… with this rather baffling story about a high-ranking athletics adviser kept on staff for years and years although plenty of evidence of his sexual misconduct was apparently out there. Lots of news outlets are picking up the story as we speak, even though so far Paul Gray’s misbehavior doesn’t approach Jerry Sandusky’s. Among other things, “an unnamed UI student told investigators that Gray had exchanged money and football tickets in return for sexual favors from another person who was not affiliated with the university.” He made inappropriate sexual comments pretty routinely; he reportedly on occasion offered to perform oral sex on students.
All bad stuff; but without Penn State in the background, it wouldn’t get as much attention as it’s now getting.
November 10th, 2012 at 5:00PM
Er, uh, UD, being a non-prof, I hate to say this. I hope I don’t get whomped on by a whole lot of your colleagues. You know I respect your moral courage.
But, as a fairly close observer of the academy, I believe there are a few folks–profs, administrators, union leaders, staffers, etc.–who seem to relish their relationships with students in an unseemly way. I’m not quite sure what I mean either. I don’t mean illegal conduct necessarily. It’s just that some university folks–a tiny percentage–seem to have talked themselves into some sort of proprietary relationship with the pupils who pay their tuition. The vibe among those folks seems to be something like: you pay me, I own you.
I’ll guess the number of university folks who’ve fallen into this mindset is very small. And, again, I’m not talking about conduct that’s illegal. A frame of mind, or a disposition of consciousness . . . something like that.