This issue bears repeating--and repeating.  Truth/AH, you're exactly right: the settlement's demand that Gary and Frank "refrain" from public criticism makes it very plain that for SFT the issue was, and always has been, speech.  So too did many, MANY of Thames' comments and statements in the hearing.  I was struck by how obviously vituperative SFT sounded in his final remarks, when he informed us that Frank and Gary would have to "pay the price" for questioning one of his "colleagues" (ironically, this was when he was trying to prove that the terminations didn't have anything to do with free speech . . . ).  The stunningly paranoid parsing of e-mails in the interest of charting Gary's "state of mind" constitutes another manifestation of this president's interest in silencing all dissent, public or private (or, "private," given what we now understand about the extent to which Thames and Co. have been spying on us and reading our e-mail). 

While the "public criticism" clause in the settlement is, of course, directed at  Gary and Frank, increasingly I have come to believe that its primary target is the rest of us.  It is meant to send a chilling message, I think: we'll keep listening.  And when you criticize us, we'll do our best to shut you up and shut you down.   The fact that it's there indicates SFT's continued commitment to intimidation tactics.  But, interestingly enough, it indicates his sheer desperation as well--for only one whose hold on power is getting shakier by the minute would make such an admission about his fear of criticism and dissent. 

As many, many have said already, the IHL Board must be our audience now.   And that Board needs to understand that NO university can function this way (no business can, probably, either; but by definition, the university CANNOT).  If I am afraid, I cannot genuinely inquire.  I cannot teach.  I cannot write.  And I cannot help prepare my students to lead lives as productive citizens of our society.  Period.   

No quarter.

Ellen Weinauer

p.s. A few people have indicated in other threads the despair they felt after reading the American story about "healing."  I felt the same way until I read it again and realized the impact that Bobby Chain's comparison between Thames and Hitler could have.  When BC says the tactics of the Thames administration smack of "Nazism," we're in a whole new world.