February 12, 1999

Professor John C. Bonnell
16650 Martin Road
Roseville, MI 48066

Dear Professor Bonnell:

I am writing to explain the Union's decision with regard to your request
that the Union grieve two employment matters. You asked MCCFO to grieve a
three day suspension (and accompanying reprimand) and grieve a directive
that you refrain from discussing the suspension with persons enrolled in
your classes at Macomb Community College (the directive has now been
expanded to include any person enrolled at the College). After careful
consideration, including reflection on your extended remarks to the Senate,
the Union has elected to not support your request to grieve either matter.
However, the Union will monitor your current status of suspension with pay.

A.

The discipline imposed against you has its origins in the College's policy
limiting a teacher's use of vulgar, profane, or obscene language in the
classroom (distributed September, 1993; February, 1996; and July, 1997) and
in the warning issued to you under this policy in March, 1998. This
reprimand was issued following a student complaint pertaining to the
language you chose to use in class. At that time you were warned that you
must cease your repeated use of certain words in your classroom. The College
administration told you that you must not use words such as "fuck", "cunt"
and "pussy" unless directly germane to course content. You elected to
disregard the directive you were issued. In November, 1998, the College
received another complaint from a student pertaining to your language. The
complaint was investigated in accordance with the MCCFO collective
bargaining agreement. You were given an opportunity to respond to the
complaint.

Your reply to the charges was to, essentially, admit them. You confirmed
that you had used the term "buttfuck" in class; continued to use the words
"fuck," "damn" and, in reference to President Clinton's affair, 'blow-job."
You did not relate any of these words or phrases to course content. You also
acknowledged using the phrase "as useless as tits on a nun" and "as useless
as balls on a priest." However, you did attempt to link these phrases to
course content. Following an investigation, Administration imposed a three
day suspension against you.

You wrote a broadside (which you titled "Yes, Virginia, There is a Sanity
Clause") which you describe as a satire. The writing was promulgated to
faculty. In response to this, Administration directed that you not discuss
the suspension, or the events that caused it, with persons then enrolled in
your class.

Shortly after the Administration's privacy directive was issued, a student
led demonstration supporting you was conducted at South Campus. You deny any
involvement in the demonstration. However, Administration has chosen to
suspend you while it investigates the incident and other occurrences
subsequent to the three day suspension. And the privacy directive was
expanded to include any person enrolled at the College, whether or not a
student in your class. You are presently suspended, with pay, while the
Administration conducts its investigation.

B.

You have asked MCCFO to support a grievance pertaining to the suspension and
the privacy directives. You were invited to a meeting with the Faculty
Senate to explain your request. You were provided time to discuss your views
and present any documents that you found relevant. Indeed, you spent
considerable time explaining your views to the Senate. After your lengthy
discussion, all present were acquainted with your perspective.

We understood you to assert that words are just that - words; that one word
is a useful as another; that "cunt" is as useful as "vagina;" that either of
those words are suitable for classroom discussion. You contended that no
person should be offended by your speech which is, after all, the speech of
the people. Finally, you acknowledged some relevant judicial opinion on the
subject but contended that it was not controlling because it originated from
Texas, and Michigan values are different.

The Senate voted to decline your request to grieve. We are persuaded that
your actions are not protected by the MCCFO Contract, the First Amendment to
the United States Constitution, or community standards.

C.

The Senate does not agree that words are just words. MCCFO concludes that
academic professionals may be expected to fit within a certain standard of
conduct and deportment. Your regular use of what most people believe to be
profane words is below the standard that the Union believes applicable to
MCC faculty. The Union is not comfortable defending your conduct. Second,
the Senate concluded that Administration was within its legal and
contractual rights when it promulgated its policy regarding gratuitous and
regular use of vulgar, profane, or obscene language in the classroom and,
after a specific warning to you, imposed a three day suspension for its
violation. No adequate argument can be made that Administration may not
regulate your choice of words. Our counsel provided us with a summary of
applicable law; we believe that the College can direct you to change your
behavior; that such a directive does not violate the MCCFO Contract or the
Constitution because your words were not used in connection with a matter of
public concern. Finally, we believe that the duration of the suspension was
not excessive. You were previously warned about your conduct and chose to
ignore the warning. A suspension of three days was in response to the
insubordination.

