Third interview with Jurgen Herbst

Jurgen Herbst #52 Transcript

JH: But you ask whatever questions you want. Because at this point, I have no strong feelings one way or another to have the last word to say. I was curious, just the excerpt I gave you from the Chronicle of Higher Education, I think there's definitely a misstatement in there in the report. Let me read that one sentence that she's quoted me as saying. She said that, this is a quote from the Chronicle of Higher Education, January 22, 1979. She said she had been denied tenure because she was in a position to demand that a new women's studies program be given formal funding. And then quote her, "Apparently some people at the university didn't want money spent on the program," she said. I think that's just absolute invention on her part. The whole, I mean, the implication here 00:01:00would be, at least the way I read that, that these some people who didn't want the women's studies programs are somewhere in the university.

LS: Yes.

JH: And apparently some were higher up in the administration. Well now, if there's one thing I know, is that if anybody has to be blamed for it, it is me. I was the chairman of her investigating committee. And throughout all of those months and even years of this whole process, we never had the slightest interference from anybody in the administration. In fact, people asked me afterwards, and there was a cartoon in the Daily [unclear] where [Lieb?], I, and people on the committee were supposed to be talking with a chancellor and with Cyrena Pondrom. To this day, I've never exchanged a word with Cyrena Pondrom. She doesn't know me. I know her because her picture's all over the paper. So 00:02:00when I walk past her on campus, I know I'm walking past her. But she doesn't know who she's walking past. We don't know each other. And I never had a chance to talk with the chancellor.

And that kind of thing would have been, I think, resented on our part. Because if there's one thing we felt very keen about, it is departmental autonomy.

So this business about the women's studies program is just pure invention on her part. I mean, there's just absolutely nothing to that. Maybe there were people who didn't want, I mean, I won't deny that there were people in the university who didn't want a women's studies program, of course. But they had nothing to do with us. And they never approached us. They never said anything. Nor did we, in our thinking, ever concern ourselves with that. That's a different department that had nothing to do with what we're talking about. So I don't know, you know. 00:03:00There's so much fantasy in the sort of thing she has said, and this is just one example of it. Well that, just because that was in the papers. [pause]

LS: We'll just go on, I guess. That was one of the questions I had was how much you got in the way of phone calls from people in the other departments, men or women or people in the administration.

JH: Well, we got a lot of phone calls. But I should say that they were all from her supporters. I remember Kathryn Clarenbach from the governor's commission on the status of women. Oh, and then some other women who were, I think, on the commission. And colleagues called. But I think they were all, I would swear they were all in her favor. They were all saying this is a tremendously valuable person for organizing women for women's studies programs, you must keep her. But 00:04:00none of the other side. And I think that's understandable. Nobody would want to put themselves in a position to be accused of pressuring and interfering with departmental affairs against a person.

LS: Well, I was assuming they'd be in her favor.

JH: Yes.

LS: But what I wondered was how many other university people were in favor of her to the point of calling you. That is, other than people interested in women's studies as partisans.

JH: Well, now, I can of course only speak about calls I personally got. And if I exclude those who were from women or people who were particularly women's studies, and wanted her for that, I don't think more than three or four. Now there were other members on the committee, and they may have received calls. But the great majority, the overwhelming majority of the calls we got, were from 00:05:00other women. And it seemed quite obvious from the calls and from the letters that that was an organized drive. So it's quite true that in many, A, none of them that I ever recall, was telling us something that we didn't know, there was something new, some information that we hadn't had. And then what they did saw was always the same type of thing, essentially, that I said in the other part of the tape, to keep her for organizational abilities and for the impact, the effect, her abilities would have and did have on the campus. And that, of course, is what we expressed in our report, too, and why we passed her in service and, in fact, felt that the service area was her strongest area. But 00:06:00none of them really addressed herself to the question on which we felt negative, on scholarship. Most of them [unclear] simply didn't know.

LS: I guess what I was wondering was whether the other women really did want her to stay. That is, was she personally popular, or was it just in terms of a cause, and was it just students, for instance.

JH: Well, that's harder for me to say. One can't read people's minds. I think the impression we got was that a good many of them called because it was a cause. But that may be doing also another good many an injury. So really, I wouldn't know.

LS: Did Sue have any opinion about it?

JH: Well, Sue's position at home was we should keep her. Yes. And she thought so 00:07:00mainly for political reasons. And I had other political friends who had nothing to do with the university. I remember one who was a very good friend in Democratic Party politics who just exploded all over me, and said it was the "most stupid political thing I've ever seen you do."

LS: Was this, sounds like Liesel Tacob

JH: No, no. It was a male. It wasn't even a woman. And I said to him, dear friend, this has nothing to do with politics. That wasn't in my mind, whether it was a politic thing to do or not. This is honestly a decision on grounds of scholarship. And I'm sorry, I won't listen to you when you come with your political considerations. And practically said the same thing to Sue. You know, I said, "I understand the politics of it, the decision politics."

