Whores of Academe - Contents and Abstracts
Exposé on Academic Corruption and Denial of Human Rights
at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, NY and University of Washington, Seattle, WA.
Compromised principles for personal gain and academic advantage without merit.
Abrogation of the First Amendment
A free and democratic society recognizes that justice begins with the rule of law. Laws insure that individuals receive respect and protection. Without that protection the public becomes subject to the unrestrained power of state officials and employees. Moreover, rational self-government becomes impossible when disrespect for the law prevails. When state lawyers and administrators agree on policies of willful blindness then their consensus does not have validity. In consort, they try to coerce thinking people not to think in order to further their totalitarian regime; they serve themselves not the public; they have low ethical standards; they obstruct justice; they deny due process and judicial hearings; and they convene or condone kangaroo courts. This fairly describes the totalitarianism and conflict of interest that exists in the Office of the Attorney General, State of Washington and at the University of Washington (UW). Interference before publication enjoins speech that the state would not punish after the fact. Moreover, prior restraint encroaches upon a journalist's constitutional privilege to report facts without interference. Wilson’s narrow policy amounts to nothing more than the suppression of lawful speech and, by extension, conspiracy to cover up alleged crimes. He has attempted to suppress a factual report about self-plagiarism, presumably because it involves the UW president's wife. He conveniently overlooks another fact: that the self-plagiarism brings into question whether McCormick and Lebsock lawfully hold their tenured professorships in the UW history department.
Universities have introduced a commercial economy that supports technocratic group preferences based upon objective truth, the notion that some things will always be true and other things will always be false - an extreme concept in itself although sometimes commercially viable. Conversely, academic cabalism adheres to extreme theological or political concepts and does not allow individual critical thinking and interpretation in the manner of traditional universities. It involves emotional group think that denies the existence of objective truth and reaches consensus without critically testing, analyzing, and evaluating ideas. Both constructs predicate upon extremism. They apply an ideology where all the facts fit the notions put forward by an infallible group or sociopathic cult leader. Humanities and social sciences now generally support this type of pejorative form of academic cabalism, a political philosophy that takes a moderate position or course of action deemed expedient by the group or leader and denies traditional development in favor of established political norms. Academic cabalism does not allow the development of concepts; instead, it demands adherence to a preconceived ideology vested in the personal interests of a small group that refuses to allow heterodox thinking. It has become so widespread that it affects every aspect of teaching and thinking in almost every academic pursuit. Commercialization of the academe has resulted in students paying ever more in tuition for less and less education.
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and University of Washington deans choreographed a pattern or practice of harassment. They ignored credential verification obtained from an agency approved by US Department of Education and validated by the Vice Provost and Dean of the Graduate School, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. Academic harassment defines as behavior that: intends to unreasonably interfere with an individual's educational performance both on or off campus; distributes verbal, written or electronic communication with intent to annoy; causes unlawful arrest; creates an intimidating, hostile or offensive classroom environment; directs personally offensive remarks with intent to demean, belittle, or cause personal humiliation or embarrassment in public; and, threatens, intimidates, or coerces. Registrars at both universities withheld records and destroyed or forged documents despite repeated requests to successive presidents for due process of law. A University of Washington lawyer deliberately frustrated investigations by American Civil Liberties Union and US Department of Education. Concerted xenophobia increased over the years as they repeatedly committed criminal acts, engaged in agism, and denied constitutional and human rights. Repeated harassment by apparent pathological liars and professional manipulators, many of whom had no valid credentials for the positions they held, construed as criminal activity. Instead of adhering to academic procedures and maintaining the integrity and ethics of academic standards, they used their perceived authority or power to intimidate, humiliate, and coerce which in an academic environment classifies as unlawful harassment.
Affidavit for Preliminary Injunction
This application for a restraining order gives potential Rensselaer students some idea of the lengths to which HH&S/LL&C Cabal and RPI administrators will go to prevent students completing their doctorate for political expedience. It will also show them that the administration could care less about due process of law in their totalitarian gambit. The filing was put on hold. The cabal was blackballing the author internationally and he needed legal representation which he could not obtain without money. The cabal had already bankrupted him and local attorneys feared going against the monolithic RPI without many thousands of dollars as a legal retainer. RPI denied doctoral student re-registration rights to a mature doctoral student in the department of Language, Literature, and Communication (LL&C) working on a PhD prerequisite for him to continue employment as a professor. The professor had 46 years industrial and academic experience in technical communication, had held, among other appointments, positions as: corporate chief executive officer of publishing companies; associate professor of communication at a California university; lecturer at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI), and associate editor of an academic journal. He also held elected fellowships in two international institutions. Until 1985, employment as a professor depended upon his accredited European, terminal masters degree equivalency which he had held for many years. During the early 1980s, United States university policies changed and required a PhD even from mature faculty members who already held tenure-track academic positions.
Apologia: Formal Defense and Justification
University officials at RPI and UW libeled, slandered and blackballed the author to prevent career advancement and to deny equal employment opportunity. When he made an appointment and traveled from Seattle to Troy to discuss the situation, RPI officials trumped up charges and had him arrested. Campus police ambushed him in an administration building, arrested him without probable cause, then held him under campus arrest for four days. The most outrageous aspect of defamation educes from people that one has never met or with whom one has had no contact. Self-serving administrators acted under the insidious and coercion of a politically motivated minority, intent upon blackballing and career destruction, in order to advance their own careers. RPI and UW spent many years trying to destroy credentials despite repeated verification of them by other universities and agencies approved by US Department of Education. Their xenophobia increased over the years as they repeatedly committed criminal acts, engaged in agism, and denied constitutional and human rights. A thorough investigation by an attorney appointed by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) verified the supporting documents and recommended civil and human rights action against UW which an ACLU committee approved. UW officials had those hearings unlawfully quashed, as they did on several other occasions, by trading off unrelated issues. The information contained in the curriculum vitae linked to the article will serve two purposes: To prove deliberate defamation designed to destroy a career and/or prevent its advancement; and, To reverse the arrogation of civil and human rights accorded by US Constitution and UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
Arbitrary and Capricious Evaluation
Rensselaer H&SS/LL&C did not subscribe to philosophy established in universities over centuries. Program descriptions blatantly misrepresented actual offerings and the department had neither qualified faculty members nor computer resources to support a technical and graphic communication program. Dogmatic ideologies and indifference to both logic and evidence undermined any coherent scholarly dialogue. The department neither valued reason nor allowed an open intellectual life for fear that students would expose them as academic frauds. It took inexperienced students several years to realize how RPI had swindled them. Too late to do anything about it, they found that they had no recourse. They had to make a living to pay exorbitant tuition bills that had accumulated for a piece of paper that had virtually no more intellectual worth than a degree obtained from an Internet diploma mill. The students who recognized the swindle either acquiesced to it as a means to obtain the degree or drew attention to the anomalies and distortion which resulted in unceremonious character assassination and contrived expulsion. Potential students to H&SS/LL&C who recognized the fraud decided to enroll in more ethical programs at other universities, probably saving thousands of dollars in the process. To boost their virtually non-existent technical and graphic communication program, RPI fraudulently exhibited a professional system design portfolio developed over many years as student work. Detailed case studies explain the Machiavellian principles that governed doctoral students except the easy riders who operated under a commercial mandate. A majority of the students graduated through a policy of controlled or coerced attrition.
Big Mama and the Seven Leprechauns - Dedication
Dereliction by successive Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and University of Washington (UW) presidents and administrators called for an electronic magazine independent of the university that carried details of academic impropriety. Machiavellian behavior has suggested theses which have resulted in dozens of articles that expose malevolence with many more pieces in preparation. Contra Cabal responds to the need by exposing the unswerving moral turpitude, ethical ambivalence, and unlawful artfulness of university administrators. It also exposes the unlawful actions which university presidents have condoned through willful blindness. They gave the author a reason to return to his former profession as a journalist by maliciously ending his academic career: a career started in London's Fleet Street during George Orwell's time. This move to a potentially higher calling could not have taken place without the hubris of equivocating Big Mamas, academic leprechauns and Orwellian inspiration. Dedication - Custom requires that those who want the favor of hubristic academic princes offer to them their most valuable possessions. These princes receive costly gifts worthy of their greatness. The gifts include academic tenure, department chairs, deanships, presidencies, named professorships, federal grants, inflated salaries, bribes, and especially sycophancy. I have discovered a gift among my possessions that I prize more than the recognition of pandering graduate students. The gift comprises the knowledge gained from sixty years publishing experience and a continuing study of both classical and modern satire. I have condensed this knowledge, with great diligence, into a series of essays entitled Whores of Academe.