The Senate also voted to decline your request to grieve the directive that
you keep this matter private; refrain from discussing it with students. A
public employer has the right to limit speech if the limitation does not
prevent an employee from discussing a matter of public concern and if the
restriction is narrowly tailored to permit the employer to control the
workplace. The original directive was very narrowly drawn; it was a reaction
to your "Yes, Virginia" broadside. You were only restricted from discussing
the suspension with your students. The enlarged directive was imposed in
response to the student demonstration. While you may have had no role to
play in the demonstration, the employer is understandably concerned about
maintaining order on campus. The Senate concluded that the directive does
not violate the MCCFO contract.

We hope that you will understand the Senate's reasons for its decisions. We
thank you for meeting with us to express your views on all three occurrences
- the three days suspension, the privacy directive, and the current
suspension. We hope that you will be guided by the Administration's
directives lest the next action taken be more serious.

Sincerely,

MACOMB COMMUNITY COLLEGE FACULTY ORGANIZATION

James P. Yizze President

Ims

February 20, 1999

_______________________________________________________________________

Professor James Yizze, President,
Macomb Community College Faculty Organization

Dear Professor Yizze:

I received your letter of February 12 that tells me where the Union stands
with regard to the Administration's actions against me. This is the first
written response I have received from MCCFO since my ordeal began.

During all the "investigatory meetings" I have been summoned to in the past
year, meetings I was told might result in disciplinary action, therefore
entitling me to Union representation, I have found that I was alone, but not
understanding why. Union representatives, indeed. were present, but not to
defend or represent me. I understand now that they were in attendance pro
forma, as it were, and to monitor events for Union interests unknown to me,
even, one might fairly say, hostile to me. Had I known this before now, the
awareness might have altered the tenor of those confrontations.

There are certain questions of fact raised by your letter, and other
questions of interpretation, that require clarification. You state that the
"discipline imposed against [me] has its origins in the College's policy
limiting a teacher's use of vulgar, profane, or obscene language in the
classroom (distributed September, 1993; February, 1996; and July, 1997).."
This College policy had never, to my knowledge, been discussed or negotiated
by MCCFO, and had never been elevated to contractual status nor voted upon
by the membership, despite the obvious and enormous potential it posed for
"working conditions." Since our Article V. A. I. ("The teacher shall be
entitled to freedom of discussion within the classroom on all matters which
he considers relevant to the subject matter under discussion.") has not been
ruled contrary to law (see Article XXV of the Master Agreement), I believed
it still meant exactly what it says. I further believed it, because such a
construction seemed altogether within the understanding and usage intended
by the rubric "academic freedom," a special interest of the Courts derived
from the First Amendment. I was not surprised that the College has little
interest in academic freedom, as that orientation seems typical of
administrative personnel in many institutions. But I was surprised to now
learn that MCCFO shared the College's view, especially since our
Administration has embraced a policy that is apparently the most sweeping,
the most repressive, and the most vague of any such policies in the state of
Michigan.

You go on to cite a "warning issued to [me] under this policy in March,
1998. This reprimand was issued following a student complaint pertaining to
language [I] chose to use in class." Please note that you seem to be using
"warning" (the term the College used) and "reprimand" as though they are
synonyrns. They are not. You compound the error by stating: "At that time
you were warned that you must cease your repeated use of certain words in
your classroom." (For convenience's sake, I have appended the object
Memorandum, dated March 4, 1998.) But this is not true. The so-called
"warning" was presented with phrases such as "may serve;" "if. . . you have
created a hostile environment;" "may be able to find;" and "may compel."
Among this spate of hypotheticals, mayhaps, and if-comes there rests no
"must cease," and certainly no "reprimand." At that time, and for many
months thereafter, I saw no reason to believe I had been disciplined, only
that I had been "warned" that one day I might be disciplined, and only if
the "precise frontiers" are ever unfavorably (to me) "defined by the courts"
(which, to my knowledge, has not yet occurred), or that the "uncharted
territory" into which I wander should ever find its cartographer.

