MESSAGE TO DEPARTMENT OF GOVERNMENT
(1) The College's final position after the EEOC investigation and lawsuit was that it had no reason to fire me. It said there was no misconduct. No incompetence. No negligence. No medical problems. And all required medical forms had been required. I lost my job, pay, benefits on Aug 9, 2016. The school's final claim was: I resigned on June 18, 2017. Quote from lawsuit:
On June 18, 2017, Dr. Dessler emailed the Provost and College officials that to avoid continued arrest and harassment by the College, he felt his only option was to resign whatever remaining employment rights the College continued to insist he possessed. He wrote in pertinent part, “I am scared of being arrested, okay? May I just leave?”
The school said: at no time in my career was there any allegation of misbehavior or misconduct or any worry that an inability to fulfill essential functions might threaten my career. I did have serious depression and I took a disability leave.
In 2012, I was listed in Princeton Review's book of 300 Best Professors and I was elected to the Faculty Assembly. In 2014-2015, I had the best year of my career: I was promoted, given a 9.5% pay raise, and I was president of the Faculty Assembly.
I taught three classes on Monday, Oct 26, 2015 and drove home, having been promised a medical appointment that I requested to prove I could teach.
Then the department received from the chair a memo I did not receive. My classes received it too. I was suspended without cause and without a hearing and against the overwhelming opposition of my student. All of these facts are well established. There is no such thing as "administrative leave." I was "suspended," forcibly removed from the faculty by nothing more than the use of corrupt police power.
These are facts that the College does not dispute.
(2) Listen to my lawyer's overview of the university's m.o. for keeping me away from campus using only corrupt police power--this was a departmental policy. She says I was a "superstar" on campus. She wonders: "Is the College trying to lose money?" She concludes: "Certainly not."
And listen to her surprise at how the university was, through its own police force and own attorney, able to use false arrests to harass me. The harassment lasted over five years.
On June 18, 2017, Dr. Dessler emailed the Provost and College officials that to avoid continued arrest and harassment by the College, he felt his only option was to resign whatever remaining employment rights the College continued to insist he possessed. He wrote in pertinent part, “I am scared of being arrested, okay? May I just leave?”
The school said: at no time in my career was there any allegation of misbehavior or misconduct or any worry that an inability to fulfill essential functions might threaten my career. I did have serious depression and I took a disability leave.
In 2012, I was listed in Princeton Review's book of 300 Best Professors and I was elected to the Faculty Assembly. In 2014-2015, I had the best year of my career: I was promoted, given a 9.5% pay raise, and I was president of the Faculty Assembly.
I taught three classes on Monday, Oct 26, 2015 and drove home, having been promised a medical appointment that I requested to prove I could teach.
Then the department received from the chair a memo I did not receive. My classes received it too. I was suspended without cause and without a hearing and against the overwhelming opposition of my student. All of these facts are well established. There is no such thing as "administrative leave." I was "suspended," forcibly removed from the faculty by nothing more than the use of corrupt police power.
These are facts that the College does not dispute.
(2) Listen to my lawyer's overview of the university's m.o. for keeping me away from campus using only corrupt police power--this was a departmental policy. She says I was a "superstar" on campus. She wonders: "Is the College trying to lose money?" She concludes: "Certainly not."
And listen to her surprise at how the university was, through its own police force and own attorney, able to use false arrests to harass me. The harassment lasted over five years.
Do any of you have a different story? Why was my pay cut on Aug 9, 2016, if I did not turn in my resignation until June 18, 2017?
(3) I believe you are confused about these facts. I don't think you realized: wow, this is cut and dry. Removal by use of force--and by the way, did you ever read the emails, and do you know the status of the charges today--and that's the ENTIRE STORY.
Because you are decent people--I know that, I don't dispute it--you have, over time, replaced true beliefs with false ones. You deceive yourselves and others. Of course. Why? Because how could you live with yourselves if you admitted these truths? You are, as I said, decent people.