Bigotry of any kind becomes an absolute and adverse dysfunction in any race or culture. It creates the political wedge that now exists between racial and ethnic groups. It polarizes both those who suffer reverse discrimination and those stigmatized by the quota systems used to enforce affirmative action programs. Corrupt university administrators and their sycophantic ombudsmen gain from the manipulation of mediation procedures and their clients, whatever their ethnic or racial denominations, lose. They exemplify much of the abrogation, neglect, and exploitation of dispute resolution processes in academe. The predicaments described epitomize the failure of many other dispute resolution procedures. The cases mentioned here derive from documented experiences by the author): they do not relate to hypothetical situations. Names of perpetrators become relevant to disclosures; moreover, the revelations warn other non-traditional or ethnic students, and untenured faculty members, about these conspirators and the cover-ups that cause their victims to become scapegoats. Dispute resolution should begin with honest disclosure of facts, not subterfuge and cover-up. This requires discourse rather than a hypothetical disputation, revelation rather than political silence.
Bigotry and Distributive Justice
For three decades humanities departments have based their decisions upon discriminatory special group preference thinly disguised as reparation for past injustices. Preferences based on race or gender have introduced unqualified faculty members imbued with cultic ideologies which often conflict with individual learning processes. They restrict the critical thinking that allows students to accumulate knowledge without indoctrination. Essentially bigoted, distributive justice promotes special interests and ideologically contrived courses and favors economically advantaged groups and disadvantages less fortunate individuals. Interdisciplinary courses do not stretch the mind through critical inquiry but instead dupe unwilling students into ideological pursuits that lack intellectual discipline. They provide a convenient way to promote the most politicized, least intellectually meritorious forms of multicultural pedagogy and ideology. They allow students to escape traditional academic rigor to insure full and lucrative enrollment. Tenured professors who should have no fear of persecution or unemployment back away from public statements as a sop to political correctness. That irresponsible behavior frequently denies due process and provides a good argument for those who would completely abolish tenure to favor managed accountability and commercialization of all universities.
Rensselaer had no reason to challenge equivalency credentials valid for three decades after accepting them, except for political expedience and fear of exposure of program fraud. The challenge clearly supported a cover-up obvious to anyone with experience as a CEO in technical communication. During the 1970s, UK equivalency evaluation granted academic qualifications for mature technologists and professional people after completion of concurrent work and academic study programs with examination by professional institutes, guilds, or trade unions. Equivalency evaluation filled a void created when UK introduced university degrees in disciplines such as architecture, law, accounting, and graphic arts that had previously relied upon indentured apprenticeship, internship, and examination under Royal Charter. Incorporation by Royal Charter protected the public interest. Established in cooperation with UK universities, academic degree standards predicated upon institute or guild criteria which had evolved over several hundred years. University educational standards evolved in parallel. Equivalency certification allowed transition by granting exemption from, or reciprocity with, either university degrees or institute examinations. Some UK institutes replaced institute education and qualifications with university degrees and others still have their own programs run in conjunction with universities. US universities have accepted credentials from foreign institutions by ratifying UK degree equivalency for several decades and have adopted similar professional programs to those established in UK such as business administration and other professionally oriented disciplines not previously recognized in primarily liberal arts environments.
See also: [Credential Evaluation] [Academic Harassment] [The Big Lie]
Cloning Pointy-Headed Cabalists
Tenure results from luck, connivance (collegiality), and in largest measure humiliation. The tenure process requires constant screening of those who have no power, by those who have power. This guarantees preservation of an existing level of mediocrity and, in the process, deprives many deserving individuals of their academic freedom. A new cloning process insures that very few new PhDs enter the job market to threaten insecure and incompetent faculty members. Cloning has moved from the intellectual to the physical. A state sperm bank has confined itself to donors from the academe. It will accept donations only from academics who have achieved at least the rank of associate professor. To meet an urgent demand for sperm for its diversity program the university has developed rainbow sperm that meets politically correct criteria for Multicultural Academic In Vitro Fertilization (AIVF). With enthusiasm, Richard L. McCormick, formerly UW President, can now submit Suzanne D. Lebsock (his wife) as the first subject for incubation. This will assuage some of the guilt that she must feel for obtaining a highly paid nepotistic professorship despite scientific fraud. AIVF will probably provide her and her children with job security when the US Department of Justice eventually indicts her husband for misprision and myriad other crimes. Moreover, their daughter may become the first to obtain a MacArthur Foundation award for exceptionally creative gametic endeavor.
Computer Crackers - University of Washington
Monday, January 10, 2000, the Washington state governor, attorney general, auditor, also University of Washington officials and regents, received a prepublication notice from Contra Cabal. The notice introduced a new web site that contains a series of essays that refer to them and their official actions. It contained a declaration that Contra Cabal conforms to the journalism codes of conduct and ethics mainly tested by courts in both Great Britain and the United States of America. It also gave named individuals an opportunity to respond to charges affecting their reputation and moral character within ten days and before publication. That time has now expired and they have not responded in a civilized manner. Instead, University of Washington officials have hacked and crashed the Contra Cabal computers. Hacking or cracking computers violates both state and federal law. This instance follows a succession of similar occurrences since Contra Cabal first published during 1992. It clearly shows a documented pattern of unlawful acts designed to prevent publication of reports about criminal activity by public officials. They use this tactic, and many other bureaucratic ploys, to cover up crimes at the University of Washington that the Attorney General Christine Gregoire (now Governor) should have prosecuted long ago.
Freedom of speech permits publication of truth without interference from other people or acceptance of their moral or political ideologies. Both professors and journalists, as researchers, have similar ethical and moral responsibilities. Ethically, they must speak out even when very few people will listen. Morally they must stand their ground when attacked by those who would silence them. The new academic liaison with the business world forces it to drop its anarchic attitudes and become accountable; however, that has a price. Universities now have commercialized curricula that change learning into a training function allied to industry instead of an educational process. Political correctness, the need not to offend anyone of any race, religion, or sexual proclivity, begins with a conspiracy to suppress thought and ideas by silencing speech. It imposes a prior restraint - unlawful control of discourse or media before publication. Those with power curtail diverse expression when they find speech or writing politically or theoretically unacceptable to them individually or as a group. This type of coercion enables those in power to deny freedom of expression to dissenters and allows the powerful to destroy the careers of nonconformists. The war cries "inappropriate" and "politically correct" then define synonymously in a totalitarian environment. Conspiracies of silence, in both the academe and media, preceded the European holocaust and other twentieth-century genocides.
If a university receives federal funding and punishes an individual by word or deed then the Constitution requires that the punishment result from due process of law. Only those universities that function within the law preserve the individual freedoms granted by the Constitution despite the self-government privileges that university and state officials possess. Governor Christine Gregoire, formerly Attorney General of the State of Washington, consistently supports UW officials when they deny both faculty members and students the basic protection that courts provide. UW does not make formal charges and presents no evidence before convening kangaroo courts. Frequently, individuals neither know the names of their accusers nor the names of adverse witnesses. UW officials try cases in absentia thereby denying the accused individuals the opportunity to present a defense. They deny basic rights in law by disallowing either oral testimony or written affidavits by defense witnesses. Moreover, the accused individuals, whose only transgression probably relates to exercise of freedom of expression, do not have access to oral recordings or written transcripts of testimony that would enable them to appeal the decisions made by these unlawful courts. This has resulted in blatant denial of civil and human rights. These denials have destroyed careers and precluded individuals from earning a livelihood yet Governor Gregoire, with full knowledge of these unlawful acts, has not charged the perpetrators with any crimes or even ordered investigation of them.