LS: Have there been cases of men in the History Department, I guess, I'm not sure I asked this before, where politics may have entered into a favorable decision? I mean, I should think it would sometimes. That is, where you might think a man's scholarship was not as good as it should be, but in other ways he had something so valuable for the community that he would be kept?

JH: Well, it depends on what you mean by community. I remember way back, in fact, that was when I was still non-tenured, and that wasn't here, that was in Connecticut, in Wesleyan, there was an awful lot of talk in tenure decisions about the community. But they always meant the university community, and more particularly even the department that this or that person would be a valuable 00:09:00[human?] contribution to the department. And they had a term for it in Connecticut. They called it "departmentship." And that historically, I think, hasn't in the past very often been a criteria. In my own experience over the years, that has been pushed more and more into the background, because it simply doesn't fit the kind of announced criteria. And I have not heard it used here. And certainly not, again, in the Roberts case anymore. Times did change, and it became far more strict by the clearly announced criteria. But even then, when people talked about community, as I said, they talked about the academic community.

I don't recall any case that I was involved in where the, let's say, the city community or wider community was considered.

LS: Well, you really wouldn't have to. I mean, if they wanted somebody, they could always hire them in the city. So it should be for the university community. But I can see a case sometimes for keeping somebody on for that reason. Departmentship, or whatever.

JH: Yes. I think that historically has been a reason, that was before we got into the process of affirmative action. You can stack that up against, then it is, after all, too simple to violate affirmative action. Because you can then excuse anybody who doesn't meet affirmative action criteria by saying oh, we want to keep him because he's valuable for the quote unquote "community."

So by the time Joan's case came up, times had already changed. I mean, that was past.

LS: Did you like her personally? You, personally, in the department, was she liked?

JH: There was a, I think, a change. As I think said on that other tape, when she 00:11:00first came, we respect and liked her very much. I always felt I got along with her quite well. I became, however, progressively annoyed at her, mainly her paranoia. The sort of thing that's reflected in this statement that I just quoted to you.

LS: Yeah.

JH: That [unclear] women's studies. She would say things like that all along. And I recall in particular that was when I was chairman of the department. And she first introduced a woman's course. Now she has made these statements in the hearings that we continuously and consistently try to block the development of that course. Now that really always made me terribly unhappy. Because that simply wasn't the case. But what had happened was this. When she came, the first 00:12:00time around, the department at that time had a policy that any new course, no matter what it was, that was going to be introduced, should be tried out for one or two semesters. And for that purpose, we gave every new course the number 900 in the catalog. And the advantage was that the department on its own initiative could start the course. If you regularly introduce a new course, you have to go to the divisional committee, there's a tremendous amount of red tape involved.

So we had on the books Education Policy Studies 900. And that actually came, when we started out, having courses taught by students in the early, in the late '60s. So the natural thing for the department was to say start out with a 900 number.

Well, that went for about one semester, and then we saw what the trouble with 00:13:00that was. Nine hundred is a very advanced graduate student number. And Joan not only wanted, but also drew a great many undergraduates. And the university began to scream, the registrar. "We can't have all those freshmen and sophomores and juniors and seniors here on their records having a 900 course." So we changed that number. We brought it down to 600.

And thereafter, now I don't remember whether it was a couple of months or a couple of years. But somewhere in the process, I remember Joan telling us, highly enraged, that we downgraded her course from 900 to 600. That was another instance, how we discriminated against her. Now that didn't make me very happy, to hear that type of thing.

Well, anyway, that's number one. Number two was after the course had been taught 00:14:00under either the 900 or 600 number for I don't know how long, the time had come to make it a regular course. And we had put it in under 560, I believe. I think that's, it was going to be its regular number. But then we ran into the problem that when she first proposed it, she missed -- she missed the deadline, not our, the department doesn't particularly care when you propose it. But the divisional committee does. Any new course given in one semester has to be submitted there by a certain cutoff date. Well, her proposal came in after the cutoff date. Well, it didn't take very long that we then heard that we again torpedoes her course that time, because we didn't push it through the divisional committee.

Okay, let me start the, this is all in answer to your question, how did I get along with her. There were many instances of that type. The use of secretaries was another one along the same lines.

She made the biggest demands on our departmental secretary than any other person. And there were continually troubles along that line. There was a string of that type of annoyances. And since I was department chairman, I had to deal with it one way or another. And that naturally, some would damp my enthusiasm for her as a person. If somebody who creates that kind of trouble all along. And not only did she create the trouble, anytime you called [unclear] I had to say something about it. We were sabotaging her efforts. This was all against her as a woman, and all against women's studies.