(4) The story gets worse: it is not just the destruction you have done to me. It is the ravaging of my family, my friendships, and the destruction of my professional identity. It is the abuse--the torture--of my students, and other students, who were lied to and lied about and pursued and hunted down if they supported me. And at this time I was (a) leading a student mental health initiative after four student suicides the year before; (b) the faculty member in charge of instituting bystander intervention to prevent rape on campus--your allowing me to be removed by corrupt police power, without charge or reason, meant many more rapes and then retaliations against young women who reported rape; (c) in charge of faculty participation in Matt Lambert's campaign (dropped); (d) Chair of the National Liberal Arts Subcommittee of the Strategic Planning Committee (work destroyed by John Poma in June 2016).
This is all IN ADDITION to my teaching and research. No one in the department had a better year than me in 2014-2015. I was off to an even better year in 2015-2016. And indeed my years have kept improving.
So this is quite an awful situation, is it not? All of this chopped down by my nothing more than the use of force. Utter dereliction of duty intended to destroy me forever, with me taking the blame, yes, when I was alone facing student suicides, rapes, and student abuse. You sacrificed faculty rights, student rights, and you abused and tortured students. You held meetings to report to yourselves lies. This is a story that can ruin your lives.
(5) BUT WAIT, YOU ARE SAYING... Isn't this just more of the same? Isn't this just another email you will close and ignore? After all, every fact I've reported here is a fact you know because I have reported all these facts before.
You are thinking to yourselves: "We have fucked you over, David, and that's that. Get over it. Move on." You are thinking: no worries. Nothing has changed.
Unfortunately for you, this is not true. It is not that I am doing anything. But you are going to be called to account, and you are going to be terminated. This is not my decision. This is not what I want.
Do not make the mistake of running around and trying anything that looks like an attempt to protect yourselves, rather than face the situation.
I'm not telling you what will happen. I will tell you what might happen. Consider only this possibility: Being called to a meeting with the provost where she grills individual faculty members about their responses to the memo from the chair, to my 32 requests for a hearing for academic freedom, my 12 requests that you stand up for my tenure rights, and so on.
It might go: "Professor Roessler. You were reported to be very, very angry with emails from David in early May 2016. It was said you wanted David fired for them. What made you angry? These were requests for a hearing. They included a request to come to a department meeting you were holding, so that he could present his views?"
"Professor Oakes. What response, if any, did you have to David's 32 requests for a hearing for his students? Did you do anything at all? Does David not have a right to academic freedom in the classroom? Do you not have a professional responsibility to provide a hearing for a faculty colleague whose academic freedom has been threatened or compromised?"
(6) And so on. The three main reasons for terminating a tenured faculty member are: misconduct (like the UVA professor who stole research money in the late 1990s). Incompetence (not knowing your job). Negligence (knowing what you are supposed to do, but simply not doing it).
Listen to Kate Slevin's summary of the analysis shared nationwide about this case: "the faculty are derelict, absolutely derelict."
You can hope no such meeting is called. My point here is: if such a meeting is called, do you not realize that you will lose your jobs in the most embarrassing and humiliating way? Do you not realize that you cannot defend yourselves?
As shown in my lawsuit, if you had just called a hearing for me, that would have solved the problem. No hearing would have been held, Why? There was no charge. Hearings start with the university stating a charge. If you had called a hearing, I would have been immediately reinstated.
I am down now almost one million dollars because you did not take that one step. And remember, my pay was cut more than 10 months before I resigned.
Is this set of terminations going to happen? When will they happen? I can't specify the exact form: it may not be a group meeting. I also can't say when. But you are slated for termination for precisely these reasons. It may be that one or more department members are spared. No way to tell.
The point really is: can you not see that you have no chance to survive--none at all--if you are called on these questions?
The questions only need to be asked, and you can be swept out the door. Given the publicity that is coming down the pike, you will not be able to secure other jobs in academia.
Please do not make the mistake--the tiresome, sick mistake--of trying to depict me as a "threat." Please. Yes, you "feel threatened." What threatens you is your record of dereliction of duty. Nothing more. YOUR INDEFENSIBLE ACTIONS, AND NOTHING THAT I DO, WILL END YOUR CAREERS. PERIOD.
(3) I believe you are confused about these facts. I don't think you realized: wow, this is cut and dry. Removal by use of force--and by the way, did you ever read the emails, and do you know the status of the charges today--and that's the ENTIRE STORY.
Because you are decent people--I know that, I don't dispute it--you have, over time, replaced true beliefs with false ones. You deceive yourselves and others. Of course. Why? Because how could you live with yourselves if you admitted these truths? You are, as I said, decent people.