Curriculum Vitae - Introduction
Traditional Appalachian vendettas and the liaisons within decadent French aristocracies pale in comparison with the simmering hatreds and collegiate resentment engendered by admissions quota systems based upon racism, gender, and xenophobia. Ironically, officials acknowledge the illegality of quota systems then spend all their time finding ways to develop them. Administrators and faculty members compromise principles for personal gain and obtain academic privilege without merit. If universities reward exploitive panderers and self-seeking sycophants, then pandering and sycophancy will predominate. If money forms the single measure of recognition, one rests assured that merit-less decisions resulting from "merit raise" fights will prevail. These situations could become more equitable with more emphasis on rights and responsibilities and less on status and privilege. Administrators must once again answer to both faculty members and to students whom the public pays them to serve. Hiring and firing needs to return as a collaborative function between the president and the professorate. Moreover, appointments should not result solely from presidential decree, department and college mandates, or from pressure by commercial or other special interest groups. They should result from democratically appointed campus-wide committees with a membership appropriate to the position and discipline under review. Appointments and admissions criteria must hinge on merit and not on personal, political, gender-related, or ideological agendas. University trustees need to promulgate procedures for public accountability and insist that officials act responsively, competently, and, perhaps more importantly, within the law. Those who violate their positions by breaking laws, who fail to serve faculty and student interests, or who do not contribute to academic life, have no right to remain in the academe.
Democracy has become extremely susceptible to irresponsible government officials who have access to substantial amounts of money and use it to control media and terms of debate. Deliberative democracy requires, and substantial empirical evidence shows, that the electorate frequently changes its mind about policy makers after an opportunity properly to reflect on the issues. Contra Cabal gives them an opportunity to reflect upon the anarchy extant in Washington state and particularly malfeasance at University of Washington. Mark A Emmert, President, University of Washington and Christine O Gregoire, Governor, State of Washington have known about unlawful denial-of-service attacks by their computing and communications staff for four and twelve years respectively then granted the hackers impunity through laissez faire policies. They have now permitted state employees to start a Cyberwar. Instead of responding to issues, Emmert has tried to kill the messenger. He has allowed his technical staff to censor email by randomly deleting text from personal email messages and crashing computers to try to prevent publication of content protected under First Amendment to US Constitution.
I prepared four outlines for dissertation topics which C. Lee Odell arbitrarily rejected without discussion or recourse. He made an appointment for a 30-minute session at my request during Spring 1986 to discuss topics that I had submitted to him about two months previously. Odell kept me waiting beyond the appointed time with his door left ajar so that I could see him and hear the trivia he discussed on the telephone. After 30 minutes, he waived me in and said that he could only spare a few minutes. He then spent three minutes making humiliating comments such as “I am not interested in anything you do or say” and then terminated the meeting. In three years, Odell (my self-appointed doctoral advisor) never met with me again and studiously avoided me in the public areas of the administration building. He falsely recorded meetings which never took place to meet a university requirement to discuss dissertation topics and deliberately left me without a dissertation advisor for 15 months which cost me about $42,000 in tuition at current rates. The three-year fiasco in H&SS/LL&C cost in the region of $100,000 in tuition and legal fees which netted me absolutely nothing due to sabotage and blackballing by Odell and other cabal members. I decided to "go it alone" and wrote three dissertations during the ensuing years.
Academic work came to an abrupt halt due to destruction, unlawful alteration, or withholding of databases and other records by Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute and University of Washington during 1980s and 1990s. Document alteration covered up multiple fraudulent activity and other criminal acts by university administrators and faculty members. Concerted xenophobia by Odell (RPI) and Neel (UW) increased over the years as they repeatedly committed criminal acts, engaged in agism, and denied constitutional and human rights - a continuation of the previous harassment by a LL&C cabal. Repeated harassment by apparent pathological liars and professional manipulators, many of whom had no valid credentials for the administrative positions they held, construed as criminal activity. Fantastic as these allegations may sound, one must remember that one deals with intellectual midgets who follow anarchist policies. They have no morals or ethics and, consequently, do not care about state or federal law. Instead of adhering to academic procedures and maintaining the integrity and ethics of academic standards, they used their perceived authority or power to intimidate, humiliate, and coerce which in an academic environment classifies as unlawful harassment.
Elizabeth’s Machination: A Convoluted Tragi-Comedy
One often hears about university professors falsifying their curriculum vitae but not often about administrators forging student transcripts to suit their own political agendas. Much file and transcript forgery relates to controlling or retaliating against students who have grieved injustice. This fraudulent practice frequently goes unnoticed because the provisions of federal law prevent anyone but faculty, administrators, and students accessing student records. In essence, administrators and faculty members frequently betray the trust granted under this law for their own political purposes and use restricted private information for blackballing. Commonly, administrators have little contact with students and some even have little or no educational background. They act upon the principle that if one can manage well, then one can manage anything. The academe needs fewer of these parasites. Instead, it needs more academically oriented, knowledgeable people with students and higher education as their primary concerns. Christine O. Gregoire, formerly Attorney General now Governor, must insure that prosecutors indict criminals instead of covering up their crimes using risk management tactics. The courts need to hand down stiff sentences for wrongdoing by state employees. However, the public should not hold its collective breath while waiting for a corrupt politician to comply with law.
In the context of university admissions procedures, the term “discrimination” defines prejudice by members of dominant social or racial groups against other groups through misuse of affirmative action to benefit themselves. The term also refers to the exclusion of a member of a class not commonly discriminated against to mitigate historic discrimination against a member of another class. Discriminatory practice allows allocation of positions traditionally held by members of a preferred group to the exclusion of other candidates without regard for merit, education, expertise, or temperament. University of Washington has used illegal quota systems for at least two decades by disguising them as affirmative action. Those systems violate the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment of the United States Constitution and Title VII, Civil Rights Act, 1964. The misnomer "reverse discrimination" lacks definitive meaning. Discrimination can apply to anyone regardless of race, religion or other arbitrary classification so the term "reverse" becomes redundant. Discrimination describes policies or acts that benefit one group at the expense of any other group based upon arbitrary membership or predetermined quotas.
As a professor and administrator in the Massachusetts system I could have completed a doctorate at UMass without paying tuition; however, UMass did not have a technical communication program so the dean referred me to Rensselaer based upon Krull’s misrepresentation of the LL&C program. In keeping with the misleading statement on the H&SS/LL&C web site, Krull lied to UMass: “For over 30 years, our PhD graduates have been the leaders in the study of the relationship between communication and technology. As new forms of technologically mediated communication emerge, research and scholarship are needed to describe their nature and account for their unique effects.” He created an absolute travesty for hundreds of doctoral students. After acceptance for doctoral study, a letter contained a peremptory statement which effectively rejected out of hand the field of study statement submitted with the PhD application. Ironically, the statement reiterated the H&SS/LL&C mission statement.
Mary Wollstonecraft, (1759-1797), English author and feminist, probably born in London, ran a school and worked as a governess in Ireland. After moderate success with her first novel, she returned to London, where she joined an intellectual group that included William Blake, Thomas Paine, Joseph Priestly, and Henry Fuseli. She consistently appealed for equality of education and opportunity between men and women. Wollstonecraft wrote: “If the abstract rights of man will bear discussion and explanation, those of women, by a parity of reasoning, will not shrink from the same test: though a different opinion prevails in this country.” She must have had Rita J. Simon in mind as a future detractor from that philosophy. If Simon decided not to publish the article she commissioned then she could have found an ethical and professional solution. She neither indicated any problem nor settled the account. Instead, she chose to ignore the whole matter. Contra Cabal has published the piece so that Women’s Freedom Network subscribers know how Simon manages their affairs. If Simon wanted to challenge any particular point made in the article then she could have contacted the author to discuss it. Her insolence in getting a secretary to call with a ridiculous claim to “space limitations” remains inexcusable. If Simon wanted to prevent publication then she has only achieved that to the small readership that she had in 1996. The article has a much greater circulation now than it would have received when originally scheduled for publication in the printed edition of Simon’s journal.
Incompetence and Willful Blindness
Wise has neither addressed Internet denial-of-service attacks nor kangaroo courts that UW has conducted without regard for the rights of individuals. She has allowed decisions that result from foregone conclusions made in secret and based upon political expedience to stand. Neither has she investigated current complaints; instead, she plays the part of a highly paid flak. She has resorted to laissez faire practices and willful blindness in an attempt to cover up the level of incompetence that she has reached as an administrator. Laissez faire policies do not classify as a defense and withholding public records or neglecting to verify or validate information about crimes compounds existing felonies. Primarily an economic doctrine, laissez faire opposes government regulation or interference so that administrators can operate according to their own rules in violation of law. It effectively grants them impunity. The term “laissez faire” literally means “let things alone” and has become a convenient way for Washington state employees to act with indifference.
