Author?s Note: In a recent interview with our local New York Times affiliate, Dr. Lynne Snowden characterized me as a ?pathological liar? who is ?mentally unbalanced.? I offer the following chapter from my book ?Welcome to the Ivory Tower of Babel?  as a rebuttal. Since the events described in this chapter, Snowden has been voted out as Faculty Senate President. She has also been voted out of the Faculty Senate altogether. Furthermore, a taxpayer funded SBI investigation has determined that her subsequent claims that people  were breaking into her office to spray tear gas were unfounded. Nonetheless, she still teaches ?Counter-terrorism? at UNCW. Dr. Cecil Willis was recently promoted to the office of the Provost. He remains one of the most respected members of the university community.

Dear Director of Human Resources:

I hope you have a few spare minutes because you are not going to believe this one. I know that you?re busy but it would be wrong to keep this information from you. I think you may also be legally obligated to conduct some sort of investigation into the allegations I am about to share with you.

The first week of December I went to my mailbox and found the following memo:

December 2, 1999
To My Colleagues in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Criminal Justice:

You have been asked to debate the possibility of giving Dr. Cecil Willis another four-year term as Chair of our department. Unfortunately, I will be unable to attend today?s meeting because of my Faculty Senate duties. However, I have important information concerning Cecil?s qualifications and some questions about his prior actions that should be answered in open forum before you make this decision. I would therefore like to request that you either postpone today?s discussion or schedule a second meeting where his candidacy would be the sole topic of discussion.
 
 Thank you very much for your help and attention to this matter.

 Sincerely,
 Lynne L. Snowden

As you can imagine, this memo was the talk of the department for the rest of the day. When the department met that afternoon, we debated whether one faculty member could postpone such an important meeting on such short notice. But Cecil graciously agreed to have that second meeting where his candidacy would be the ?sole focus? of discussion.

When we reconvened on December 16, about two-dozen sociologists, anthropologists, and criminologists sat awaiting the entry of Dr. Snowden, our faculty Senate President. When she made her entrance, she had copies of a series of accusations printed out for everyone present. The materials she distributed are reproduced below in their entirety:

To my colleagues in the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, & Criminal Justice:

Today I wish to bring information concerning our Chair, Cecil Willis, to you. In part, I do this because I have studied hate crime and discrimination for more than 15 years, and I know the only way to stop such behavior is to confront it and bring it out in the open. Another reason is the ever changing legal structure which surrounds harassment, and finally Cecil?s behavior toward me seems to be growing worse and has become a personal burden which I can no longer bear alone.

Please understand that I only wish to bring this matter to your attention. It is very difficult for me to recommend a course of action because, if Cecil is not re-elected as Chair, it is more probable that he will retaliate against me than if he is. There are three matters that should be discussed:

1. Two women, who are no longer with the department, reported to me that (sic) experienced harassment from Cecil. While I do not wish to speak for them, it is necessary that you understand I am the third such case in as many years.

2. Recently, I and a colleague wrote a paper on sexual harassment that will be published next year in the Police Chief. In going through the literature, I found that all of us could be held vicariously liable iif (sic) an employee is the ?target of crude and offensive sexually harassing behaivor (sic) and has a policy of prohibiting such conduct? (Gunta & Peters, 1998). As Faculty Senate President, I could certainly be held liable if I hid such information from you when a meeting had been scheduled expressly for the purpose of discussing Cecil?s fitness to remain in office.

3. Following my statement, I have listed examples of the things that have occurred in the workplace since I went up for tenure two years ago. Some of them by Cecil, some at the hands of person?s (sic) yet unknown, although the police are still investigating the matter. Please realize that I believe, as a criminal justice professional, that it is always better to help people control themselves rather than to impose force from the outside. This situation is a problem that we should solve ourselves. For your information I have also attached the first 2 pages of an article which defines various protected classes and contains the reasons why I feel my experiences are harassment. Continued...