Wild Justice Part 21

Leaning toward the panel, James confided, "You see, she could one-finger the computer keys with her left hand.

"I filled out the order forms for her children's Christmas presents that year since she was unable to write enough to complete them.

"Around the 22nd or 23rd of December, she could use her hand well enough to write the checks for her bills. It was painful for her and she had some difficulty doing this. We made a joke of it--whether they would turn off the electricity or telephone because the signatures on her checks were not at all like her normal signature."

Questions exploded from the panel like hail on a tin roof.

"Was her wrist wrapped?" "Did she have a brace?" "Did she see a doctor?"

Although Diana had not completed her examination of her own witness, the panel jumped in and took over the questioning.

Henry, feeling decidedly undermined by this testimony, decided not to interrupt this flurry of out-of-order questioning.

He realized that this tactic of interrupting greatly hampered the smooth flow of information a witness had to give. It also served to confuse the witness since questions were coming from more than one panel member at a time. He decided that he would not stop it.

He never paused to think that the transcript of the hearing would show that Diana was interrupted in this manner more than twenty times. This would become significant when the Attorney General made the report of her investigation.

James waited until the panel ran out of questions and started to look sheepishly at one another, then he said, "Yes, her wrist was wrapped. She did not see a doctor but was treating it herself."

Now the panel turned its attention toward Diana in one of the frequent times they questioned her in front of a witnesses.

"When did you write the Christmas note to Lyle, then?"

This question directed at Diana came from Esther.

She answered firmly, "The twenty-fourth, the day before Christmas.

It was still painful for me to write then and I was still wearing the brace.

As you will observe, it is a very short note."

Well, this is not getting us anywhere, thought Henry, and I'd better put a stop to it. "I fail to see what all this has to do with the charge," he complained, petulantly.

Diana was ready for that one and answered succinctly, "According to Lyle's testimony, he received the unused student evaluation forms for that year from the dean's office on the tenth of December. Lyle testified that they were given out to the students the same day. He could not remember the exact day that he claims to have found the 'suspect' evaluations, but he did say that he found them sometime during the same week.

During that time I could not use my right hand and I was not doing any writing, or printing for that matter."

"Oh." The sigh that went with it escaped before Henry could even realize the 'Oh' had departed from his mouth. He looked frantically at a.n.u.se who appeared to have lost it and just shrugged his shoulders at Henry's glance.

Wanting to spare James, if possible, from attack by either Henry or a.n.u.se when they recovered from shock, Diana quickly said, "Thank you, James."

As soon as James had left, Diana continued, "Before I get to the next witness, I refer you again to this memo."

Trenchant replied. She held the paper aloft in her hand.

"Contained in the memo Lyle wrote to Dean Broadhurst is the a.s.sertion that on March seventeenth, he 'discussed the charges with me and recommended that I resign.'

This is patently false. He accused. He demanded.

He was angry. He yelled. He said, 'you must resign, you have no recourse. The president, the vice president and the academic council have met and demanded your resignation.'

He would not listen to me. He repeated several times that I had been nothing but trouble to him ever since I took him to court six years ago.

"He was abusive and he was angry. He said nothing about a hearing.

When I got a word in edgewise, I told him that I was going to contact the ombudsman and he said that I couldn't--that I had no recourse.

"Later on when he finally stopped yelling and heard me deny his charges, he told me that since I would not resign, there would be a hearing but it wouldn't matter. It was just a formality. I would be terminated, no matter what."

"You should have brought that up when Lyle was here so we would have his response." Henry returned vigorously.

I have to get on top of this hearing and stay there no matter what, he thought.

"Should I have? I'm not a lawyer and I'm not trying to be one.

The University Ombudsman told me not to have a lawyer present.

He said it would just anger you and turn you against me.

He advised me to prepare my case well and present it in good order and that is just what I am doing.

"Right now, I am telling you my side of this story. You have been listening for hours to the NERD's allegations and I have the right to respond. At the beginning of this hearing, you announced that the panel would question its witnesses and then I would cross examine them. You never said anything about debating them. You have already heard from Lyle.

