Massachusetts News
By Eugene Narrett

February 1--All students are being hurt at the state colleges in Massachusetts because of the "feminist theory" that is being taught to them by the radical feminists who have seized control at these institutions. Here are Prof. Narrett’s insights which everyone else is afraid to tell.

At every turn, students hear that men and women are not different. It is ingrained not only as a dogma in the curriculum; it also shapes hiring and promotion. 

It reflects the heavy involvement of federal and state governments in funding and hiring decisions motivated by gender and skin color. 

Once in power, the feminists are not shy about using that power against anyone who questions them. When Mary Murphy walked into my office in March 1995, she told me flat out, "Eugene, you’ve got to stop writing columns criticizing feminism. You’ve just got to desist." I told her I felt very uncomfortable being pressured with this kind of directive from a tenured colleague, being untenured myself. But she simply reiterated the order and told me it was "for [my] own good." 

Two years later, I was dismissed from the College on a transparent pretext. When a number of professors brought a motion calling on the administration to reinstate me, Professor Murphy opposed it publicly at a faculty meeting (May 1997) saying she "found my writings offensive." Several former colleagues told me they were shocked that she would openly admit that her personal dislike of my publications was her justification for terminating my employment. 

Murphy may have felt emboldened to openly flout First Amendment and academic freedom statutes because she felt herself so attuned to the administration culture at the college. Perhaps her openness also reflected the fact that it was she who kept the minutes of the faculty meetings. 

Contempt for Men

There are many examples of contempt for men and for American history. A professor in the English department, also a member of its hiring committee, hosted a "workshop" on "Women Writing About Women." At a lunch prior to the workshop, the visiting "scholar" who was its focal point favored us with her interpretation of postwar American history. World War II, she explained, was "a macho adventure" in which men flaunted their power. The crisis in gender relations after the war, she said was reflected in popular culture by horror films like Attack of the Fifty-Foot Woman and The Incredible Shrinking Man that expressed "male anxiety as men shrank back down to size" after their wartime exploits. The women at the lunch table thought this "insight" very funny. The men, all tenured, simpered. The correct view of gender matters was very clear, as was the intimidation and conformity even of tenured men. What kind of model do such professors present to students, male or female?

King Lear Is Distorted

When students studied Shakespeare’s tragedy King Lear, which is a searching lesson on faithful love and respect for parental and legitimate social authority, it was compressed into a tract for trendy therapies fueled by gender resentments. I found information sheets distributed to students which argued that Lear’s two elder, greedy, adulterous and murderous daughters must have been victims of childhood sexual abuse from their father. They suffered "repressed memory syndrome." This pseudo science is totally alien to the events of the play as well as to Renaissance theories of character formation. 

The destruction of all moral and cultural categories was a goal. At Framingham State, this assault on norms often took the form of professors publicly reading poems that include personal erotic revelations. One professor read poems describing the room-shattering effects of making love with his wife. Another read at length about seeing when young her sleeping father’s genitals. This, it was suggested, was part of the burden that men, even when sleeping in their own beds, have imposed on women. Beyond the gender-war message is the increasingly routine use of erotic confession as an educational method. 

There is always a noisy display of support for "diversity." One of the forms this took was in the annual appointment of a "Visiting Professor of Diversity" whose criteria resembled an exercise in self-satire. What is a "Professor of Diversity?" Judging by the college’s public relations material, the main criteria for filling this position is to be a black woman, preferably a lesbian who can use their classrooms as a "safe place" for gays and lesbians to talk about sexuality. The presumption that it is unsafe to "be" gay or lesbian on campus is a claim that reflects not real dangers but the attempt by government to use schools to invent a "crisis" and resulting privileges for students who wish to indulge in same-sex behavior. Such programs also show that these students get special attention. Thus young people who are confused or lonely are encouraged to identify themselves with an improbable and dangerous way of life. 

Ed. Department Is Worst

The education department academically is the worst of all. This is the college which grants degrees to future public school teachers. They don’t give students substantive academic courses, they teach them courses where basically there are no wrong answers. They teach them supposedly the educational process rather than excellence in the discipline they are going to teach or instead of mastering a body of knowledge. Then they turn these 22-year-olds loose on the public school system to teach the kids their politicized methodology and their scattered, paltry and inaccurate view of history.