In Memoriam - Marsha L. Landolt
University of Washington (UW) memorialization of Marsha L. Landolt ranks as the ultimate hypocrisy. UW has again published a major spin consistent with most other announcements they have produced with taxpayer funds. The university must stop the spin and address the issues before any more people lose their jobs at the hands of administrators like Landolt. It must redress the unlawful and illegal practices that she instituted during her term as graduate dean. Several faculty and students will regret her death only because it allowed her to avoid indictment for the alleged crimes that she committed. Landolt became dean of the Graduate School and vice provost in 1996. During her term she unlawfully thwarted findings by both the American Civil Liberties Union and Department of Education, Office of Civil Rights, to deny civil rights and due process of law. Interim president, Lee L. Huntsman must now take immediate action to reverse the untold damage that Landolt caused during her term as graduate dean. Her death should not end the pursuit of justice. Tenure becomes a means to provide job security without accountability, usually at the taxpayer's expense. Nowhere else can incompetent individuals receive high executive salaries then retreat to a tenured bolt-hole anytime and for any reason. Landolt took full advantage of the situation to disadvantage others for her own political purposes. UW flaks could better spend their time and taxpayer funds addressing the issues. The university needs to reverse Landolt’s monstrous administrative decisions and to mitigate the damage she caused to her victims instead of allowing its employees to publish posthumous schlock.
Traditionally, the public has responded to exposés about academic corruption by treating the wrongdoing as isolated instances instead of considering it as part of the everyday fabric of campus life. They have virtually no idea of the bizarre behavior that commonly exists. Most people do not realize that they support widespread corruption by paying exorbitant tuition and taxes. Usually, they do not rationally make a connection between academic totalitarianism (cultism) and the lifetime financial and tax expenditures to which they commit themselves. Mutually ordained charlatans continually strive to keep parents, students, and taxpayers, who fund their academic trickery and deceit, totally unaware of the truth. They ignore them as "clients" and treat them as a resource to be exploited for personal gain and security. People do not make a connection between the average of $82,000 per annum (1994) salary paid to a tenured professor and their own expenditure. They remain unaware of the bizarre, cultist behavior, and the lifetime expenditures in tuition and taxes to which they commit themselves. Therefore, they take no action and the corruption continues unabated. The self-evaluative processes, the attendant conspiracies of silence, and the mutual condonation of wrongdoing, form a basis for the corruption itself. Then, the granting of tenure seals the pact among the conspirators. Such self-evaluative processes only give the appearance of propriety: they disclose nothing and perpetuate the problem.
Justice Delayed: Justice Denied
Tyrants have traditionally used elaborate procedures and ceremonies to make their exercise of power acceptable to the public while simultaneously denying due process of law. They use independent judicial systems along lines generally accepted in law. A closer look at those systems shows that administrators absolutely control them by simultaneously assuming the roles of prosecution, defense, judge, and jury under the guise of "risk management protocols" to hide the "kangaroo court" stigma. Kangaroo courts conduct business without regard to the rights of one or both parties. Decisions result from foregone conclusions made in secret and based upon political or other bias of the judges. Administrators frequently convene them to deny due process and to cover up their own crimes that legitimate hearings would expose. These hacks know how to bring investigations to a quick and meaningless end by intimidating witnesses and coercing complainants. In addition, the attorney general organizes bureaucratic shell games among the EEB, the state auditor, the legislative ethics board, and her own office. These games delay due process so that no viable decision results. The use of kangaroo courts, and subsequent strategies to defend them, effectively gags complainants from protesting politically-motivated prosecution and decision making. Executive Ethics Board has become a means of extending and condoning unlawful activities. They then use their findings to bring political retribution upon complainants and whistle blowers to cover up their own unlawful activities. They repeatedly delay justice then deny it.
Philip Rubens, East Carolina University formerly Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, filed two versions of a recommendation with Merrill D. Whitburn, Chair H&SS/LL&C, so that the author could complete his PhD. Rubens then became his doctoral advisor and agreed that the author could complete his dissertation and defend it before the graduation deadline. However, it became abundantly clear that Whitburn neither intended to conciliate nor to allow completion of the PhD and choreographed a second expulsion. Roland W. Schmidt, President; Gary Judd, Dean of the Graduate School; and Thomas Phelan, Dean of Humanities and Social Sciences acquiesced to Whitburn’s machination and refused to respond to requests for interviews or to grant due process required by university regulations. The author traveled from the West Coast to visit Troy by appointment in an attempt to make arrangements for degree completion and immediately became subject to RPI Department of Public Safety (DPS) surveillance and arrest. DPS restricted his movements on campus to DPS office under surveillance by police officers. Police action resulted from false and misleading reports filed by Whitburn and Judd which contained statements that he had a history of violence and threatened the safety of faculty members and administrators. Shirley Ann Jackson, President and John P. Harrington, Dean H&SS Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute neglect to realize that whoever knows that a subordinate has committed an offense and remains silent to hinder or prevent prosecution or punishment becomes an accessory after the fact.
Land of the Free - Seattle, Washington
George Orwell claimed that every past utterance becomes baffling to those who have succumbed to Newspeak. His hypothesis required a definitive break with the past to allow the projection of the present into the future and to perpetuate it. The fundamental conception no longer surprises those who live under Orwellian and Kafkaesque regimes. Manipulated communication exists as a deeply unnerving fact of this era. Paradoxically, Internet communication appears so ordinary, so plausible, and so familiar that it finds ready acceptance. Under the control of an oligarchy it exists as a separate reality. An article on political correctness originally written in 1996 then censored by technocrats, has since developed a truism. It had prophetic significance when written and now describes a decadent condition that pervades American society generally and the academe in particular. University of Washington officials and Washington Superior Court judges have three times destroyed various forms of Contra Cabal - this electronic journal first published in 1992. They based their decisions entirely upon content perceived as politically incorrect. They used censorship, sanctioned prior restraint, and held kangaroo courts to destroy the author’s career. Perhaps it bodes well to become a "sanitary disposal inspector and coordinator" rather than an academician. At least one receives payment for one's labor and in that mindless environment can apply one's mind: probably to lampoon one's own predicament.
Letters to the Editor - The Weasel
A former educator from Texas hand wrote this letter after reading Whitburn’s summation: I have a lot to say about this piece. First of all, the curriculum we devised in Texas taught everything anyone needed to know about English who did not intend to major in it at college. It was designed to have the student fully educated and prepared to enter the scientific university. The literature source was exhaustive: Greek classic, Shakespeare, modern literature, American literature, British literature. Interspersed with the literature was a weekly concentration on grammar. Every unit had a written assignment as well as an oral presentation. Discussion employed techniques for cultural inter-communication. Every written and oral presentation was designed for a particular (varied) audience. Technical writing was assigned in correlation with chemistry and vocational departments. All of this has been “done” on the secondary level. It’s quite disgusting when I consider their paycheck. Julie A. Byrne wrote: . . . if you haven't figured it out yet, RPI administrators never truly supported any of the H&SS programs. These departments don't bring enough money or student interest to RPI. The only reason that the administration seemed to support H&SS at all is that it "looked good" to prospective undergraduate students and their parents that RPI is a "balanced" technological university, not a "techy" school. This is all marketing, and it's obvious from the amount, type, and quality of courses that have been offered, as well as the lack of quality professors in the department, that no student here is getting a "balanced" education.
Malfeasance - Christine O'Grady Gregoire and Mark Allen Emmert
Articles especially relate to malfeasance by Christine O Gregoire, Governor, State of Washington (WA) and Mark A Emmert, President, University of Washington (UW). It also refer to Judges Mary Kay Becker, James A Doerty, Michael C Hayden, Barbara A Madsen, and Anthony P Wartnik who committed gross judicial misconduct by ex parte contact and opining on issues not in evidence for political expedience. Apart from Emmert, these public officials hold no post-graduate academic degrees or other qualifications that a reasonable person would expect for employment in high government office. Gregoire and Becker falsified their academic credentials in election campaign material - now a criminal offense in State of Washington. A person who falsely claims to possess a credential issued by an institution of higher education to gain a position in government commits a gross misdemeanor. In State of Washington, a gross misdemeanor carries with it maximum punishment of one year imprisonment and/or $5,000 fine. That does not take into account punishment for malfeasance.