I remember the instance that made me the angriest was that one day I came into the office and I happened to see in our outgoing mailbox a huge stack of mail. Envelopes addressed to Gimbels & Company, Manchester, the whole business of 00:16:00stores. She had all her bills paid and written by the secretaries, by the secretaries in the department. And I said, "Listen, that can't be done." A, I told the secretaries, and B, I told her. "You've got to stop this." A semester later, I found that again. And she finally did stop it.

But she gave us, in fact we had it in writing somewhere in the files, where she had a written statement that she had spent, now, my recollection, the figure may be wrong. But the figure isn't really the decisive thing, that's the whole idea, that she had spent something like six hundred dollars in that preceding year for books she bought to educate herself. And the secretarial time and the stamps of 00:17:00the department that she had used, stood in no relation to expense of six hundred in books. And all of this further non-academic course, and how or what were we hollering about her using some stamps, a few stamps, if we didn't reimburse her for her books. And I said to myself and to her, frankly I've never heard that kind of argument. And that is in writing. That's in our files somewhere along the line.

It's sometimes hard to keep your equanimity when you have experiences of that sort.

LS: It's too bad. Well how did the secretaries, they must not have liked this very much, either.

JH: It was very difficult to deal with the secretaries on that issue. I don't think they liked it very well. But if you, if I or if they talked to me, they 00:18:00stood in danger to be accused that they were scheming against her. And I stood in danger of rallying the secretaries against her and make her life uncomfortable again. It was difficult.

LS: And you didn't have any women. It's too bad you didn't have a woman colleague to refer to, or step in.

JH: Well, I'm not, yes we later on we did. Well, that doesn't, this was not coincidental at the time when Joan was here. But just to talk about that problem. I did have a woman colleague, and I won't mention her name now, whom I once said something to that effect, "There are certain difficulties and you could help if you would say--"

And she looked at me and said, "I have no desire to become the target of all my 00:19:00sisters, the organized sisters, that I break ranks. Please, leave me out of that."

And I think that was also true with some of the secretaries. And Joan knew this too well, and played that game with finesse. I must hand it to her.

So, your question, you know, to what extent did certain disagreeable feeling enter, I think it's a very justified one. I recognize that. And I battled against it very hard.

LS: Must have been.

JH: I kept telling myself, a tenure decision is a totally different thing. I can't let myself be influenced by these thoughts. And in fact, after it was all over, I did bring that matter up at one time with our lawyer. And it was, it didn't have an effect on the decision anymore. But I said to him, "You know, 00:20:00that is a real problem, because we have three criteria for tenure: research, teaching and service. What about, in the tenure decision, there is no room for so-called ethical questions, like the use of departmental stationery or stamps."

The lawyer looked at me as though I came from the moon. And his retort was essentially in any relationships, business, private, public, government, where ethical questions of that sort come up, they of course have to be entered in. They don't have to be listed; that's taken for granted.

And I said, "Well, that's nice that you say that. I wish I'd known that before. But even if I had known, I still would face the problem that the rules by which 00:21:00everybody goes, namely, the criteria provided by the divisional committee, don't say anything about these. They simply say the famous three."

LS: Well, and you have to defend yourself. If you have to defend your decision, you can't very well say, you don't want to say, "We're not letting you in, or somebody in, because of dishonesty." Whatever. That sort of reason you would want to keep to yourselves, anyway.

JH: Yeah. And the lawyer's answer was dishonesty is a different matter. You could have brought this out in a different form. And I said, "Well, even if we had, I would certainly have been accused that we happened to do that just at the same time that these tenure decisions came up. And what were we trying to do?"

LS: Why not do it earlier, you mean.

JH: We talked about that in the committee. And I think we all agreed no matter what the story, we leave that out. It's our business. And that goes back to your 00:22:00main question. I kept telling myself just about every day, I have three criteria to go by, and that's all. And I think we did that. Read our reports, there's not a word of it in there.

LS: Well, it's a curious problem.

JH: It is a problem.

LS: Because it's recurring.

JH: Yes. And it's a general problem. You know, sure, that's what they said. It's recurring. It could occur in any tenure business. It's not at all in any particular [unclear]. But it is a problem, yes.

LS: Well, was the women's studies already, was the department, was that already formed by then? Or not?

JH: No, I think it wasn't formed as such. It began, the three individual 00:23:00courses, such as Joan's. But the courses were first, before they were pulled together into a program.

LS: I suppose most, really, I assumed that you'd want to talk about how you felt during these meetings with more or less everybody against you, except the other two members of the committee. It must have seemed, with your family against you, and your friends.