Again I remind you that your letter to me, sent in advance of this hearing, contained nothing about specific order of presenting my evidence. Should I read it to you again?

You are trying to introduce new rules in the middle of the game."

"Mr. Chairman, I think that we must ask Lyle back here to clear up these fabricated charges we have been hearing,"

said a.n.u.se in a bored tone. He made a note and then looked toward Henry again. His look plainly said, ignore her.

"Yes," the chair agreed. Then offhandedly, as if he had not heard a word of her argument, he said to Diana, "call your next witness."

Jane watched the interchange between Henry and a.n.u.se with disdain.

They are in league together against Diana, she thought and this testimony has thrown them for a loop. They are going to have to start considering the information we are hearing in a professional, impartial manner now. They have got to concede that these charges by NERD may be false or at the very least, unsupported by real evidence.

So many things about this hearing are strange. I've noticed that although the charge against Diana, initiated by Lyle, specifically related to the five 'suspect' medical student evaluations, three other doc.u.ments were sent to the doc.u.ment examiners and were marked as evidence, she mused. No one has questioned how these other doc.u.ments were deemed 'harmful to two young faculty members', as Lyle claimed in his charges. According to the dean's letter, two are 'suspect' SmurFFs from the nursing nutrition course and the third is a printed note found by one of Lyle's closest friends. The explanation for the note Henry gave us was that when Lyle told his friend what was going on, she 'just remembered' a note found in her mailbox last year that she thought was 'suspicious' so they sent that to the doc.u.ment examiners as well.

The examiners concluded that one of the nursing nutrition evaluations was written by Diana. The other and the printed note they were unsure of. I'm beginning to feel like Alice in Wonderland. Jane rubbed her eyes and studied her notes again.

How do they expect to prove that this hodgepodge of unrelated evidence threatens two men who only teach in the radiation course?

Chapter 19

When the nursing students heard that some of their evaluations had been sent off campus, in defiance of an explicit ruling pertaining to student confidentiality, Diana was blitzed with students clamoring to testify at her hearing so they could protest this indecency.

As a group, they obtained hundreds of signatures on a pet.i.tion requesting the A.C.L.U. to take up their cause. The A.C.L.U was most sympathetic, but on finding that the evaluations sent were not signed, felt there was nothing they could do.

The students argued that since the administration put such emphasis on handwriting identification, it might use this method to identify the writers of SmurFFs, which were supposed to be anonymous.

The group sent a strong letter of protest to The Pope and continued their campaign across campus. One of the leaders of these concerned students, Jennifer Gla.s.s, was the next witness for Diana.

Jennifer Gla.s.s worked in a downtown social service agency full time.

She was taking the nursing nutrition course under the Continuing Education Department.

A rather large woman of thirty, she dressed well and showed no embarra.s.sment or nervousness. She was educated extensively in New York State schools and had graduated an education major.

Erudite and accomplished, she faced the panel with a most positive sense of antic.i.p.ation.

"Yes," she answered the direct examination question posed by Diana, "I am in your nutrition lab and I have talked with you extensively about the way evaluations are handled in the medical school.

"I came to you first to complain, thinking that the department was lax leaving them around in the lecture hall. I or anyone else could have filled out any number of them, since we were told to leave our finished evaluations in the NERD office. I was disturbed that the students were not taking them seriously. It seemed to indicate to me that the nutrition course was not considered important enough to be properly evaluated. That bothered me.

"You a.s.sured me that the evaluation process wasn't unique to the nursing course and took me to the NERD office to see how the medical students evaluation was conducted.

"I was appalled. Throughout my training, it was stressed how important the process is. At the colleges I attended, they were taken seriously--a representative from the student government would sign out the required number of forms from the administration official and bring them to the cla.s.sroom.

"All teachers or instructors had to leave the room while we filled out our evaluation. They were collected, counted and brought back to the administration official. The data was given to the instructor but never the evaluations themselves because student confidentiality was considered to be an important step in the process.