One senior professor commented, "We are seeing more and more students incapable of succeeding in a substantive academic discipline. They’re all going into fields like education where they tell them there aren’t any right or wrong answers. It is very corrupt morally and intellectually. They’re ruining liberal arts education."

In the mid ‘90s, a Director of the College Library who was insufficiently zealous in pursuing the party line found himself faced with an ultimatum: resign or be targeted by a "sexual harassment" complaint. Knowing that in these cases the defendant, if a man, is assumed to be guilty, the target dutifully resigned, surrendering to bureaucratic harassment that is academia’s operating method. 

A tenured woman who had served ably for decades in the psychology department was not part of the new crowd. Declining to take early retirement, she discovered that her advanced courses and seminars were taken away. She found it difficult to obtain office supplies. Referring to the school’s administration in the ‘90s, she commented, "These people are totally unethical, the worst I’ve seen in twenty-nine years. It’s a terrible example for faculty and students. What do I think about Helen [Heineman, then VP now acting President]? She is the worst. The whole crowd that’s taking over doesn’t care about anything but power."

Professors Are Compliant

As at many colleges, power is exercised in a way designed to keep professors compliant with the dogma of "diversity." Those who criticize the in-crowd, no matter how appropriate the forum, will find themselves or their family members targeted for retaliation.

During the 1995-6 academic year, tenured English department faculty wrote up their annual evaluation of the department chair. It included criticism for some high-handed administrative actions of the sort noted above. Before it was sent to the president, the chair insisted on reading the evaluation. Finding comments he disliked, he demanded it be revised to reflect more favorably on him. One of the professors refused to alter her remarks. 

Unable to retaliate substantially against her, the chairman terminated the employment of her husband, James Beyer, a Professor with a Ph.D. and significant publications who had taught effectively in the Department for several years. The intimidating message was resented but clearly understood by all involved.

About a year later, some of my colleagues were appalled at the irrational criteria the chairman belatedly used to explain terminating my employment. One said, "I feel terrible. We’ve got to address the problem of this kind of behavior in the department." He mentioned the above-noted incident of the evaluation and pledged to take up my situation with the chairman and tell him, "There will be a very critical evaluation if he doesn’t make redress for you, at least give you a couple of courses for the fall." That evening I called this colleague only to discover he had been turned 180 degrees. "I’m sorry, Eugene," he said nervously. "I’ve been calling people and canvassing the department and there’s no consensus for helping you. The feeling is, as someone said, ‘We don’t want his writings associated with the College.’" 

A couple of days later, after hearing this news another former colleague stated, "Tom’s afraid of retaliation." Another exclaimed, "Tom backed away like that? Mary [Murphy] got to him." The message in the termination of Jim Beyer had been received loud and clear.

Newspaper Was Pressured

This bureaucratic tyranny extends into the world beyond campus. In late 1995, The MetroWest Daily News, then called The Middlesex News, removed from my byline the fact that I taught at the college. The former counsel of the teachers union had called me and told me it must be deleted. Apparently, there had been pressure from several faculty members directly on the paper. One professor involved with the union said, "When I heard they made you take out of your byline that you taught here, I called Fred Doherty and told him, ‘Look, I’m on the Executive Board of the union and you wouldn’t have given an order like that, would you?’ He denied it. I told him, ‘That’s not your function, pal, that’s not why I pay dues.’" But the deletion stood and the professor who lodged the complaint for me added, "Mary Murphy may have given him the sense that the whole faculty wants to censor your connection with the college."

The source of much, though hardly all of the political oppression at FSC, Professor Mary Murphy herself achieved her position because she had been active in the McGovern and Dukakis campaigns. When she came up for promotion and tenure in about 1984, her lack of a Ph.D. in English and the gross sloppiness with which she presented her dossier led to her being unanimously rejected. Then President of the College, Paul Weller, reconvened the Committee and ordered them to promote Murphy. They refused and he put through the promotion himself. Members of the Committee resigned but this honorable gesture on behalf of Academic standards was futile. Politics trump excellence.
 

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