JH: It was not a happy time. No, no, not at all. And as you just said, there was precious little support for that. The pressure was all on the other side. And I 00:24:00suppose I just took a kind of an historical attitude. Well, you're in it. And the choice you have is to sort of cave in and make life easy. Or be able to face yourself in the mirror next day. And that's essentially what finally determined me. I said if I have any sense at all of what academic life is supposed to be about, and not only any sense of it, but also any faith and belief in it, then this is the point to take your stand.

And so I must confess I'm very glad that I didn't know beforehand how rough it was going to get, to the point of physical attack, and being burned in effigy, and people trying to push you into that burning effigy. If I had known all that, well, I don't know. My thoughts, I might have wavered at times. But I don't 00:25:00know. That can't be answered. It didn't happen that way.

LS: Did you go talk to other chairmen? Like Mort Rothstein, wasn't he chairman in history? Or had been, and was a friend? Did you go talk to them at all?

JH: No, I didn't. And I didn't do so very deliberately. I thought, maybe wrongly, it would not be ethical, or I would lay myself open-- I guess I also had some fear. Suppose Joan finds out about that, and then throws in another count, that we conspired with other hardline conservatives, whatever, on campus. And I thought, no. It's the same feeling, as I expressed earlier, of my gratitude never to have been called by any people in the administration. This is 00:26:00our business, and ours alone. And the fates have shook the dice and said somewhere that I end up there. And, well, that's it.

LS: You must have talked afterwards to people about it.

JH: Yes. Oh, sure. After it was all over, even then, I never really wanted to take the initiative, but of course people asked. And I said essentially what I'm saying here: we had three criteria, we did our best to decide with them, and that's what we did. And we'll do that again.

Now I just talked about a month ago to somebody in the law school, who sort of, we walked along and he said, "You know, I was against you."

LS: Oh, really?

JH: And I said, "Well, sorry to hear that. But let me assure you, what we did was based on those criteria we publicly stated. And if it came up today, it 00:27:00would be the same result. She just didn't meet the criteria for scholarship."

And in that conversation, it became obvious that that particular person didn't dispute that. But said the criteria for service should have outweighed the criteria for scholarship. And all I could say was, "I'm sorry. That will never do for me. You know, the three are of equal rank. And we said that then. And I, at least, say that now. And if you disagree, well, we have to agree to disagree." (laughs)

LS: And the member of the Ed Policy Department now are all, they meet the criteria for scholarship, do they?

JH: Oh, yes! I mean, first of all, the question does have a historical dimension. You can't read it backwards. I think I have said when we were 00:28:00interviewed or whatever the word is by the lawyers, as we were getting ready for trial, that criteria have changed over time. They have become stricter. It was easier to get tenure on academic grounds ten years ago than now. And it's probably more difficult ten years hence. I think that shouldn't be denied. So it doesn't necessarily mean that a person with her criteria might not have got, or would not have gotten tenure, let's say, in 1950. I wouldn't say that. But I will say that a person of her accomplishments in 19, what was it, 1974--

LS: '72.

JH: Oh, '72, when it all began, yes, right, would not have gotten tenure in this department no matter who this person was. And that's the only fair comparison 00:29:00you can make. It has to be made at the same time as her decision.

LS: No, I guess I meant were any people who'd been hired given tenure since then?

JH: Oh, heavens, no. No, no. Now I've forgotten. One of our males - I think it was after, or just before, didn't get tenure. That was a male. No, we haven't changed in that at all. Uh uh.

LS: What about the other members of the committee? I mean, you had this very strict position that you took. Did they share it? Or did they come around to your way of thinking?

JH: Oh, you mean during the process? I think they shared it. I mean, I do not recall that I had to kneel to anybody to try to convince them of my point of view. No, in fact, that wasn't my approach at all. I had very little, if any, doubts about my own position. And I stated it, and I said, "I'd like to hear 00:30:00yours." And they said they agreed.

LS: They might have been happy, I mean, if the two of them had been for her, and then you could have--

JH: Well, if we had had a two to one vote the other way, it would have probably been much easier for all of them, of course. But no, they didn't do that.

LS: Yes, yes. They agreed with you. And the rest of the department, what was it? Nine to three, or twelve to three?

JH: Well, there were a few, I think were three votes the other way.

LS: There were three the other way. There was a seven to four vote at one point, and then a twelve to three.

JH: Of course we didn't know, in those days, that was before the open reading law. We didn't know who voted which way, except for one, for Phil Altbach, who said so publicly, that he voted for her. But the other two, to this day I don't know who they were.

LS: Oh, that's interesting.

JH: I've never found out. I know from a few that I'm positive who said that they voted the same way we did.

LS: Yeah. But there's still enough so that-- (laughs)

JH: But I never heard from anybody else that he voted against. I don't know.

LS: Well.

JH: And we've given up the game, we have often sat around and tried to figure out now who could it have been?

LS: Nobody knows.

JH: Nobody knows. And it was too risky. We didn't come to any agreement on that, either. Just thinking [unclear] gave it up as fruitless.

