August 14, 2019

90 degree days follow one another. My house is breezy enough that even without the great pine and without air conditioning it’s not unbearable.

Note from Dean and Provost indicating that my appeal of Title IX atrocities has not been successful. Making an appointment to receive the post-mortem. It will be interesting to hear the conclusions they’ve come to, as from my side I was 100% in the right, and if rationality, honor, honesty, or Civil Liberties were to be accounted in any way, I must win. But I did not win, indicating that none of those things mattered. What had the victory was, I’m guessing now, emotional blackmail. You cannot reason with a person’s, or even with an institution’s, fears. Very sad earlier, less sad now. Yet still betrayed and confused. I am an old man who all his life believed the truth wins, and until now was not that much fazed by contrary evidence. Don’t know how to get over this one. Thirty six years of outstanding and, I might say, unique service negated by a coven of liars in league with a panel of cowards. Maybe they have better reasons than I think they have.  If there is something further to be done, it is not visible to me. I can say that UNCA is over. It is not a university. You cannot support dogma and injustice and still uphold the Academy. In the realm of Academic Freedom, one minute after noon is night. There is no satisfaction in this. 

I feel betrayed by the Lord. He is the one–even if the only one-- who is meant to stand up for truth and to defend the persecuted. I actually thought he would.

Coffee with Bill A.

Dinner with SS to talk about this and that, and about my plays. Reading of FATHER ABRAHAM in September is set. All criticism is useful, but this came, accidentally, at the very moment in time when I did not need another spear to the gut. Not that it even WAS a spear to the gut, but it wasn’t wine and roses, which is what’s called for just now.

You think that one good thing will endure, one evil thing die.