Ruth M. Sprague
Wild Justice—Ruth M. Sprague Copyright @1993 TX 3 608 425
BACK COVER
The court and the EEOC said sex discrimination!
Belmont U. terminated her anyway!
Belmont University had always looked upon faculty misdeeds such as child molestation, sexual harassment or record falsification with a tolerant if not blind eye. Strange then that the entire administration mobilized to aim its big guns at Professor Diana Trenchant—or was it?
The inner workings of administrative jingoism are exposed as a popular teacher is given a termination hearing where the presiding officer is the accuser, the prosecutor and the judge, and the testimony in her defense is ignored.
"WILD JUSTICE chronicles the outrages of one woman's experience with an engaging mix of humor and indignation. The use of fictitious names underscores how the problems are systemic and not merely rooted in the particular persons involved in this 'witch hunt'. I hope it will be widely read—both for its own sake and to encourage the kind of struggle that redirects higher education to serve the people and social justice, however wild!"
Professor Willard Miller, University of Vermont.
COPYRIGHT PAGE
Published by T'Wanda Books, P.O.B. 1227, Peralta, NM 87042
Copyright @ 1993 by Ruth M. Sprague
Cover artist: David O'Vitt
1. Publisher's Cataloging In Publication Data
2. Sprague, Ruth M.
3. Wild Justice
4. 1. Fiction. 2. Sex discrimination. 3. University policy and procedures. 4. Feminists.
5. LC#: 93-060721
6. ISBN 1-883889-05-7 Softcover
AUTHOR'S NOTE
It is no accident that women continue to earn less than men. Nowhere is this more evident than in the testosterone temples of academia. Here, the ceiling is made of plexiglass.
Although more women are allowed in the classrooms and even into the board rooms, decisions are still made in the men's rooms.
More women obtain advanced degrees and achieve faculty positions, but few are allowed into the highest administrative positions. Rather, they are found in greatest numbers in the lower paying, most labor intensive positions.
Civil Rights laws connecting compliance with federal grants are blatantly ignored or creatively circumvented by many institutes of higher learning. The courts and the EEOC, weakened to the point of extinction by the regressive administrations of the eighties, are about as effective as warm spit in enforcing compliance.
Using the double edged sword of coercion and harassment, these institutions of "higher learning" continue to maintain their status quo. This book portrays a few of the artifices they employ. Characters, descriptions and locations are fictional, created from the right side of the author's brain.
DEDICATION
In fondest memory of
LEAH RUTH DENTON,
this book is dedicated to all
WOMANKIND AND HER SUPPORTERS
who refuse to accept the definitions and limitations
imposed by ancient conquerors.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Ruth M. Sprague, Ph.D., a native Vermonter known to hundreds of her former students as Dr. Ruth, is retired after many years teaching nursing and medical students.
She has published several scientific papers, teaching tutorials and one novel, VERMONT TALES FOR FOOLS AND OTHER LOVERS.
"Revenge is a kind of wild justice."—Francis Bacon