LS: Yeah. Just as well not to know. It must have seemed rather like a betrayal.

JH: Well, I wouldn't say so. I think I have always had the feel that our department is not a backstabbing, not a conspiratorial group. We have great differences of opinion within it, but I think we respect them. I don't think we feel it's betrayal. Is this already gone?

LS: Let's see. [pause]

JH: --the more on that. If you ask about the effects that whole affair has had. 00:32:00And you talked about Sue earlier. And I think here is where my gratefulness to her comes in particularly since she was, as it were, on the other side of the issue. She did an awful lot of good to help me keep my balance. Because what I really was afraid of is that with those experiences, I could easily have turned into the most rabid anti-woman person that ever lived. If Joan has achieved 00:33:00anything, it's to make people very anti-feminist by giving this kind of demonstration, and whipping up the crowd.

I think the worst thing that ever happened was the popular lynching mob that really came on her part. And I think I had to say very honestly, of course that left scars. I've said it often enough, when I read novels and other books, I think I have an inkling what it means to be lynched. Or at least, I guess that you can't [unclear] then you're dead. But what it means to face a lynching. And I feel very sympathetic to blacks in the South when they were facing lynching mobs. And that kind of, to say talk about what I want to guard against is to say 00:34:00to myself well, thanks Joan Roberts. And if I get very angry, thanks women for that sort of thing. That was a very potential threat.

And similarly, if you bring this down a little bit more to the campus, I could have seen myself thereafter as violently emotionally opposed, let's say, to women's studies, for example. Well, it hasn't happened, and here's where I think I have to thank Sue to help me put this thing into perspective. In fact, the whole women's studies question, in a way it's very ironic. Because I myself, my own academic training, has been in the field of American Studies, which is a similar inter-disciplinary, inter-departmental program. And having been in that 00:35:00program on my own, I discarded today after a while, not discarded is not the right word. I put my emphasis not on an even spread among all the disciplines, but focusing and centering on one, namely on history. On the assumption that you have to have a discipline to work with.

And that experience I would apply to women's studies as I would to black studies. That such programs, I think, should exist for a time, to create a kind of conditions were, a new, what it really is, a new viewpoint, a new angle or vision or relatively familiar themes. Has to, if you will, find a spokesperson, find a medium by which it cane impress itself on the consciousness of people. 00:36:00But once that is achieved, I think the need for it again diminishes.

I was just telling someone the other day, I just happened to reread Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins. And I'd read that about thirty years ago.

LS: Happened to reread it? (laughs)

JH: Well, I don't know. I did. And thirty years ago, I remember I read that as a novel or a treatise or whatever, an essay, on the position of French intellectuals after World War Two. Europe versus America, United States and the position of intellectuals, all that. As I read it now, it just overwhelmed me that here was a woman writing. Everything she talked about was written from a woman's perspective, not a man. From her love affairs to her intellectual 00:37:00debates with her equals. And that was a totally different thing.

LS: You hadn't noticed it before.

JH: I hadn't noticed that before. And it made an impact. I got a very different understanding of what really happens in that book. And I'm sure that wouldn't have happened if it hadn't have been for the thirty years in between where the consciousness about women is coming into the foreground. And I think that is partly, at least, an achievement of women's studies, and the role of women connected with it. And I think that's very necessary and salutary. And you see, my own views as a reader, Ann Douglas book on the feminization of, I don't know if it's the correct term, something about the feminization of American life in the 1830s and '40s. Which again is a subject matter, 1830s and '40s, I've read about it in oodles of books. And you get another different perspective on it. 00:38:00And with it my own field, education, takes on different dimensions. So I'm, in a sense, a great champion of that.

But I also realize, once it's accomplished, we better go back to literature and history, and simply have into them incorporated the woman's perspective and a woman's view. So that's my general view on women's studies.

And I'm glad that I've been able to develop it that way. Because under the impact of Joan Roberts, I might simply have gotten back on my hind legs and never wanted to even look at, it could easily happen with that sort of experience.

LS: The women who are currently active in women's studies--

JH: Yes.

LS: Have they held this against you? Or are there some among them who have, and some who haven't?

JH: I don't know. I haven't heard much from them.

LS: Do you have anything to do with any of them?

JH: No. No, we have women in our own department, and I certainly do not think they in any way, in fact, they know differently. They know that my students, so many women students, you know, don't feel that way at all.

LS: Hmm. I mean, I wondered if your students would have inquired about it.

JH: Oh, I will say the students in the department, particularly the women students, have been wonderfully supportive of me. And that doesn't mean that they didn't like Joan Roberts. I think most of them said it was tragic in that she had to do, they would say, she had to do what she had to do, and you had to do what you had to do. (laughs) You know, I think that's basically the message I 00:40:00get from them. And I do appreciate that.