Malicious Evaluation and Career Devastation
Richard S. Neel (University of Washington - UW), C. Lee Odell (Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute - RPI), and John F. Swiney (Central Washington University - CWU) tried to justify their mutual denial of equal opportunity and human rights by conspiring to destroy credentials despite repeated verification of them by other universities and agencies approved by US Department of Education. A thorough investigation by an attorney appointed by American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) verified those documents and recommended civil and human rights action against University of Washington which an ACLU committee approved. In three almost identical confrontations, two of them three thousand miles apart, the antagonists acted out similar demeaning theatrical fantasies. Choreographed rage or tantrums frequently demonstrate the limit of emotion sociopaths can experience. They mimic each other then act out mutual fantasies to mask their own dysfunction in a manner that emulates mimicry used by stage actors. In the case of Neel, Odell, and Swiney the alleged crimes predicated upon mutual mimicry which provided concealment and protection from punishment for alleged criminal activity.
This article still has relevance when one considers the negative attitude changes toward democracy that have occurred since the destruction of the World Trade Center in New York and the current increase in prior restraint, censorship and propaganda. Academic freedom, an absolute right not an abstract philosophy, should not subserve economic considerations. Information technology remains a right not a privilege despite technocratic claims to the contrary. Legislative and judicial decisions have determined the right of individuals to distribute information freely and the Bill of Rights documents the protection individuals should expect from the state. Laws do not provide much protection against denial of academic freedom and due process of law by despotic university administrators who constantly frustrate both faculty members and students by withholding access to information. They repeatedly interfere with computer resources when they disagree with the content of messages: a disagreement probably based upon disclosure of their own malfeasance. They fear dissent and have an aversion to controversy. Their addiction to political correctness frequently causes them to invoke censorship of Internet activities. Economic considerations do not apply to freedom of expression in cyberspace; consequently, exclusionist actions can only derive from political expediency. Free expression, the traditional lifeblood of universities, has now become an economic and political pawn. Moreover, the time has come for a reversal of policies that allow technocrats to control information flow absolutely. The tail must stop wagging the dog. Oversight and supervision, through traditional, ethical, information science procedures, need to replace the extant communication and propaganda anarchy.
Widespread technological ignorance, inherent in some academic departments, allows systems administrators to gain control of educational technology applications, computers, media equipment, and libraries. Apparently, they think that technology must rule preeminently and that applications represent a secondary concern. They sanctify and enforce their own ideas of political correctness and expediency. They make frivolous claims of user infraction of regulations, then curb freedom of expression. Fortunately, these despots can neither gain absolute control of the Internet nor empower themselves as absolute censors. Faculty members still do not use their academic freedom to prevent technocratic demagogues usurping their communication rights. They submit to technocratic Valkyries without complaint. Through fear they fall victim to the totalitarianism that usually accompanies censorship. By constant carping about the "appropriateness" of Internet messages, they give systems operators the means to disenfranchise them and their colleagues. Consequently, freedom of expression ceases to exist and assistant technocrats and lawyers frequently control both the media and the messages. These entrenched hetaerae follow the absolute dictates of their despotic gods. The mythical Odin and the Valkyries never learned that one can only sacrifice others when one becomes ready to sacrifice oneself. They still serve as a powerful metaphor for oppression. The players in the Washingtonian tragicomedy will probably end a similar way because they have yet to learn that when one tolerates others one begins to tolerate oneself. Toleration protects freedom of expression by denying technocratic intervention and insuring due process of law.
Oh, What a Tangled Web She Weaves
Suzanne Dee Lebsock, a "feminist scholar", self-plagiarized her doctoral dissertation for more than twenty-five years. On the strength of her "academic publishing" performance she has obtained grants, fellowships, and leaves of absence during that period probably worth more than a million dollars. She now holds a tenured professorship in the History Department, University of Washington (UW), obtained by nepotism and fraud. She receives an annualized $114,240.00 (1999/00) salary plus taxpayer-financed fringe benefits through her marriage to the university president. Her salary ranks way above the average for her department and at almost double the average campus salary for a full professor with tenure. She obtained these benefits through a scandalous contract that appointed her husband, Richard L. McCormick, as president of the University of Washington. Suzanne Dee Lebsock repeatedly indulged in self-plagiarism. Nepotism allowed her to get away with much of the scientific fraud that she has committed during the past quarter century. Her father-in law held an administrative position when she worked at Rutgers University (RU). Later her husband became provost at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC). UNC chancellor, the late Michael K. Hooker, and his lawyer assistant, Susan H. Ehringhaus, covered-up Lebsock's unlawful employment at that institution. Like McCormick and his lawyer assistant, Carol S. Niccolls, they tried to deny access to public records although the offenses occurred before Hooker took office. The employment scam at UW followed the same pattern as the scam in North Carolina.
Panderers and Sycophants - Introduction
Campus gender politics have become an obsession. Traditional Appalachian vendettas and the liaisons within decadent French aristocracies pale in comparison with the simmering hatreds and collegiate resentment engendered by admissions quota systems based on gender preference. Ironically, officials acknowledge the illegality of quota systems then spend all their time finding ways to develop them. Few social situations have become as power motivated as those existing between female administrators and their male apologists at Rensselaer and University of Washington. Non-pedagogic executives receive six-figure salaries, occupy plush office suites, have abundant staff, use first-rate office equipment, and have shelves without learned books. In contrast, professors receive the low salaries and many occupy offices that resemble in size and temperature the butlers’ pantries described in many eighteenth-century English novels. Academic departments have inadequate staff and must find a place for their libraries at home. Administrators in sartorial splendor "do lunch" with other administrators and spend the remainder of their time ”consulting” with similarly attired business executives. Their secretaries omnipotently command the professorate using memoranda to treat them like commercial employees. This minimally benefits higher education as one traditionally knows it and misplaces decision-making power, wastes large sums of taxpayers' money, and demoralizes faculties and students alike.
US First Amendment protects non-controversial politically correct speech; however, it primarily protects the ideas and beliefs contained in controversial or fringe expression. Tolerance for dissent has now evaporated and a systematic and steady erosion of freedom of speech continues using political correctness as an excuse. It involves a mimetic “do as I do” type of posturing which demands unanimity about what to include and what to exclude. Cruel and oppressive dictators for time immemorial used politically correct techniques to set moral standards. Having established an illusion of morality, they used arbitrary zero-tolerance policies to abuse and vilify others in order to achieve power and wealth. Politically correct expression conforms to the absolutism of a privileged oligarchy and supports conformist ideology. It classifies as a technocratic, apolitical, aberration. It probably ranks as the most odious aspect of postmodernism. It denies history in an attempt to reject the past. The general public does not realize the process of indoctrination that exists within universities in the United States: an indoctrination that emanates from technocratic, pseudo-theocratic control which allows the establishment of politically correct cults - religions that have no theology. Almost all totalitarian societies have claimed that politically correct guidelines protect the weak. This allowed the Nazis and Soviets to totally control political and religious views. In so doing, with other ideological regimes they caused the deaths of hundreds of millions of people in the twentieth-century alone.
The author traveled from the West Coast to visit Troy by appointment in an attempt to make arrangements for degree completion and immediately became subject to RPI Department of Public Safety (DPS) surveillance and arrest. DPS restricted his movements on campus to DPS office under surveillance by police officers. Police action resulted from false and misleading reports filed by Merrill D. Whitburn, Thomas Phelan, and Gary Judd which contained statements that he had a history of violence and threatened the safety of faculty members and administrators. While under DPS restraint, the author filed complaints which included a request to the Captain of Detectives for a full investigation of criminal actions by Judd, Phelan, and Whitburn including the malicious filing that occupied DPS for four days. William J. Canavally, the arresting officer, investigated the complaints by contacting associates and a former wife but could find no hint or history of violence. Canavally and other DPS personnel comprised the only people on campus that treated the author with any respect. Canavally, now Executive Protection Coordinator, Rensselaer Special Services occupies an adjacent office to Shirley Ann Jackson and reportedly acts as her personal bodyguard. Interviewed at length during the four days in custody, Canavally revealed his background which now becomes part of this record.