Another error you make can be identified in your assertion: "This reprimand
was issued following a student complaint. .." The "complaint" was sent to
the College by the mother of a student, a category of person not recognized
by the Master Agreement as eligible to file complaints against College
teachers, according to Article VIII, first sentence, of the Master
Agreement. When I pointed this out to the Administration, they replied: "The
investigation is compelled by the College's duty under Title IX to provide a
learning environment free from unlawful sex discrimination. Your reputed use
of obscene and vulgar language has triggered the investigation." (From a
Memorandum dated February 24, 1998.) But the College's compulsions must be
contained by our Contract, or so it had seemed to me. For I, too, felt
compelled--compelled to be indignant over unfounded suspicions of "sexual
harassment." No such crime was discerned in March of 1998; no "sexual
harassment" was discernible in November of 1998.

Moving on, you may appreciate my concern about your use of language when you
write: "You elected to disregard the directive you were issued." But there
was no "directive"--do you see how you have drifted from "warning" to
"reprimand" to "directive?" And, there having been no "directive," there was
no such grave thing to "disregard." Had there been a "reprimand" or a
"directive," you may rest assured that I would have clamored for the Union
to grieve so wrongful a maneuver. Just as I should have pled for a grievance
over the very inception, last February, of a mother- initiated
investigation.

Yes, there was a complaint--not "another complaint," as you say--in November
of 1998. One complaint out of 300 students (that's 0.0033 per cent) in an
entire year. You may recall that the opinions offered by both Cousens and
Wendt in 1992 state that "no single student's" lament should be regarded
prima facie as evidence of anything, save some aberrant squeamishness.
Neither gentleman, for some unfortunate reason, saw fit to include the
critical and eloquent judgment sent out by Justice Harlan: "Surely the State
has no right to cleanse public debate to the point where it is grammatically
palatable to the most squeamish among us." Cohen v. California, 1971. But I
presume they appreciated the spirit of it, especially since both meant a
single student in any class, not in an entire year. (That ruling by Harlan
goes on to say, regarding Cohen's "Fuck the Draft:" "For, while the
particular four-letter word being litigated here is perhaps more distasteful
than most others of its genre, it is nevertheless often true that one man's
vulgarity is another's lyric.") Yet the College, despite no evidence of
"sexual harassment," labors "to cleanse public debate"---and MCCFO agrees,
to my considerable expense and despair.

As for your assertion: "The complaint was investigated in accordance with
the MCCFO collective bargaining agreement," it is simply inaccurate. Let me
review for you my Request for Grievance of January 18, 1999:
My response to the Demas' Memorandum dated 1-05-98(sic):
The notice of Disciplinary Suspension is out of order and invalid for many
reasons because, procedurally, it purports to have followed Article VIII of
the Master Agreement (see Demas' Memo of 11-16-98), yet I find that
A. Step 4 was ignored or violated
1. most blatantly, "a written statement of particulars as to the
administration's basis for proceeding with the investigation" was never
tendered to me. If it be argued that the proceeding was extended at my
behest, that behest was derived from the apparently non-applicable 1994
"Sexual Harassment Policy" Step 3 (page 2), which latter step was obviated
in any case by the announcement before this step 3's commencement that the
so-cal led investigative session was no longer under the rubric of "sexual
harassment;"
2. "a copy of the complaint in its original form" was, indeed, given to me,
but not "At the same time"-that is, not subsequent to the first "informal
discussion" of Step 2;
B. Step 5 was ignored in its entirety;
C. Step 6 was ignored in its entirety;
D. Step 7 was violated, since the investigation of Step 2, or some
subsequent illumination prior to the investigatory session of December 18,
led to the conclusion "that the findings of the investigation do not
substantiate the complaint," which was the "very serious charge" of "sexual
harassment" (see letter of complaint, dated 11-06-98);
E. Step 8, or its spirit, at least, appears to have been usurped by virtue
of the "disciplinary action" preferred, which seems altogether
inappropriate, as the administration has leapt from the vague, haphazard
"warning" of 3-04-98 to a three day suspension, there having been no
discussion or recommendation of any intermediary step such as a "reprimand"
(had there been any such reprimand that also would have been vigorously
contested, of course).

I remember Union counsel dismissing my correction of your assumption (that
the complaint was processed properly) as a quibble, the College already
having committed to its judgment, but I am confident that due process was
violated.

