The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 11, 1991 Page: 3 of 16
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THE RICE THRESHER FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 1991 3
Editor responds to alumna's questions on Jane Chance case
News Analysis
by Shaila Dewan
The following letter arrived in the
ThresherofSce this week. Since many
of the questions it asks are questions
I've wondered about myself, I've de-
cided to talk about a few of them in
detail. I've been covering the Jane
Chance vs. Rice University and Alan
Grob story for the Thresher for about
a year, and I've spoken with many
people both on and off the record.
Many of the issues and conflicts un-
derlying Chance's suits are very
complex, multifaceted issues which
people are reluctant to discuss with a
reporter. After some consideration,
the Thresher decided that when cov-
ering the story we would refrain from
re-enacting the trial ourselves. In
other words, we would report on the
trial and the actions of both parties
during the trial without trying to de-
cide whether the judge was right or
wrong in her final decision. If we had
decided to, say, compare Chance's
number of publications with the rest
of the English faculty's, we would
then have had to compare reviews,
quality of journal, number of submis-
sions and number refused, and so on
ad infinitum And then we would have
had to do the same with the next item
of contention.
At any rate, here is the letter, fro m
a former student of Chance's. My
comments are not necessarily in-
tended to answer the writer's ques-
tions.
Rice in the Thresher, I find that I
still have some questions which
have not been addressed. IVe
listed them below.
1. Is Rice University "person-
ally mad" at Professor Chance?
Why was the tone of their re-
sponse to the first article so ad
hominem? Why was the tone of
the response so personally
defamatory?
When you say "Rice University," I
assume you mean Dennis Huston
and Alan Grob, who are obviously in
the administration's camp. No offi-
cial member of the administration
commented in the first article. Of the
responses of these two, Huston's is
the only one I would term ad
hominem.
It occurs to me that by "response
to the first article" you could mean
the response to Chance's motion for
a new trial. In that case, it certainly
was ad hominem. I would think Rice's
accusations were meant to depict
Chance's motion as a vengeful at-
tempt to save face. If they proved
this, Rice would then be awarded
legal fees for preparation of their re-
sponse document
2. Why would a professor at
Rice University who has a lull
professorship and tenure and a
stable job, if she keeps quiet, risk
that security by rocking the En-
glish boat?
If she has tenure, in what way is
she risking job security? She has
steadily gotten raises totalling over
$10,000 since she filed the charges.
'Is the "good ole boy" system still alive and well
and operating right here at Rice?'
—Jean Carlisle
To the editors,
After reading both articles
about Professor Jane Chance and
3. How can the reader be sure
that "hard to get along with"
doesn't really mean "outraged?"
One certainly cannot
4. If Professor Chance is in-
ept, why did Rice University hire
her away from another university
as if she were some really fine
teacher-scholar whom they
wanted on their faculty; why did
they rapidly promote her to asso-
ciate then full professorship and
grant her tenure? How does that
action square with charges now
being made against her quality as
a teacher and a scholar?
No one has said that she is inept,
only that she is below the mean. I
think that judgment is based almost
solely with her work with under-
graduates. There is much evidence
that she is a brilliant and inspiring
doctoral director.
5. Is it significant that this
same professor has had various
prestigious honors such as a
Guggenheim Foundation grant
(only 200 a year in all disciplines
combined), appointment as a
member of the Institute for Ad-
vanced Study at Princeton (where
Einstein did his work, and where
Dr. Chance was the only appoin-
tee in literature from Rice—ever),
her Rockefeller Foundation
Residence grant for study in
Bellagia, Italy, and many, many
more which reflect the fact that
she is held in high esteem by the
greater community of scholars?
My question is not whether or not
this is significant, but why the judge
did not find it to be so. Is it possible
that this information was not pre-
sented to the judge in an effective
manner?
6. Why did Professor Chance
resign from committee assign-
ments? Was it for the same rea-
son that she brought suit against
Rice; did it involve the treatment
of graduate students?
7. Why are Professor Chance's
bad, and anonymous, reader
comments given without mention
of the fact that she has had some
Correct political correctness is not bad
by David Hale
To PC or not to PC, that is the
question;
Whether 'tis more noble in the
mind to suffer
the slings and arrows of bigotry,
Or by opposing, end them.
Political Correctness is not bad.
Over the last year or so the term
"Politically Correct" (PC) has strafed
intellectual America, condemning
different movements — rightly or
wrongly — to bigotry.
PC now connotes the rampant
intellectual bashing of random
white Anglo-Saxon Protestant het-
erosexual males for their oppression
of everyone in the world, a view as
unfair as any other type of discrimi-
nation.
But most of the politically correct
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movement does not follow that per-
spective. While a few such incidents
have occurred, a truly politically
correct person, someone with a sen se
of morals and decency, would con-
demn them as harshly as a circle of
white robed men burning a cross in
front of a house.
Ultimately, being politically cor-
rect should entail nothing more than
respecting everyone else simply be-
cause they are human. People from
all walks of life are equally guilty of
violating this simple idea; it is no
better to call a straight woman a
"breeder" than it is to call a gay man
a "fag." Unfortunately, both terms
are used.