LS: A nice, comforting woman's role.

JH: Well, yes. But more than that. I think there's also a degree of truth in it. I mean, I feel, I think you asked me that once before, whether I was now very angry with Joan Roberts. Well, I told you about how annoying I felt her to be, and annoyance at times turned into anger for a short while, and so on. But in the long run of things, she did have to play a rather historical role.

LS: Yeah. I just meant they could have decided that in fact she was wrong to have not, her scholarship record wasn't good. They could have taken that position of, not--

JH: Well, I think they--

LS: Because I don't think she had to do it.

JH: Well--

LS: I mean, [unclear]

JH: I shouldn't speak for them. I'm just trying to think how they would put it. But I think to the extent that they supported me, they agreed that her scholarship really wasn't that good. But that did not make them say she shouldn't have done what she did. In other words, they felt she seized the moment at which she stood were agitation, organization was the main thing for her to do. So they admired her, perhaps, for sacrificing her own scholarship for them.

LS: Oh, I see.

JH: I don't know whether they see it that way or not. But as I say, I shouldn't speak for them. But that's somewhat the impression I get.

LS: It's funny. When I think of my own, I may have been out of the country, but I have just a vague understanding of the case, except what I've read in The Cardinal. But my own view was definitely against her. And whether this was 00:42:00because at that time I wasn't very much of an activist, or whether I found her disagreeable in the pictures and the way that the affair went, that turned me off without any knowledge. She may have been doing a great deal of good. So it's not a rational--

JH: Yes, but you have to recognize the graduate students in the department. The woman graduate students in the department. They were in a different world than you were. They couldn't really afford that kind of luxury. They were, in one sense, also in the middle of it. They were under tremendous pressure from the radical women's groups to join them and condemn me and the faculty. And they probably, they must have, students normally do, think if they did that, we would get back at them in that rage or what have you. And rightly or wrongly, I'm sure wrongly if they thought that way, but nonetheless, that must have been the way 00:43:00they experienced the pressures. And I think that up them in the position where they well might have said, "We agree with the need for somebody, and maybe even Joan Roberts personally to become the spokesperson for the women's course. While we disagree with the methods she uses, and with the--"

On the other hand, they might also have said, "Once you become a spokesperson, you have very little choice. You have to fight with everything you have."

So at the time, anyway, not in retrospect, but at the time, our graduate students, our women graduate students were simply silent. I mean, they didn't come and petition, they didn't join the petitioners. Nor did they come and back us up. They sort of stood back in the wings and almost wanted to let the--

LS: Disappear. (laughs)

JH: Yes. I think so. It's understandable.

LS: Why do you say "spokesperson," by the way?

JH: I don't know. I guess it's become a habit of mine, now.

LS: I mean, she was a woman. You could say "spokeswoman." I just wondered.

JH: She was a woman, yes. [unclear]

LS: I don't like to let that go by too often. (laughs)

JH: I didn't give any thought to it at all. It's easier. I mean, normally when you speak about, in abstract terms, about anybody, then it's easier to say "spokesperson" than "spokesman and spokeswoman." It's too long.

LS: Yeah. I suppose. [pause]

I just found the phrase in the Cardinal, "the icy liberal Herbst."

JH: That gets back to your earlier question about the effect, the personal effect, that had on me. And I think I see iciness was really kind of a defense 00:45:00mechanism. Because under that, that came out of the hearings. When the crowds were shouting and hollering and wanting blood. And it was impossible to speak normally, because you were constantly interrupted. Who did the orange peel thrown, what have you. And the only other thing I think you can do under pressure is to lose your cool and start shouting and throwing tantrums. And probably say things that not only would you regret ever there after, but it also would hurt your own cause. And so it was simply a defense mechanism. It was a feeling of time to keep things under control. My own things under control. 00:46:00Obviously nobody could control the mob.

LS: Yeah.

JH: But to keep your own side under control. And I must say, let me put that in here, too. I was not very happy at the second hearing, in particular. Some of my own colleagues reacted to that situation. Everybody took on a stance. They didn't all turn into ice, as I did. They did other ways. One of them, all of a sudden, drew a bottle of wine, I didn't think I saw right, a bottle of wine out of his briefcase, put it on the table with paper cups, and here, let's loosen us up a little bit.

LS: I bet I know who that was. (laughs)

JH: Never mind. And others made some very, really stupid statements.

LS: The wine couldn't have been very, it was a poor judgment, I would--

JH: Of course it was poor judgment! But recognize, that was just that person's way of becoming icy.

LS: Yes.

JH: We were under tremendous pressure, and people would act rather strangely. And iciness was my way just to prevent the worst, so to speak. (laughs)

LS: I'm sorry, I interrupted you. What were some of the other ways?

