Going back a bit, here is what the campus paper said on January 11:

Penn State Altoona's dean and chief executive officer, William G. Cale Jr., brought the charges against Gerard in a 13-page letter to members of the university's Standing Joint Committee on Tenure on Aug. 11. He lists each of the claims against her.

Cale based the failure-to-perform charge on Gerard's vocal opposition to the "Integrative Arts" four-year degree, created at the Altoona campus in 2000. The degree combines various arts programs, including theater, dance, music, writing and visual arts, into one.

Cale claims Gerard made public attempts to discredit the IA degree and tried to sabotage the school's efforts to establish a dance curriculum.

"Not only have her behaviors weakened the delivery of our IA program, she has also served to cause conflict and discontent among the IA faculty," Cale wrote.

He said Gerard's actions led to the early retirement of one faculty member and the resignation of a co-coordinator of the IA program.

"In a flurry of e-mails in 2001 and 2002, she openly states that our faculty are not qualified to teach IA, makes accusatory and derogatory remarks to and about the IA faculty and states that 'I still cannot support this degree and would not encourage students to enroll in it,' " Cale wrote.

Gerard does not deny any of those points. In fact, she fully admits to openly criticizing the IA program at PSU/Altoona.

We see also that her criticism was indeed stinging. Her mere words were so effective that they led one person to retire and another to resign. To me, that implies that her criticisms must have had merit--- otherwise, why react so strongly?

In any case, it seems clear that Professor Gerard is being treated like an administrator instead of a professor. Administrators do not have academic freedom. If the Dean of my business school disagrees openly with the Chancellor's policy, the Chancellor can fire him (I think. If I'm wrong, it still makes a good hypothetical, so let's assume he can be fired). And this is a good thing. The Dean, though he holds an important job, is supposed to be carrying out executive functions for the Chancellor, and administration will go more smoothly if he can be fired. Secretaries have union security and professors have tenure, but administrators should not have job security.

But we do give professors tenure for a reason. We want them to be free to criticize the university without fear of dismissal-- even though we all know that there is no way to prevent the University from reducing pay raises for an irritating professor. It is useful to have the possibility of dissent, and no individual professor has power by virtue of his position anyway--- the faculty advise, but the administrators ultimately decide what happens. Thus, academic freedom allows a professor with irritating but good ideas to voice them without fear, while preventing a professor with irritating and bad ideas from actually implementing them. And if the irritating professor is also an administrator--say, an associate dean-- he can be fired as an administrator even though he is retained as a professor.

Penn State, however, does not seem to have academic freedom. Before today, I thought this might just be Penn-State Altoona, which is not the "real" Penn State (at University Park), but just a satellite campus. President Spanier, however, has confirmed Altoona's action. That makes this a rather more interesting example, since Penn State- College Park is a real university.

I am still puzzled by how this could happen. I emailed Penn State to try to find out, but they are not commenting. Here is the reply, which to their credit they sent very quickly and nicely:

As with most institutions, corporations, universities and social agencies we have a policy of not discussing personnel information about individual employees.

You have access to an enormous amount of information told to the press from Nona Gerard and her friends, but do not have access to any information from the university. I understand that most reasonable people would find it difficult to make a judgement about this case hearing only one side and do not have any means to judge the accuracy of that information.

But Penn State does feel it is important to respect privacy policies and must trust most people believe we have honest, honorable faculty and administrators involved in important decisions.

Maybe Penn State has information that Professor Gerard has been punching elderly colleagues, for example, driving them to early retirement to avoid physical injury. Maybe she has been using obscene language, or making up slanderous stories about their personal lives. On the other hand, maybe not--- and from what little Penn State *has* been saying, I rather doubt it.

I know neither Professor Gerard or the Penn State administrators, so I can't draw my conclusions based on reputation. Rather than knowing that the Penn State administrators and faculty are "honest and honorable" and using that information to interpret the observed facts, I have to start with the observed facts and draw inferences about whether the Penn State administrators and faculty are "honest and honorable".

What inference would you draw?

[in full at 04.03.02a.htm .      Erasmusen@yahoo.com. ]

LATER THAT DAY: I see mention of this at Volokh and Crooked Timber and The Leiter Report. . I also happened upon an article from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that adds some more details.

... committee members said Gerard created a disruptive work environment through hostile e-mails she wrote to several professors in her department. In one such e-mail to Integrative Arts co-coordinator Dinty Moore, she referred to an assistant professor of dance as "talentless" and "as cold as a dead fish." In a separate e-mail, she told Moore he was a "rude and belittling man."

"The committee finds that those incidents demonstrate an extreme lack of civility toward both Professor Gerard's colleagues and to the administration," the report read. "The impact of the e-mails was magnified by the fact that she often [sent copies to] many people beyond the colleague being attacked."

Gerard argued to the committee that her correspondence with colleagues was protected free speech under the First Amendment and the concept of academic freedom. The panel disagreed.

"The committee believes that the hostile communications of Professor Gerard go beyond what is permitted as free speech," they wrote. "Furthermore, the professor's repeated hostile communications have so disrupted the work environment within the department as to constitute unprotected speech."