A cabal of Rensselaer LL&C/H&SS faculty members headed by Merrill D. Whitburn and C. Lee Odell controlled graduate students by criteria that guaranteed failure for those unwilling to accept a sycophantic cloning process. The policy insured very few new PhDs entered the job market to threaten insecure and incompetent faculty members. Cabal members coerced, cajoled, and harassed both students and junior professors until they either left the university or succumbed to unlawful practices. Through willful blindness, university administrators cover up crimes by their subordinates to an extent where they commit criminal acts themselves or become accessories before or after the fact. Anyone who knows that a subordinate has committed or intends to commit an offense and remains silent to hinder or prevent prosecution or punishment ranks as an accessory before or after the fact under United States Code 18. Successive deans, with full knowledge of multiple fraud in H&SS/LL&C, have done nothing to investigate or to provide due process to students subjected to breach of contract and abrogation of institutional, constitutional and human rights. They have not investigated outrageous and unlawful behavior by Merrill D. Whitburn and other faculty members which includes issuing fraudulent incomplete grades and transcript forgery before manipulating expulsion. They even choreographed a police arrest. Whitburn libeled, slandered and blackballed several doctoral students to prevent career advancement and to deny equal employment opportunity. When this author traveled from Seattle to Troy to discuss the situation at scheduled appointment, LL&C trumped up charges to have him arrested. Campus police ambushed him in an administration building, arrested him without probable cause, then held him under campus arrest for four days.
Universities have changed from hierarchal institutions into a collection of special interest groups. Instead of feudal guilds, they have become a tribal confederation of special interests by race and gender. Gender balance loses impetus when women’s sole purpose to advance extreme feminism. With ”proper thinking” and politically correct language they become liberal fascists. Nobody speaks plainly and language relates solely to self-interest. Extreme feminism supports radical speech codes (political correctness) to achieve its goals which seriously impedes free expression. This language idea originally placed a laudable emphasis on mutual sensitivity especially in long-suffering racial groups for whom language commonly represented derogation. However, this has turned into a culture of euphemism that supports special group interests to the exclusion of other groups. Roman Catholic Church uses its immense power to affect women's lives directly. It exists as an all-male, celibate, hierarchy that skillfully uses wealthy lobbies to prevent legislative change on birth control and abortion issues. It tries to control millions of women's lives by using ethical constructs to legislate their morality. This does not mean that most Roman Catholics subscribe to this dogma any more than most journalists who criticize extreme feminism classify as misogynists. If women readers see themselves reflected in writing then they have chosen those roles for themselves probably through self-loathing.
Roll of Dishonor - Case Studies - Introduction
Individuals listed in the Roll of Dishonor have all contributed to the present anarchical state at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) and University of Washington (UW) by allegedly committing criminal acts or acting as accessories after the fact. They will probably never come to trial because they control the process; however, each of them will have their unethical conduct and criminal activity exposed in the series of case studies linked to this introduction. University officials consistently abrogated established legal procedures designed to safeguard the rights of individuals. Their despotic behavior and failure to conform with promulgated regulations has transformed minor issues into matters of vast proportions. They have regularly conspired to act illegally and subversively. They have denied due process of law and ignored important issues which have now reached an irrevocable state. While under investigation, some of them committed more crimes in attempts to cover up their original acts and those of their colleagues. University administrators and faculty members of such ilk present a real threat to academic freedom when they thrive upon the non-selection and non-promotion of individuals with nonconformist views. That process results in a standard of quality and excellence emanating from institutional judgment with a cultic instinct toward conformity. Such conformity eliminates inconvenient nonconformity (also honest dissent) so that those in administrative control can impose their ideologies instead of allowing individual freedom of thought and expression.
Safe from Vexation of Thinking
The provisions of the US Bill of Rights contain the obligations of the state and define individual rights to protection from interference by the state. They neither give the state power over the individual nor define individual obligations. First Amendment to the US Constitution guarantees freedom of expression that applies to all communication. These same guarantees now apply in cyberspace; therefore, new law must evolve from policies created with public awareness and responsible institutional behavior. Justice William O. Douglas argued that the protection of fundamental values does not self-execute: "As nightfall does not come at once, neither does oppression. In both instances, there is a twilight when everything remains seemingly unchanged. And it is in such twilight that we all must be most aware of change in the air, however slight, lest we become unwitting victims of the darkness. The cyberspace twilight has arrived". Technocrats often do not possess the modicum of intellect and literacy needed to indulge in any form of censorship. They continue to use their own values to decide who should have access to information in both computer databases and libraries. They believe that pragmatism and efficiency should automatically overrule equitable values. They think that ethics do not apply to them, hold themselves above the law, and follow low moral standards. The time has come for a reversal of policies that allow technocrats to control information flow absolutely. The tail must stop wagging the dog. Oversight and supervision through traditional, ethical, information science procedures need to replace the extant anarchy.
Patterns and practices prevail at most universities where blackballing, deceit and hypocrisy establish the order of the day. This story relates particularly to Helen Adelaide Sherk, a disgusting person completely devoid of ethics. In fact, the story describes a number of over-paid and disgusting people. Self-governing privileges granted by legislatures allow administrators to misuse lawful procedures for political purposes. The people who sit on kangaroo courts do nothing but follow the dictates of administrators preferring charges. This rewards tenure track professors or people bucking for promotion. By sitting on committees and kangaroo courts they destroy colleagues and as a common practice deny due process of law. If a committee holds a fair hearing that exonerates the target then committee members do not receive their reward. The incentive to progress as a professor requires pandering to those with power. Appointment to committees usually rests with department chairs who make the arrangements. They base their decisions upon a need for promotion credits, not on a knowledge of the particular problem under consideration. Virtually no appeal exists because the same administrators that bring false charges also make appellate decisions.
She that Lies with the Dogs, Riseth with Fleas
Academicians have an uncompromising responsibility to discover and to teach what they find important and true. They must neither make qualifications nor maintain silence about the interests of those to whom they speak despite race, gender, or any other consideration. Anything less defines as political correctness and political silence. Ethical individualism defines as the inspiration that supports freedom of speech and academic freedom. Those who accept this philosophy profess truth protected by a right of conscience that forbids acceptance of moral or political judgments enforced by other people. This creates an ethical responsibility to speak out even when one knows that very few people will listen and requires a domain of independence in which to flourish. Academic totalitarianism ranks as the prime enemy of academic freedom as a coercively persuasive, absolutist ideology supported by a system of punishments and rewards similar to those used in training circus animals to jump through hoops. The author compositely describes the aberrant behavior that exists at five different universities. He reveals the details of his personal experiences during sixteen years as a professor, administrator, or PhD student, at the University of Massachusetts/Boston, Fitchburg State College, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, San Jose State University, and the University of Washington. Officials at all five universities have denied him due process in one way or another.
Government secrecy destroys the value and advantage of open government. However, officials keep an increasing amount of public information under wraps to avoid responsibility for their actions under laissez faire policies that they have implemented. In Washington state, the Public Disclosure Act codifies access to state and municipal records and the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) controls access to federal records. Legislators intended these laws to insure the free flow of information essential to democracy at federal, state, and municipal levels of government. Taxpayers should insist upon access to official documents under these “sunshine laws”. This makes government employees, whose salaries they pay, more accountable. The present rampant and unlawful withholding of public records by officials adversely affects communication. Official secrecy allows impunity - exemption from punishment for malfeasance (official misconduct). Not identifying perpetrators of alleged crimes defeats the object of exposé. Absolute anonymity grants them impunity and allows them to continue their unlawful practices. Anonymity granted by a court restraining order has allowed state actors to increase elder abuse. Free and open access to public records overcomes much suspicion and holds public officials accountable. Government secrecy and laissez fair policies continue to destroy the value and advantage of open government. Government officials keep an increasing amount of public information under wraps to avoid responsibility for their personal actions or dereliction.
King County, University of Washington and Council House, Seattle have much in common. When viewed from a Machiavellian perspective, they provide a poignant analogy. An investigation into the behavior of James A Doerty, Ronald A Johnson and Stephen A Mitchell over a decade heightens that awareness. It provides an understanding of the anarchic situation that currently exists in State of Washington (in particular Seattle) which adversely affects faculty members and students in one environment and elderly people in the other. Identical “realpolitik” and lawlessness (devoid of democratic principles, ideological notions, civil and human rights, or due process of law) exists at both institutions to the detriment of anyone, not admitted to one of the parallel oligarchies, who insists upon freedom of expression. Sociopaths, inherently confrontational, feel no fear of repercussion or ostracism. They will commit crimes without any moral or ethical consideration to assuage their financial greed and self-aggrandizement. They lie pathologically and perform a mafia role for the institutions that employ them. They often create a useful, unethical, impenetrable barrier. In Washington, this has allowed successive amoral UW presidents and Council House directors to isolate or distance themselves from the crimes committed in their names.