(4) The story gets worse: it is not just the destruction you have done to me. It is the ravaging of my family, my friendships, and the destruction of my professional identity. It is the abuse--the torture--of my students, and other students, who were lied to and lied about and pursued and hunted down if they supported me. And at this time I was (a) leading a student mental health initiative after four student suicides the year before; (b) the faculty member in charge of instituting bystander intervention to prevent rape on campus--your allowing me to be removed by corrupt police power, without charge or reason, meant many more rapes and then retaliations against young women who reported rape; (c) in charge of faculty participation in Matt Lambert's campaign (dropped); (d) Chair of the National Liberal Arts Subcommittee of the Strategic Planning Committee (work destroyed by John Poma in June 2016).
This is all IN ADDITION to my teaching and research. No one in the department had a better year than me in 2014-2015. I was off to an even better year in 2015-2016. And indeed my years have kept improving.
So this is quite an awful situation, is it not? All of this chopped down by my nothing more than the use of force. Utter dereliction of duty intended to destroy me forever, with me taking the blame, yes, when I was alone facing student suicides, rapes, and student abuse. You sacrificed faculty rights, student rights, and you abused and tortured students. You held meetings to report to yourselves lies. This is a story that can ruin your lives.
(5) BUT WAIT, YOU ARE SAYING... Isn't this just more of the same? Isn't this just another email you will close and ignore? After all, every fact I've reported here is a fact you know because I have reported all these facts before.
You are thinking to yourselves: "We have fucked you over, David, and that's that. Get over it. Move on." You are thinking: no worries. Nothing has changed.
Unfortunately for you, this is not true. It is not that I am doing anything. But you are going to be called to account, and you are going to be terminated. This is not my decision. This is not what I want.
Do not make the mistake of running around and trying anything that looks like an attempt to protect yourselves, rather than face the situation.
I'm not telling you what will happen. I will tell you what might happen. Consider only this possibility: Being called to a meeting with the provost where she grills individual faculty members about their responses to the memo from the chair, to my 32 requests for a hearing for academic freedom, my 12 requests that you stand up for my tenure rights, and so on.
It might go: "Professor Roessler. You were reported to be very, very angry with emails from David in early May 2016. It was said you wanted David fired for them. What made you angry? These were requests for a hearing. They included a request to come to a department meeting you were holding, so that he could present his views?"
"Professor Oakes. What response, if any, did you have to David's 32 requests for a hearing for his students? Did you do anything at all? Does David not have a right to academic freedom in the classroom? Do you not have a professional responsibility to provide a hearing for a faculty colleague whose academic freedom has been threatened or compromised?"
(6) And so on. The three main reasons for terminating a tenured faculty member are: misconduct (like the UVA professor who stole research money in the late 1990s). Incompetence (not knowing your job). Negligence (knowing what you are supposed to do, but simply not doing it).
Listen to Kate Slevin's summary of the analysis shared nationwide about this case: "the faculty are derelict, absolutely derelict."
You can hope no such meeting is called. My point here is: if such a meeting is called, do you not realize that you will lose your jobs in the most embarrassing and humiliating way? Do you not realize that you cannot defend yourselves?
As shown in my lawsuit, if you had just called a hearing for me, that would have solved the problem. No hearing would have been held, Why? There was no charge. Hearings start with the university stating a charge. If you had called a hearing, I would have been immediately reinstated.
I am down now almost one million dollars because you did not take that one step. And remember, my pay was cut more than 10 months before I resigned.
Is this set of terminations going to happen? When will they happen? I can't specify the exact form: it may not be a group meeting. I also can't say when. But you are slated for termination for precisely these reasons. It may be that one or more department members are spared. No way to tell.
The point really is: can you not see that you have no chance to survive--none at all--if you are called on these questions?
The questions only need to be asked, and you can be swept out the door. Given the publicity that is coming down the pike, you will not be able to secure other jobs in academia.
Please do not make the mistake--the tiresome, sick mistake--of trying to depict me as a "threat." Please. Yes, you "feel threatened." What threatens you is your record of dereliction of duty. Nothing more. YOUR INDEFENSIBLE ACTIONS, AND NOTHING THAT I DO, WILL END YOUR CAREERS. PERIOD.