Your last sentence of paragraph one, section A states: "You were given an
opportunity to respond to the complaint." I believe it would be more
accurate to state that I was blindsided by questions the substance of which
was withheld from me beforehand. As I have written elsewhere, if the College
believed it had a genuine charge of "sexual harassment" on its hands, it
would have afforded adequate scope for serious questions to which serious
answers might be made, answers that were allowed ample opportunity to recall
context and intent (which is why responsible investigators invite alleged
harassers to write down their narrative; see the National Association of
College and University Professor's publication How To Conduct a Sexual
Harassment Investigation.)

You say that my "reply to the charges was to, essentially, admit them."
There were no charges of bona fide sexual harassment, if that is what you
imply, for me to admit to. The only admission I've ever made is what I have
insisted all along: I use the full range of the English language. It is
incorrect to declare that I do "not relate any of these words or phrases to
course content." I have declared since the beginning that these words are
completely germane to the course content and educational purpose (I remind
you that the original complaint letter from my student stated that "these
comments stemmed from the English stories we were reading for class.")
Language, as found in literature and in life, constitutes a major part of
every class session I conduct. One might fairly say it IS the course content
And the more other people quake with taboo-induced terror before any words,
the more inclined I am to investigate, to explore, and to share what I've
learned with students. I am sorry that I am not able, outside the classroom,
to make that come clear for you, the way I can with virtually all of my
students.

You continue: "We understood you to assert that words are just that--words;
that one word is as useful as another; that 'cunt' is as useful as 'vagina;'
that either of those words are suitable for classroom discussion." If this
is what you understood, you either weren't listening very closely or, more
likely, I was not articulating very well. I would never say "one word is as
useful as another"--that would undercut one of my core conceptions. In most
situations where precision of both the analytic as well as the emotive sort
is desirable, the Anglo-Saxon fundament of the English language is vastly to
be preferred over Latin or Greek imports, especially where these are
employed as means to obfuscate, to euphemize. When the character Mellors in
Lady Chatterly 's Lover, a novel I sometimes teach, says to his paramour
Connie: "Thar's a beautiful cunt y'ave," his choice of words is apt.
"Vulva," what can be seen, or "vagina," which can't, are Latin and, in the
context, utterly false. Mellors the groundskeeper may not even know
"vagina," or might articulate (and spell) it as some of my students do:
"virgina." In short, "cunt" is vastly superior, in certain cases, to
"vagina." Yet it is instructive to note that D. H. Lawrence's novel was
banned in these United States--precisely because of the sort of sentiments
you express in the first paragraph of your Section C--until 1959, when the
Supreme Court gave it and other socially redemptive works its imprimatur.
You and the College would have me believe that when I talk about such
literature I may only, to be "safe," quote the dangerous words, but not use
or discuss them otherwise. The rationale offered is that I might be
authoring some "hostile environment." That is, I am not trusted to conduct
myself in a professional, socially sensitive manner, despite all the
attestations to the fact pouring from my students. But this lack of trust,
this fear of possible "hostility," if it wants to achieve perfect quietus,
perfect control, must perforce return to the very censorship of the texts
ruled out of bounds forty years ago. Censorship of the medium (the
teacher/messenger) is spiritually akin, no less, to the bowdlerization or
exclusion of the texts themselves.

So, yes, the word "cunt" is suitable for class discussion, for commentary,
for analysis, for understanding. Please note, however, that this word was
not among the charges laid against me. You may rest assured it would have
been had any evidence been available. But, as a matter of very conscious
deliberation, I use it sparingly, and that has always been true. Any words
that I have reason to believe will induce considerable discomfort in
students of whatever "kind" get marshalled carefully. Ethnic slurs, gender
put-downs, every brand of insult or invective--even the Latin-derived
variety--I avoid, like the hurtful plague that they are. Most of my students
know this, know how profoundly I respect them; and that is no small part of
why they are hurting now, and loyal always. (Still, there is the squeamish,
the 0.0033 per cent. In a fair world, even so, I could rest my case.)