Suzanne Dee Lebsock (wife of Richard L. McCormick, formerly President, University of Washington now president Rutgers University) reached fifty years of age having written virtually nothing apart from her PhD dissertation. Lebsock survived academically for almost half her life by self-plagiarism, employment fraud, and misapplying grant and fellowship funds. She held a full professorship in the History Department, University of Washington, at an annualized salary of $114,240.00/1998 plus the taxpayer-financed fringe benefits that her husband received as president. They both recently moved to Rutgers. The data show a pattern and practice of self-plagiarism and unlawful nepotism that a reasonable person will interpret as employment and scientific fraud. The author requested both Governor Gary Locke and Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire to investigate irrefutable evidence supporting alleged employment contract fraud by Lebsock and McCormick. They did not respond. Previously, they used a similar scheme to swindle the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill before moving to the University of Washington. An independent scholar has reviewed and verified all the evidence that supports the data in the tables published in this article. McCormick left University of Washington under negative circumstances which involved drunkenness and an extra-marital affair with a staff member.
Technical Communication Hearing
English, American, and French revolutions embodied libertarian ideals in the structure of national governments. In England the struggle between Parliament and the Stuart monarchs culminated in a new king, William III, giving royal assent (1689) to a Declaration of Rights, which guaranteed constitutional government. Bill of Rights of the Constitution of the United States later established libertarian principles as a foundation of modern democracy and embodied the civil rights and liberties of US citizens. Civil rights implies that the state has a role in ensuring all citizens equal protection under the law and equal opportunity to exercise the privileges of citizenship and otherwise to participate fully in national life regardless of race, religion, sex, or other characteristics unrelated to the worth of the individual. Civil liberties refers to guarantees of freedom of speech, press, or religion; due process of law; and other limitations on the power of the state and state actors to restrain or dictate the actions of individuals. This initiative hinges upon the First and Fourteenth Amendments, and tangentially, the Fourth Amendment to the US Constitution. First Amendment guarantees freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religion. Fourteenth Amendment extends the Bill of Rights to actions by state and local governments. Fourth Amendment protects the privacy and security of the home and personal effects and prohibits the unreasonable searches and seizures that occurred at University of Washington.
Technical Communication Kangaroo Court
University officials, faculty members, and attorneys general have broken laws, framed evidence to support sham disciplinary proceedings, and covered up kangaroo court findings. Only an independent investigator can fairly examine the voluminous documents which support these contentions. Under university regulations, expulsion of a doctoral candidate requires written notice and preliminary hearings with an opportunity to file a defense and to present witnesses. Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) denied basic rights in law by disallowing a hearing, oral testimony, and written affidavits by defense witnesses. University of Washington (UW) used the same modus operandi in consort with Rensselaer. Both universities conspired to use railroading techniques to deny due process of law and constitutional and human rights. Frequently, accused individuals, whose only transgression probably relates to exercise of freedom of expression, do not have access to oral recordings or written transcripts of testimony that would enable them to appeal findings held in absentia. Yet administrators willingly disclose the content of kangaroo court documents ex parte for blackmail purposes.
Theatre of the absurd departs from realistic characters, situations and all of the associated theatrical conventions. Time, place and identity are ambiguous and fluid. Even basic causality frequently breaks down. Meaningless plots, repetitive or nonsensical dialogue and dramatic non-sequiturs often create dream-like or nightmare-like moods. A fine line exists between careful and artful use of chaos and non-realistic elements that create meaningless chaos. However, true theater of the absurd has an underlying structure and one can usually find meaning in the midst of chaos. Not so at Rensselaer where neither underlying structure nor meaning existed in the H&SS/LL&C chaos. Odell, Halloran, Krull, Whitburn, and other cabal members then commenced an international blackballing campaign. Two decades and $4 million later I still wonder what Oscar Wilde would have made of this travesty.
University of Washington and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute officials have practiced the Big Lie for many years. They have had moderate success by using risk management techniques and secret payoffs to hold officials harmless when they violate laws also constitutional and human rights. Repeated lying has germinated into the Big Lie. The term "Big Lie" refers to a belief that the masses will believe lies told repeatedly and vociferously. Propagandists frequently use emphatic repetition techniques to prevent criticism. In universities, big lies have more credibility than small lies because audiences historically have esteemed institutions of higher learning and inherently believe that university officials would not have the impudence to lie to extreme. Adolf Hitler wrote in Mein Kampf that a big lie must contain an element of credibility in order to corrupt the masses emotionally and to overcome a natural propensity not to lie. George Orwell propounded in 1984 that if everyone accepts lies as truth and all records tell the same tale then the lies pass as truth. Then the hypothesis that he who controls the past controls the future and he who controls the present controls the past develops into a truism. Both universities either destroyed or unlawfully withheld university records. They had a personal stake in lying to evade exposure of their malfeasance. However, they made fatal errors by destroying documents when their adversaries had copies and by contradicting each other on the record.
Washington State Legislature created the Executive Ethics Board (EEB) to enforce the state's ethics laws. The rules adopted apply to elected officers and all other officials and employees in the executive branch, boards and commissions, also institutions of higher education. EEB consists of five members appointed by the governor using specific criteria to whom the legislature has given a special mandate. That mandate predicates ethics as the foundation of a government that derives its power from the people and that government derives from the natural character of the people. When government officials and employees subordinate the rights of individuals then government breaks with its constituency and needs reconstruction. When state officials claim executorship over all the vital and cultural activities of the people then it forfeits its own dignity and its specific authority to govern. The legislature created the ethics board to correct rampant violation of laws within state government and the UW. However, former Governor Locke, former Attorney General Christine O. Gregoire (now Governor), UW President Richard L. McCormick, and their myriad political whores consistently use the ethics laws to cover up unlawful practices. They follow a procrastination principle that denies or postpones due process of law. They use kill-the-messenger techniques that delay justice then deny it. They abuse the law meant to rectify unlawful practices and indulge in the same patterns and practice of unethical behavior that they supposedly regulate. Evidently the legislature has failed abysmally in its attempt to establish honest government in Washington State.
Internet Denial-of-Service Attacks (DoS Bots) have expanded from University of Washington, Information Technology (UW IT) systems to embrace City of Seattle (CoS) computers. A City of Seattle (CoS) server downloaded (19 May 08) an identical bot to the one used by University of Washington, Information Technology employees (16 May 08). Technical analysis showed that the CoS vandal used an identical modus operandi and caused identical damage to the one used by the UW IT employee. Denial-of-Service (DoS) attackers, the most under-reported vandals in the information industry, attempt to prevent legitimate users from accessing information or services. By targeting a computer and its network connection, the cracker can prevent users from accessing email, web sites, online banking accounts or other services that rely on the affected computer. Meanwhile, The Whore of the Realm and her minions do nothing to stop the elder abuse or the Internet denial-of-service attacks. Instead of responding to the issues, they cover them up using willful blindness. Meanwhile, the vandalism and elder abuse continues. In law, the term "willful blindness" describes contrived ignorance. Officials seek to evade civil or criminal liability by feigning ignorance of facts that involve personal liability.
During 2007, Contra Cabal published a series of articles entitled Whores of Academe that exposed academic and criminal fraud at University of Washington (UW) and Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI). The articles and case studies described two decades of criminality also denial of civil and human rights which state officials have neglected to address. Christine O Gregoire, Governor, State of Washington; Mark A Emmert, President, UW; and Shirley A. Jackson, President, RPI willfully acquiesce to criminal behavior while pursuing laissez faire policies. During 2005, Contra Cabal asked readers whether Mark A Emmert, the new president of University of Washington, would gratefully assume the position as head of the whorehouse or would he introduce some honesty and integrity by addressing the injustices that he inherited from a drunken whoremonger. It appears that Emmert chose to pimp. He has shown himself as corrupt as his predecessors by donning their mantle and following in their footsteps. He has used the same unethical administrators to break laws and deny civil and human rights.
Totalitarian University Ideology - Apologia
Public intellectuals often worry about damaging the profession to which they have given most of their lives; however, that profession has already suffered irrevocable damage. Academic ethics now need independent inquiry by journalists and lawyers. They can provide greater credibility and refute the findings of phony processes of self-evaluation and accreditation that presently exist at the University of Washington (UW) and other universities. Traditionally, the public has never accepted that academic exposé describes the everyday fabric of campus life. Instead it thinks exposé relates to isolated instances of aberrant behavior and forgivingly classifies them as “mistakes”. People outside the academe have virtually no idea of the denial of due process of law and bizarre behavior by administrators that commonly exists. They do not realize that they support widespread corruption and inflated administrative salaries through exorbitant tuition and taxes. Usually, they make no connection between academic totalitarianism (cultism) and the lifetime financial and tax expenditures to which they have shackled themselves. The attendant conspiracies of silence, the mutual condoning of wrongdoing, and the constant misuse of tenure, have spawned the evils of cultism. President Richard L. McCormick gave lip service to shared-governance, academic self-evaluation, “multiculturalism,” and “diversity” to insure an appearance of propriety. However, his politically motivated speeches reveal nothing about the real crimes committed by his staff and the academic fraud perpetrated upon the academic community by his wife, Suzanne D. Lebsock.