JH: Well, the story of the wine bottle. Stupid statements. One statement to the effect that, "Oh, Joan, you could have done everything you wanted to do, if you'd only waited until you finally got tenure. Then nobody would say anything." That's a stupid thing to say. It may be true. (laughs) After all, we know people who disintegrate after finding a tenure, or do other things. But it isn't a very 00:48:00helpful thing to say at that point.

And I think it was said, again, out of a situation when this particular person had to say, had to fight her under these conditions. And all of a sudden felt, I've got to say something nice. And they look for something, and they say something like that.

Or another colleague said Skye Afty had given negative evaluations. "Well, maybe this whole tenure process is not the best it could be."

Well, if you're philosophers, of course, I would say the same thing. There could be reforms, and so on. But you've got to realize in those hearings, you were in a legal process! The other side's just waiting for stuff like that! That's what I meant by having stupid statements, you know, where other people say - and every one of these noticed that, too, afterwards, and probably kicked themselves 00:49:00for having said that. But you know, people are under pressure.

LS: We're not trained to behave under pressure.

JH: I guess to get back to where we were, my way to fight that was to turn to ice, to say as little as possible. (laughs) I thought every additional and superfluous word was of evil.

LS: Yeah. Was this a, I guess it was quite a unique case. The Finley-Campbell case came along, also.

JH: That came afterwards.

LS: Also. Later. But I can't think of any other--

JH: There were some cases in the English Department. Young male instructor who didn't get tenure.

LS: That's right. What was his name? There were three.

JH: Yeah. Yeah.

LS: And they were radicals. Siff. David Siff.

JH: Yeah. Right. Right. Right. But more of them, I think, according to these experience--

LS: No.

I just wonder whether this would be something to ask people about, in their impressions eight years, six years, whatever it is, later. Whether it's that important in university history, this case.

JH: This particular case?

LS: Mmm. I mean, you're in university history.

JH: Yeah. Yeah. Well, I think, in a way, its importance has been cut off by the settlement. If it had been fought through to the end, and we had a legal decision on it, then I think it would have taken on real importance. Because then, everything that went before that we have talked about, could be seen as 00:51:00preliminary movements to get to that result. But now the thing has been cut off. Yeah. I think that's probably the main thing we really ought to talk about. Joan Roberts, a great expression of the great victory she won, how joyful she is. I think that's a sham statement.

She, first of all, it wasn't the university who asked for agreement. It was her.

LS: Oh, really?

JH: Oh, no, it was her. She wanted to break the thing off. She must have come, it's the only way I can explain it, to the realization that she couldn't really win what she wanted to. And suggested that we find agreement. And the university, first, our lawyer at first said no, he wasn't interested at all. And 00:52:00I think she wanted a settlement for a hundred thousand dollars, was the way it started. And then it was whittled down to sixty thousand. And when it came down to thirty thousand, this was what my lawyer told me, he finally began to think well, the university's position in general terms, not just for this particular case, is that twenty-five thousand dollars is the maximum they would be willing to give, just in general terms, just to be rid of something. They have funds set aside for that purpose. And when she came down to thirty thousand, that came close enough to twenty-five thousand that he began to think seriously about it.

And then he came to us and asked the department, "Would you go along with it if we settled?"

And we had a great many meetings, executive committee, asking people, "How do you feel?" And in a good many ways, most of my colleagues in the executive committee merely asked those of us who were most involved, myself and [Klebot?] and [unclear] which, of course, is gone, what we thought. And I must confess, I was ready to settle. Mainly because--

LS: It would have taken a lot of time.

JH: It had already taken so much time. It had already taken so much energy that I was ready to settle simply to be rid of her. That's number one. I think in all honesty, that's number one. Just the thought, maybe this thing will go away, and I won't have to continually carry this on my mind, and think about it, and prepare more copies of this and of that.

And number two, that's really an admission of her feeling she can't win this thing. I mean, what more do we want?

At that point, then, it came around, and then the chancellor got involved in this thing, to the official phrases that were used, the university didn't admit any guilt. That we agreed that there will be differences of opinion that probably cannot be settled in a court of law. If those things were accepted by her, then we could save ourselves a hell of a lot of trouble and inconveniences and just plain nervous energy. And probably also money. That in the long run we would spend more money to carry this on. We said, "Well, if she's willing to drop her claim for thirty thousand dollars, who are we to say no?"

LS: But a headline that says, "Woman Gets Thirty Thousand in Sex Bias Suit."

JH: Well, we talked about that, too. You have to realize that when it comes that way, the headlines will be bad. As, in fact, they had become. And the chancellor, I think, was the one who held out the longest. He said, "I really am not sure we should do this."

Now our part, we had given our feelings on this.

LS: This is Shain.

