Students, faculty, staff, and alumni have every reason to feel confusion and concern over the sudden and unexplained departures of several Wesleyan staff members. As the November 17 article in the Argus points out, Equity and Inclusion Vice President Alison Williams (“Williams”) is the most recent of several departures that have rocked the campus. It comes only a few months after I was fired as University Catholic Chaplain.
While University President Michael Roth (“Roth”) seems to acknowledge student confusion over this string of departures, the suggestion that there is little cause for concern is belied by Roth’s own “mixed emotions” over Williams’ abrupt exit and his dependence on a policy that forbids discussion of personnel issues and cloaks administrators in opacity. It also seems to ignore the very conspicuous public discussion and displeasure about these turnovers. My own firing continues to generate a significant expression of disapproval by students, faculty, staff, and alumni that has been reflected in numerous letters to the Argus, the Community Forum, and the President.
In fact, my firing recently led to the written criticism by the administration of some senior faculty members for expressing their concern about my firing in the Community Forum, a criticism and a warning that were interpreted by many as an attempt to squelch dissent and curtail free speech. This would not be the first time the administration designated itself as the gatekeeper of the First Amendment. I was previously (falsely) criticized and penalized by the administration for sharing an email with the Argus. So much for little cause for concern on the part of the administration.
Moreover, when posters displaying the photos of three staff members, including myself, with the words “Disappeared by the Wesleyan Administration” and “Who’s Next??” are displayed in campus buildings, people should be disturbed. How a university treats its employees should be of great concern to all members of the community, particularly if there are issues of discrimination, retaliation, and [abridgment] of speech. Optics are also an issue, and the recent “disappearances” are not a good look, especially at a university that holds itself out as a liberal forum for diversity and the open exchange of speech and opinion.
The administration’s answer to these unsettling departures seems to be one of quickly replacing these employees with new hires, which purportedly will result in “renewal and re-energizing.” Really? That rather breezy deflection by the President may be appropriate in some instances, but not in all of these cases, and certainly not in mine. As students and staff noted in the Argus article, these departures “deepen[ed] an existing sense of insecurity about the stability of important student-facing staff members’ positions;” they create “a sense of uncertainty and fear and insecurity;” and they interrupt “the growth of long-interpersonal connections between students and staff and make it difficult for departments to establish consistent patterns of supporting students.”
“Uncertainty,” “fear,” “insecurity”—those are not my words; they are the words of students and staff. Furthermore, as the Argus article observes, this is nothing new. “Anxieties” about these staff departures “have been present for several years.” All of these things reflect real concerns, and they raise serious questions about management, problem-solving, and leadership. They are questions that I have raised on numerous occasions with administrators in response to a number of truly astonishing and shameful managerial misadventures, only to be ignored, censured, and then fired. Department heads and senior management get paid to solve problems, not create them. Their job is to manage talent, not eliminate it. Fragile egos should never get in the way of doing the right thing. In the very small Office of Religious & Spiritual Life (“ORSL”) alone, there has been a turnover of nine people in just the last seven years, including one chaplain who was re-hired after a two-year absence and another chaplain who was terminated, but never informed of his termination until he read of it in a campus-wide email. What made it worse was the fact that not a single director, manager, or administrator had the decency to call him and apologize—despite being encouraged to do so. What does that tell you?
These unexplained departures, along with the consequent recruiting, rehiring, and retraining process, not only undermine morale —which in some departments is already subterranean—they cost time, money, and resources, and they don’t always end well. Last Spring a search committee spent six months looking for a new Muslim chaplain—to replace the one they terminated but never told—only to have it end in another disastrous failure when an offer was extended to a candidate who had been arrested in his underwear, up a tree, for assaulting a student! You just can’t make this stuff up! As a recent alumna suggested in a letter to the Argus, six years after the administration hired a man with a record of sexual misconduct to oversee Wesleyan’s Title IX proceedings and sexual assault cases, not much has changed. Perhaps, the University should have a three-strikes rule for supervisors and administrators.
Turnover and turmoil of this kind and frequency are not just embarrassing; they are harmful—to those who leave employment, to their colleagues who stay, and especially to the students who need experienced, caring mentors and advocates, not just company men and women who are concerned about their own image. To pretend that these things are not happening and that there is little cause for concern just does not comport with reality regardless of the political spin that is used. Thomas Sowell, the American economist, social theorist, and controversial author relates how “Abraham Lincoln once asked an audience how many legs a dog has if you count the tail as a leg. When they answered ‘five,’ Lincoln told them that the answer was ‘four.’ The fact that you called the tail a leg did not make it a leg.”
Unfortunately, the ugly truths behind many of these departures, especially the firings or forced terminations, are rarely revealed or made known. The departing employees often choose to accept a buyout or offer of additional compensation in exchange for the execution of a non-disclosure agreement (“NDA”) in which the employee agrees not to disclose the terms and conditions of his or her termination or departure or say anything critical of the employer. While many entities will enforce these NDAs, they are becoming more and more disfavored, particularly when employers weaponize these agreements to stifle dissent or buy someone’s silence. This is especially true when it comes to sexual assault and sexual harassment cases (cf. Speak Out Act, S. 4524, recently passed by Congress).* To be perfectly clear, I did not “vacate” my position as University Catholic Chaplain; I was fired. I also refused to sign an NDA. As I indicated in my letter of September 15th to the Argus, for me, truth matters, and I want people to know the truth and the consequences of my firing. My silence, reputation, and integrity are not for sale. To paraphrase one unknown author, instead of simply counting the bodies of people who have fallen into the river and are now floating downstream, there comes a point in time when someone needs to go upstream and see why people are falling in. Perhaps, the problem lies in the broken bridges, policies, or leadership that have led to such failed outcomes. Remaining silent to this brokenness that has victimized students and staff is not what a chaplain does, and it is not who I am.
The Wesleyan community should know that I have taken legal action against the University to redress my firing and to bring to light some of the infinite unwisdom that is responsible for much of this Kafkaesque reality. Hopefully, it will result in effective change. At times, truth can be elusive, and for some, both inconvenient and uncomfortable, but when all is said and done the truth usually comes out. I have nothing to hide and am very proud of my seven years of ministry to the entire Wesleyan University community. I am particularly proud of the fact that when others stood by, remained silent, or offered lame excuses in the face of horrendous, harmful decision-making, I stood up, spoke out, and fought for ORSL and the students. That is patently obvious to all—except those who insist on saying a dog has five legs.
Sincerely, Father Bill Rev. William J. Wallace, O.S.A., J.D.
Rev. William J. Wallace, O.S.A., J.D. can be reached at wjwallace737@gmail.com