Everyone in the United States can
claim a different ancestry, and each
is much older than the United States
itself. Each of these cultures has a
valuable input into American soci-
ety. But because each culture has a
PAID ADVERTISEMENT
very good reviews: she has so far
published eight books, twenty-
five articles, and has three books
at various stages approaching
publication? Does Rice imply that
her publishers are somehow sec-
ond-rate?
Once again, why did Chance's le-
gal counsel fail to ensure that those
facts were mentioned and made pub-
lic record? Just as Chance could not
be expected to submit any unfavor-
able teacher evaluations as evidence,
Rice cannot be expected to submit
evidence that undermines their case.
opinion piece which basically in timed
that women in the English depart-
ment slept their way to the top, to her
accusation of Grob—the Great White
Liberal—in this lawsuit.
16. What is the unmentioned
connection between the positive
steps taken for the advancement
of women faculty toward equality
and the suit Dr. Chance brought
against Rice? Is the timing of the
improvements just coincidental?
Was Rice planning these ad-
vancements before the suit and
the attention it brought?
'Is it unsafe to be supportive or even a student of
Professor Chance? Is this risk implied or hinted
or spoken outright?'
—Jean Carlisle
valuable input, each must tolerate all
the others.
One may be Lithuanian-American,
Irish-American, Polish-American,
Russian-American, Chinese-Ameri-
can, Korean-American, African-
American, French-American, Ger-
man-American, Mexican-American
or Native American. We are all
American, and we are till going to
stay that way. No one is going to
leave, so we must work to get along
no matter what circumstances
brought us here.
That is not to say that voicing an
opinion is wrong. Indeed, if no one
voiced an opinion, America would
not be a democracy but would fall
into an apathy too stupid or too lazy
to oppose the tyrannical government
that runs it. Disagreement brings
aboutchange, butdisagreement must
be tempered with respect. If it is not,
others' freedom may be oppressed.
8. Can any member of the Rice
faculty ever again feel safe about
submitting manuscripts for pub-
lication knowing that anonymous
reader's reports can be used
against them when they come up
for promotion or tenure? Can any
student ever feel safe knowing
that reader's reports can be used
against them when they apply for
jobs?
I, too have questioned the integ-
rity of the medieval institute in re-
leasing those documents, if that in-
deed is how the university came by
them.
9. Do some members of the
English Department publish so
sparingly because they prefer to
leave no paper trail that can be
used against them?
10. Is it fear of a paper trail the
reason the recent past chair of
the English Department pub-
lished so little over the last ten
years? Or is there some other,
more or less scholarly reason?
11. Is something going on in
Rice's English Department which
is being obscured by a
smokescreen of vituperative,
internecine rhetoric?
Where there's smoke, there's a
fire.
12. Why doesn't the-Provost
appoint a panel of impartial
scholars from various disciplines
to answer question 11?
13. Can Rice match its record
of Affirmative Action enforcement
with even the state universities of
this state?
This bears looking into, but is
difficult to affirm No one has ques-
tioned, however, the wisdom of affir-
mative action as a policy. Everyone
assumes it's beneficial.
14. Is the "good ole boy" sys-
tem still alive and well and oper-
ating right here at Rice?
15. Where are the feminists at
Rice and why are they holding
their outrage in check?
Many of the feminists at Rice have
already expressed outrage at
Chance's tactics, from her Thresher
17. Are the benefactors of the
reaction to the above coincidence
supportive of Professor Chance
for her courage in the cause of
equality? Is it unsafe to be sup-
portive or even a student of Pro-
fessor Chance? Is this risk im-
plied or hinted or spoken out-
right?
What reaction to the above coinci-
dence?
My guess is that if anyone has
benefitted fromthepositive steps Rice
has taken in the past few years, she is
not looking gratefully at Chance, but
at the committee members who con-
structed reports and recommended
changes.
AfewofChance's supporters have
struck me as verging on paranoia.
Perhaps for good reason, perhaps
not Repercussions can be subtle, so
it is very difficult to say if they e>^jt.
18. Is Rice's only effort at
resolution what was published in
the Thresher and does that re-
sponse show what any faculty
member might expect if they had
an issue of conflict'
Everyone 1 have spoken to in the
Rice camp has made it very clear he
or she does not feel there is anything
to be resolved. They are, they say,
clean as whistles. Chance has abso-
lutely no case, as far as they are
concerned. They also have yet to my
knowledge given Chance what she
wants—a formal review of her schol-
arship.
19. Is there any connection
between the facts that Rice was
founded by the grandfather of the
Secretary of State of the United
States, Mr. James Baker Sr., and
that its case was argued in court
by Mr. Baker's law firm, Baker
and Botts, and that it was argued
before a judge appointed by
President Bush? Or does that
just sound overwhelming?
20. Does anyone else ask such
questions?
Twenty questions I have. Do
you have any?
Jean Carlisle
Ph.D. English '86
Rice
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Zitterkopf, Ann & Howe, Harlan. The Rice Thresher (Houston, Tex.), Vol. 79, No. 8, Ed. 1 Friday, October 11, 1991, newspaper, October 11, 1991; Houston, Texas. (https://texashistory.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metapth245793/m1/3/: accessed July 18, 2024), University of North Texas Libraries, The Portal to Texas History, https://texashistory.unt.edu.; crediting Rice University Woodson Research Center.