JH: This is Chancellor Shain. We had given our feelings on that. And I said to Bob Paske, our attorney, "Look, you know how we feel. The decision is up to you, the chancellor, not to us, what to finally do." In fact, I mean, there was never any question. They had never been given up the right to, they didn't ask us to decide. But you take it from there. And they then decided to do it.

Now it's interesting. I have thereafter, in a way, I'm a little angry. I must 00:56:00have had at least six or eight faculty members come up to me now. "Why did you settle? You should have kept with it."

And I said, "I wish you had told me earlier you were all behind me. You know, I always felt I was alone here, that nobody [unclear]."

LS: People in other departments?

JH: Yeah, in other departments. Yes, I don't mean ours. No, no. We talked enough. No, other people--

LS: People whose opinion you--

JH: Well, I don't know them that well to [unclear] I just simply meant the experience that for years--

LS: Nobody said anything.

JH: I felt not a thing. And I felt I was operating in a vacuum, and never really knew how people thought about this. And then, it's five years later, they're, "Oh, we've been with you all along."

I said, "I wish you'd told me that earlier."

LS: I'm so surprised that people didn't, at least after the thing was settled, come out and say, "You did a good job," and "Good for you." That's amazing.

JH: No, there were a few who said, "I think you were wrong all along." And many 00:57:00more have said, "I wish you had fought that through for us." I think that frankly I'm a skeptic, I'm cynical on the whole thing. The letters said so because they could think of enough cases in their own departments where a case like that came up, and they would have wished we had [unclear] But again, why didn't they say so earlier? (laughs) But that's neither here nor there.

LS: So, what about the question about, oh, you answered that. You said it wouldn't be an important case in university history, because it wasn't settled.

JH: I think in the long range of legal history and administrative and tenure decision developments, it can't be a very important one, because nothing is really settled. It just is an incident of friction where things obviously don't work very well.

LS: In fact, it leaves the way open for people to question their tenure decisions, in the hope that maybe they can get some money. Is that right?

JH: Yes. I think that will be read by some that way. And by others, it will be read that the university didn't budge an inch, and kept its tenure criteria. You can read it both ways now.

LS: Boy, I can see the complexity for the chancellor, with all the other problems the university has, trying to decide whether to fight something like this, too.

JH: Yeah.

LS: I suppose he talked with other people about it.

JH: Yes, I'm sure. I'm sure the lawyer-- Paske said something once to me. I've forgot the details of it now. Every tenure case that comes up to a legal decision in the whole system, not just in Madison, there were some in Milwaukee, 00:59:00usually hits at a different specific point of law. And some of these points, from a legal point of view, are very important, and they want to fight them through. And I guess whatever the legal point our case raised was not that decisive.

LS: I see.

JH: They thought they didn't have to [unclear] But this, I'm not that far into it to know just exactly what the points were here enough.

LS: That's curious. One university, therefore, has to take on for all universities the expense of proving a point in law.

JH: Oh, yes. Sure, sure.

LS: But then all universities benefit from it.

JH: Sure. Yeah. Yeah.

LS: That's an interesting thing in itself.

JH: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

LS: Well, what else? Are you all over it now?

JH: Well, I am. The thing is out of [unclear]

LS: Are you recovered? Is it past history?

JH: Oh, as far as that, sure. There is no divisiveness on that at all in the department. I think we're all equally happy to have it out of the world, and happy that nobody overruled us, and nobody said we did the wrong thing. That we can go on, and will go on, to make the next decision in exactly the same lines we have done in the Joan Roberts case. I mean, we have no regrets.

LS: But I meant you, yourself.

JH: Well, in retrospect, I wish I could have lived without all these pains and scars. And I suppose have to be philosophical and say you grew a lot, learned a lot. (laughs) No, clearly I wish I didn't have to go, have gone through that. There's a certain professional benefit as a historian of education to have been involved in this.

LS: I suppose so. Much more than if you were a chemist or in theater department, 01:01:00or theater writer.

JH: Yes, yes, in that sense. I mean, I can't, I can use it as intellectual gain. And I think it helped in the long run probably in understanding the whole women's issue much better than I would have otherwise. Though in the short run, of course for a while, was not that way at all.

LS: It probably accounts for your, not that I question it, but other chairmen might have decided to give way sooner. But your being in education, and the legal history of education, may have helped you stick to your guns in a way that others mightn't have.

JH: Yes. Yes. My interest being legal history in the first place, I think I've looked at that from the very beginning in a far more legalistic matter.

LS: I hadn't thought of that.

JH: Well, in one way, the importance of procedural rules, the importance of 01:02:00having clear standards, and what they mean and how you argue for them, from what ethical positions do you develop these standards, that, I think, has become much, much clearer, much more profiled in my mind. And there, I have no regrets. In my own mind, I have been thoroughly vindicated. I've not found, as I say, I would do the same thing all over again.