Mailloux and the "gratuitous," bad "sucks" of Martin.

On page 7, then, Mr. Wendt says:

The College is effectively trapped in a 'catch 22' application of situational ethics. What may be acceptable to instructor A may not be to instructor B depending on the nature and content of the class and upon how the material is presented. Assuming that an instructor's area of teaching objectively allows the introduction of sexually related material and speech, and it is done in a good faith effort to instruct. motivate. teach. etc.. that conduct and speech would be protected. We do feel, however. that gratuitous sexual references and language unrelated to course content and educational purpose is not protected and that the College may take appropriate actions to curb such actions/speech.

This last sentence, this unfortunate "feeling" that Mr. Wendt has had, has served as a license to Macomb's administration to create a Kangaroo Court, a novel Inquisition, within which to stage a madcap effort to outdo K. Starr's infamous Chamber. (Anyone who has read "Yes, Virginia" will recall some of the tendencies of those inquisitorial sessions and my concomitant outrage.) And all this is unnecessary, as the MCCFO Agreement with the Board of Trustees makes clear in Article V, I: "The teacher shall be entitled to freedom of discussion within the classroom on all matters which he [mine] considers relevant to the subject matter under discussion." Not what Mr. Wendt or Mr. Demas or Mr. MacQueen, severally or collectively, consider relevant. This provision has functioned marvelously for three decades, and only mischief has come from its current subversion. The teacher, primarily, and his students, consensually, are the persons positioned to know what is relevant or what is "gratuitous."

This word, by the bye, as with "'vulgar" or "obscene," is highly problematic. I presume the counsellor intends definition number three (in, say, The American Heritage Collegiate Dictionary, third edition): "Unnecessary or unwarranted; unjustified." "Unnecessary" applies virtually to every word in any language; there are no "necessary" words, such that synonyms or successful circumlocutions cannot achieve the same, or a very similar, result (an exception may be adduced in wholly rationalized "languages," such as mathematic's symbolic notation); therefore, every teacher and every student and every administrator is constantly articulating the "gratuitous." "Unwarranted" and "unjustified" are subjective, judgmental labels and, as with "'vulgar" or "obscene," must be identified in order to even be discussed, much less agreed upon.

Coming back to Mr. Wendt on page 8: "If; however, the claim of sexual harassment is founded upon sexual reference and language being used in a class related to such matters (i.e., poetry, literature, sexual education, etc.), or its interpretation and is done in a manner serving an education purpose, such claim of sexual harassment is probably baseless and not actionable. [Which, you may recall was the summary-the obviously accurate summary-judgment offered to me just before the second round of the Inquisition commenced on December 18, 1998. Even though there is no question of sexual harassment here, what the hell, let's chat about Wild Bill's taste in cigars and about nuns' tits anyway. Tee hee.] Cranting that even this conclusion is subjective, the College should nonetheless, [sic] not curtail an instructor's conduct if it appears that the complaint is founded upon the students [sic] subjective complaint or particular sensitivity." This idiosyncratic subjectivity, to be sure, obtains in the present circumstance - nevettheless, you have presumed to punish me for language that you dislike, this student's peculiar subjectivity or sensitivity be damned for the irrelevant thing that it patently is. (You further demonstrate how you really regard student interests and sensibilities by virtue of your cavalier dismissal of dozens of students who came forward to express their feelings and thoughts in this regard. You explain neither to them nor to me why it is you discount or ignore the 90% who fmd all my language, all my illustrations, all my exhortations as both gerniane and highly educational in purpose. Surely I create, for the vast

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majority, nothing remotely resembling a hostile environment;" and just as surely you are not stirred by that fact. Rather, you are concerned only about your own wilfiilly ignorant biases.)

And wherefore these biases? Perhaps the students at this institution have it right: they have always designated it as "Twelve Mile High." They know that some faculty and most administrators here are escapees from "secondary ed," and that they have never heen able to stop treating their clients like children. Much of the impetus to protect the "little ones " from the rowdiness of Professor Bonnell must stem from this misapprehension. And this distorted perception reinforces the cognate movement to restore womankind to their "proper" Victorian condition. That is, women are to be reinstalled on the respectably distanced pedestal, with all deference due their delicacy, their fragility, their fainting femininity. And this is called honor, true respect. The men and women who discriminate in this fashion may genuinely have no comprehension of their insufferable condescension. It is they who delight in, and have helped fashion, the insulting rulings and consequent applications of "hostile environment" Ms~fit left on "sexual harassment's" doorstep.

I watch with understandable interest the prosecution of Roseville resident Timothy Boomer, charged with violating the 1897 law that equates women and children: "Any person who shall use any indecent, immoral, obscene, vulgar or insulting language in the presence or hearing of any woman or child shall be guilty of a misdemeanor." The law still haunts us. Many chauvinists-the majority of my generation-revel in its reassertion. And many women, lamentably, accessorize themselves with chains. ('hear that the prosecutor pursuing Mr. Boomer has a lofty position awaiting him in the confines of Macomb Community College, whether he wins the case or not. But that may be libelous hyperbole.)

I reaffirm, then, that my language and my conduct amply satisfy the Franklin v Gwinnett tests: that that language is "related to the subject matter" of the class and is most conducive to serving an "educational function." I will continue to do that as long as health, the First Amendment, and Article V, I of our Agreement continue to afford me scope. I would urge you, meanwhile, to abandon your curiously inquisitorial bent and to enshrine counsel Wendt's superb observation:
"There is simply no way to 'shield' the sensitive student from life and reality in the classroom."

Stop trivializing "sexual harassment," therefore, so that we may all be on the gui vive for the truly horrid reality; waste no more energy legitimizing and pursuing shams. Following our antic President, let us now look to the next century-not by emulating the McCarthyism of the fab fifties ("Are you now, or have you ever been, a primary or secondary chakra-canrying member of the human race? Do you ever have thoughts, or dare to express yourself audibly, with the tull range of the English tongue?"), but by celebrating and extending that stroke of genius from the [17]80s:
"Congress shall make no law... abridging the freedom of speech."

And, finally, be grateflil that there is no confederacy of Bonnells allied against you, reguiring you to use his salty language or else endure the pain of hostility, harassment, and financial ruin. Which Bonnell abides with you will not be the "defiant" German ("Ich bin em Macom her!"), but a gentle German, a soothing German, tending his garden.

John Bonnell