University of Oregon Sting - Seattle Jewish Mafia
Seattle Jewish Mafia has spread its tentacles into Oregon with another cover-up of elder abuse in the guise of geriatric counseling. Dereliction by Evergreen Healthcare and University of Oregon administrators with respect to crimes committed at Council House, Seattle and a subsequent cover-up of behavior by Newman that allegedly violated federal and state laws. Victor J. DeLeon, President, Council House, declined several requests by Lauren Jeanne Hawk, a Council House tenant, to speak with him personally. Instead, he allegedly instructed Newman to contact her posing as a member of the board of directors. Newman’s subsequent actions construe as a deliberate invasion by a landlord on the common law right to privacy of a tenant living independently in a government-subsidized apartment block. Neither Evergreen Healthcare nor University of Oregon have furnished a copy of her resume as required by public disclosure statutes. Universities frequently convene secret courts to deny due process and to cover up their own crimes that legitimate hearings would expose. The procedure characterizes dishonesty by violating established legal procedures. Administrators emulate Star Chamber proceedings used to enforce royal prerogative in the seventeenth century. Truly democratic governments have outlawed those practices ever since. However, universities operate "risk management" policies that amount to a similar denial of due process of law.
Violation of Constitutional and Human Rights
University officials at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, University of Washington, and directors of Council House have singularly and collaboratively deprived the author of his inalienable right to freedom of expression and justice. They have shown a total disregard and contempt for human rights and denied freedom of speech and belief. They must now comply with the UN mandate unless the UN General Assembly changes its resolution to accommodate them. Shirley Ann Jackson, President, RPI, Mark A. Emmert, President, UW, and Victor J. DeLeon, President, Council House hold ultimate responsibility for multiple violation of human rights and allow their employees deliberately to continue those violations. They continue to ignore a Washington Supreme Court decision based upon the US constitution and the UN declaration which reversed lower court decisions. They have already violated fourteen out of a possible thirty articles of the UN declaration. Constitutional and human rights violations abound in these institutions. The uncomplicated experience of a impoverished Council House tenant exemplifies them. The tenant posted on a bulletin board a statement made by Eleanor Roosevelt before the United Nations at the time of the declaration. Stephen A. Mitchell, a Council House director, ordered its removal. Principals of these institutions, also other government agencies, cannot comprehend that they receive their salaries to protect and serve the public. Willfully blind, they indulge in self-aggrandizing activities for ever more bloated salaries obtained by having their snouts in a common trough of deceit and lawlessness. Neither ethics nor morals exist.
Washington State Cyber-Terrorism
Washington State Cabal permitted Ronald A Johnson, Vice President of Information Technology, University of Washington (UWIT) to initiate Internet denial-of-service (DoS) attacks construed as electronic prior restraint. Johnson prevented publication of constitutionally protected reports and destroyed computer systems. The Cabal violated federal and state laws in attempts to silence a journalist who holds international press credentials by denying him access to the Internet absolutely. Washington State Cabal comprises Christine O Gregoire, Governor, State of Washington (WA); Mark A Emmert, President, University of Washington (UW); Phyllis M Wise, Provost and Executive Vice President, University of Washington (UW); all aided and abetted by Robert M McKenna, Attorney General, State of Washington (WA). By using straw state and university lawyers, they have conspired to use electronic prior restraint to prevent the public from knowing about state and university crimes. They do not respond to correspondence or investigate criminal allegations; instead, they allow Johnson to preside over a campaign of Internet terrorism to prevent public awareness of crimes that could influence the electorate. Gregoire has neglected to order University of Washington to cease and desist the use of unlawful means and taxpayer resources to fund DoS attacks that harass and censor professors and journalists. She has covered up serious crimes at University of Washington for at least twelve years and allowed Johnson to cause $500,000.00 damage to web sites, computer systems, and networks during 2008 as a prior restraint on information about state and university criminality - federal and state crimes for which she does not hold immunity. Her anarchy results from a failure of the legislature to control lawlessness and disorder. It manifests in an absence of political authority and cohesive principles that predicate upon a common standard or purpose. In Washington state, that stems from condonation of crime for political expedience.
At the final session, a graduate student became so incensed that he made a recording of the summation as evidence so that he could sue the university later. The author obtained a copy of the tape and transcribed it verbatim in order to support the contentions made in his article Rensselaer’s Weasel (Mustela rhetorica). [The one session at which Whitburn let forth cost fifteen doctoral students $121.00/hr each for a total $1,815. The required 3-credit course cost each student $4,363.00 for a total of $65,445. Whitburn absented himself the first two weeks and nobody substituted. Twelve weeks consisted of questions on an inordinate amount of reading handed out the previous week and absolutely no discussion by Whitburn. A novice teaching assistant would probably have done better handling the remaining twelve one-hour sessions. The final examination consisted of prepublished questions so convoluted that PhD students held a special meeting to discuss them. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and Sir Winston Spencer Churchill must turn in their graves at this denial of freedom and sub-literacy, especially in a doctoral-level course taught by one who holds a named professorship in English at a prestigious American university. Current tuition at Rensselaer costs $1,454.00 per credit hour. Doctoral students must now pay $17,450.00 for four politically controlled, required courses with content no better than reported here. No academic freedom exists in these classes and most doctoral students do not graduate because of a policy of coerced attrition. Surely, high school and college counselors have a duty to warn potential students of these practices.
TECHWR-L has served as an Internet forum for technical communicators for more than a decade. Riddled with political correctness by academicians trying to cover up fraud and incompetence on university campuses, it eventually developed a core element of professionals that rebelled against crass protectionism. The RPI/LLC technical communication program contains virtually no elements that relate to technical communication and most of the faculty have no qualifications or experience in the field. Not only do they have no experience in the field, they disdain anyone who does. If potential students will carefully examine this program then they will probably discover the faculty corruption, substance abuse, and academic fraud that exists. Such an appraisal will provide them with a true understanding of the program and give them the opportunity to make an informed decision on whether to participate. Thomas Phelan, an Irish Catholic priest, acted as H&SS dean for 22 years without earning a graduate degree. He passed off a license to preach in the Catholic church as a PhD and evidently nobody questioned him. When he died, President Shirley Ann Jackson published a travesty of false adulation in a letter to the RPI community. Jackson claimed that: “Dean Phelan was an extraordinary person. He was a professor, dean, historian, and wise counselor. Above all, he was a builder of community who also realized the value of understanding and documenting our rich history. The legacy he has left behind is as grand as the life he lived”.
Late 1985, I joined School of Humanities and Social Sciences, Department of Language, Literature, and Communication (H&SS/LL& C), Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI) to complete a doctorate as a mature graduate student. I already held terminal degree qualifications in several disciplines. Somewhat naively, I expected to receive equal courtesy and consideration from faculty members many years my junior. Instead, I found a cabal of xenophobic tenured professors who exhibited irrational fear or contempt for foreigners and unfamiliar ideas. Their intolerance to traditions and a loathing or hatred for members of other races, ethnic groups or nationalities blatantly violated university equal opportunity regulations and constitutional and human rights. Other qualified people with advanced education and teaching experience received similar treatment for a variety of bigoted reasons. The control of all aspects of H&SS grounded predominantly in cabals rigidly controlled by “plastic paddies” and other people posing as Irish. Before readers jump to conclusions about bigotry, I must add that I went to school during World War II with many Irishmen and served with them in HM forces on combat duty in the Middle East with great regard for them. I have learned from forty years experience in the US that plastic paddies comprise a xenophobic breed not found elsewhere especially among real Irish people that populate both England and Ireland. No people of color gained admission into LL&C and people with mixed marriages suffered castigation. However, a majority of the people portrayed in RPI publicity material suddenly developed suntans when Jackson arrived on campus. I am waiting for Jackson to declare herself Black Irish as part of her overall flimflam.
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© Copyright 2007 by Paul Trummel |
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