The Red and Black

All this is a bunch of doubletalk. The University of Georgia is a large and powerful institution. The president is paid over a half million dollars a year. They have the best lawyers in the state or outside the state at their disposal. If they truly wanted to get rid of Bender, as they should have long ago, this would have been a cake walk. According to his website, he was promoted to associate professor in 1991 and that is usually when tenure is granted. He was promoted again in 2004 to professor. In both instances there were documented complaints against him. Evidently the admininstration is saying the can't dismiss anyone unless they have a full conviction in a court of law, sustained by appeals to all higher courts. This is absurd.
What all this shows is that tenure has not only outlived its usefullness, but should and must be revoked by the Legislature as soon as possible. What good did tenure do other than protect Bender and his improper conduct. Did it protect his academic freedom or provide any earth shattering discoveries that would not have been made without tenure? NO.
Did tenure, which theoretically is supposed to protect all professors from reprisals for speaking out, encourage any other professors to speak out on this issue? Why no, although the Red and Black journalists have sought numerous ones of them to speak, virtually all choose the cowardly way:silence. Why they won't even express any outrage at all. All tenure did was to protect his improper conduct or provide an excuse for the high paid administrators to fail to act.
I think they would walk by a woman being raped on the sidewalk downtown and do nothing because they weren't sure if the perpetrator was guilty until he had been tried in every court in Georgia!
Tenure must be revoked. No other citizens in society have this kind of job protection. And if the gutless administration had any scrupples at all, they would dismiss Bender today, this morning, before noon. There is plenty of documented information against him to fully justify this as published by the excellent investigative articles in the Red and Black. Here is the reason the administration headed by that coward "public relaltions" propaganda expert does not do this: If they did they might expose the "University" of Georgia to bad publicity for long periods of time, therefore
cutting off funding from the legislature and possibly from the public as well from donations, from the many duped citizens out there to foolishly give money to this institution of "lower" learning.
All this is not unlike the recent scandals in the Catholic Church, where Catholic priests sexually molested subjects under them, mostly boys. The church has been permitted to buy its way out of most of (criminal charges) the bad publicity in these cases.
A special prosecutor should be appointed, possibly by the Georgia Supreme Court or the Georgia Court of Appeals, since one can't rely on the administrators to do the job, and let that individual fully investigate professor Bender and president Adams and all concerned in this case, and determine what laws have been broken. Let the chips fall where they may. Better yet, why not appoint an independent citizen's committee to do the investigation. I would vote for Vince Dooley to be its Chairman.
But Dr. Adams could and should be fired this morning by the Regents just as Bender should be fired this morning by Adams.
Obviously the lowly citizen, whose taxes pay for the operations of this disgusting institution, under the threats of jail time and confiscation of our property, has no say in the matter.

Winfield J. Abbe
A.B., Physics, UC Berkeley, 1961
Ph.D., Physics, UC Riverside, 1966
Former faculty member with lifetime tenure, 1966-1978

I remember many years ago as a child, the first time that I heard the word "tenure."

I asked my mother what "tenure" meant, and she said "It means that you can do anything you want and not get fired."

That's still the best definition I've ever heard.

How is it that at an institution of higher education a sexual predator can hide behind the sheild of tenure? What if this guy took the next step from harassment to actually sexually molesting students?? I'm quite sure that tenure was never intended to protect criminals from the consequences of their actions. As both a staff member and a mother of 2 UGA students I expect complete accountability without double standards.

One complicating factor is that society no longer has any agreed-upon rules for sexual behavior. Since the 1970s, there has been a widespread expectation that "anything goes," including promiscuity and adultery. The University is having to make its own rules because society as a whole has lowered its standards so far.

It won't do to just define harassment as anything people happen not to like. Some kind of moral compass is necessary.

What? forget finishing law school!!!! I want to become a professor in the Education Department and get me some "tenure"

Jesus H. Roosevelt Christ! You've got to listen to the "Not being proactive" audio clip to hear the two student reporters having to explain the difference between pro-active and re-active to the UGA Provost, Arnett Mace. This guy doesn't have a clue and he's the Provost? What an embarrassment to UGA.

During the meeting inside his office, Provost Arnett Mace said, "We as an institution have to protect as much as we can the names of people until they have been found guilty."

What about the UGA Police Officer who was fired the day after a drunk in public arrest then who was found not guilty in court a few months later???? Looks like there is a double standard here for staff and professor. What a joke.

News of the extracurricular activities of Dr. Bent and the impotence of the UGA Administrators has reached the Chronicle of Higher Education. Check out the comments there. Even the best lawyers in the country can't protect UGA from that kind of glowing publicity.
http://chronicle.com/news/article/3836/professor-accused-of-sexual-harassment-resigns?nb