Speaking of cases, it is time to consider the Union counsel's "summary of
applicable law." Counsel cites Connick V. Myers, 1983, but does not point
out that the employee discharged in that case was not a teacher, nor was she
acting in any sense under the rubric of "academic freedom." The right of "an
employer to manage its workplace" stops at the classroom door, especially
where Colleges do not devise "sensitive tools which clearly inform teachers
what is being proscribed," Keyishian V. Board of Regents, 1967. This is to
avoid the "chilling effect" a professor labors under when he "must guess
what conduct or utterance may lose him his position." Our College's speech
feature grafted onto its Sexual Harassment Policy is just such a vague thing
that would not survive scrutiny in any federal court.

Moreover, after citing the arguably irrelevant (non-classroom Civil Service
employee) Arnett v. Kennedy, Union counsel goes on to conjure Dambrot v.
CMU, 1995, the sense of which is damaged, as with Connick, by the failure to
note that the issue adjudicated did not involve a classroom teacher or
academic freedom. In fact, Dambrot states: "The court must ask to what
purposes the employee spoke. Controversial parts of speech advancing only
private interests do not necessarily invoke First Amendment protection."
Indeed. As I have always asserted, and the vast majority of my students will
concur, all my speech addresses matters of "public concern," there being
nothing more public, more universal, than the nature and usage of language.
Why didn't Union counsel cite the portion of Dambrot that applies to this
case, that states the coach's language is "further away from the marketplace
of ideas and the concept of academic freedom because his position as a coach
is somewhat different from that of the classroom teacher. Unlike the
classroom teacher whose primary role is to guide students through the
discussion and debate of various viewpoints in a particular discipline,
Darnbrot's role as coach is to train his student athletes how to win on the
court?"

As does Union counsel, the Dambrot Court also cites Martin V. Parrish, 1986,
but to a far different end. "Plaintiff Martin had been discharged for
incessant use of profanity in his college classroom. He denigrated his
students' ability because they were accustomed to part-time, allegedly less
rigorous, instructors at another college. The Fifth Circuit held his speech
did not touch a matter of public concern because the profanity used by
Martin served only to reflect his attitude toward his students." The same
interpretation was applied by this Court to coach Dambrot's locker room
speech. Yet my speech serves to reflect my attitude toward my very
professional, very public concern: language. And my attitude toward students
has ever been one of obvious and comprehensive respect, as virtually all
will testify. The Court then says about Dambrot: "Casual chit-chat between
two persons or otherwise confined to a small social group is unrelated, or
largely so, to that marketplace, and is not protected." But I am in that
very marketplace of ideas, not a locker room, and what I vend are nuances,
attitudes, applications, histories, and celebrations of the full range of
the English language, both as object of scrutiny in itself and as a medium
of intellectual, emotional--very public--exchange.

Both the Union and the Administration, it is now evident, decided ab initio
that I was guilty--guilty of using English words neither of them liked. They
then set about, under this "sexual harassment" umbrella, trying to prove
their assumption by coating it with a patina of plausibility--charging me
with perhaps generating a "hostile environment." Both Dambrot and Martin
lost their cases, justifiably so, because that was what they did: both used
words to assault and insult their charges, one in a classroom, the other in
a locker room. Again, I create no such environment, quite the contrary. The
woman who complained about me in November, 1998, was averaging "A" work,
both in her classroom contributions as well as in her home assignments.
Nothing I said or did impeded her progress as a student. Her upset stemmed
from very personal predilections that I did not even know about until she
tossed her grenade.

Finally, Union counsel, when asked for his opinion about the "gag order"
emanating from the Office of Human Resources on January 8, 1999, evidently
confuses the apparent intent of that memo with the College's response to
events of February 1, 1999. That is, he believes the first "gag order" dealt
with "campus order" when, of course, it did not.

In closing, I notice that your first paragraph of Section B characterizes my
monologue before the Senate as having been "considerable" and "lengthy." If
I took up an inordinate amount of time--if I am now so doing--or in any way
proved a burden on my colleagues, I am sorry. I certainly have good
reason--I have never before been so threatened, in my career, in my
livelihood, in my integrity.

Sincerely,
John C. Bonnell

N.B. Does MCCFO intend to publish its "certain standard of conduct and
deportment?" Knowing what it is could help all faculty determine whether to
appeal for MCCFO representation should the College decide to override other
stipulations of our Contract.