One of my new heroes is Sally Dear, an adjunct at Binghamton University in New York, who took a stand against corrupt college administrators who ordered her to fix the grades of a college basketball player with a spotty attendance record who was later arrested for selling and using crack cocaine.
With 11 years of experience teaching human development, Sally didn't set out to be a whistle blower, but when the New York Times asked her the question, she decided to answer it honestly. Yes, she said, she had been ordered to give the athletes higher grades than they deserved. As a result of telling the truth, she was fired.
"I'm being fired for being ethical," she told the New York Times. "I have no doubt about that whatsoever."
While Binghamton claimed her dismissal was due to "budget cuts," absolutely no one is falling for that whopper. Now that the door is open, Sally is spilling the beans that many of Binghamton's athletically gifted but academically challenged hoopsters were funneled into the human development program because it was known to favor the basketball program. According to Sally, the department has not been holding the hoopsters to the same standard as other students. Hoopsters who were not passing were given "independent studies" to carry them through, she said.
As a former college teacher, I can tell you that "independent studies" are a well-known dodge to keep students in school who are too dumb to pass the regular courses or who have serious attendance problems caused by failure to get up before noon.
Now the SUNY chancellor has ordered Sally to be reinstated and ordered an outside investigation to focus on issues of "academic integrity" in addition to an ongoing investigation of the collapse of the team after six players were dismissed. The athletic director also resigned.
"It's no secret to anyone that the president's desire to get to the NCAA championship trumped everything else," Sally told the Chronicle of Higher Education. "I got caught right in the middle of it."
So one lowly adjunct tells the truth and the whole corrupt system falls apart. College presidents like Binghamton's Lois B. DeFleur who care more about NCAA championships than they do about academic standards are exposed for the unethical creeps that they really are. Binghamton administrators are no doubt staying up late these days feeding the paper shredders to cover up the truth.
Sally thinks there are hundreds of professors like her around the country who are fed up with the dumbed down classes and inflated grades that administrators are forcing on them in order to improve their retention rates and keep the millions in tuition money flowing from student loans into the college coffers.
"They're not willing to talk to anyone," she said. "They're scared of their jobs."
When an industry that brags about its academic freedom intimidates its employees by punishing those who speak out about abuses, its time for a full scale housecleaning. We could start by kicking out corrupt, overpaid college administrators like Lois B. DeFleur.