The Persistence of Blather

At the University of Puget Clowns [© Susan Resneck Pierce] the half-life of blather is measured in years.

This week I beset a faculty senator at the Faculty Club. When I pointed out to her that the Faculty Advancement Committee [FAC] was once again flouting the Bylaws, which verbatim require all Faculty Senate committees to elect a single chair, she responded, "There are other committees with two chairs."

The last time I heard that talking point, it issued from the most flagrant blatherskite on the faculty, a member of the FAC. Sensing that I was dealing with a credulous naif repeating a shibboleth, I was gentle: "Yes, and other men had abused their wives before O. J. Simpson did."

Not that it will profit either the blatherskite or the naif, I now plod.

When — not if — the FAC violates the express language of the Bylaws, its claim that this or that committee violates the same language is no defense. If every committee festooned itself with six chairs [as the FAC has done to evade the rules], that would not change the Bylaws, which direct the election of a chair [please note the singular, which appears lost on members of the FAC] as the first task of each Faculty Senate committee. Any claim to the contrary by anyone competent to read the Bylaws is argument in bad faith. Argument in bad faith is no duty of the FAC, although it has long been a habit whenever rules or authority are inconvenient. Does that mean that arguments in bad faith are acceptable because they are an FAC or a UPS tradition?

That multiple committees violate the Bylaws should embarrass senators. Every time the Faculty Senate accepts a report from a committee that violates the Bylaws, the Senate condones or colludes in such violations. As the shibboleth conjured by the blatherskite and aped by the naif demonstrates, senators know that the FAC violates the Bylaws. But challenging the FAC is a bother and could imperil the naif's advancement.

As I have repeated in this blog from time to time, the FAC will not simply elect a chair. That chair could have no responsibilities beyond reporting to the Faculty Senate on the year's actions. The Bylaws require no specific performance beyond that. The election of a single member of the FAC to report to the Faculty Senate would take one to two minutes. Instead, the FAC dodges the Bylaws, the Chair of the Faculty Senate counsels them on how they may avoid authority, and senators lack the backbone or even the spittle to protest. Behold how blather persists!

I hope that the above has helped the senator-naif. I know that the blatherskite is beyond help. She knows that she is blathering. Blather is what she does best. It may be all that she does.