Quo Warranto?

By what authority did the Starr Chamber proceed?

My immediately previous entry in "Rump Parliament" -- for senior faculty, that is the blog you are presently reading -- recalled that the Professional Standards Committee of 2003-2004 [always designated "The Starr Chamber" in this blog but only sometimes "the Professional Standards Cult"] was the worst Faculty Senate committee in my nearly 25 years at this university.

Below I list some reasons why I single out The Starr Chamber for dishonor. I do not list all of the missteps and misprisions of the Starr Chamber below.

In each instance below, I ask whence The Starr Chamber derived its authority. I tried to ask members of the Starr Chamber directly and indirectly, but they spurned me repeatedly. The Senate tried to bring these renegades to account, but the renegades did not care to explain themselves and an ad hoc committee colluded with the renegades to cover up the Starr Chamber's record. On another ad hoc committee four senators courageously noted some of the Starr Chamber's shortcomings; the only answer on behalf of the Starr Chamber came from one senator who relentlessly defended the Starr Chamber as acting other authority higher than The Faculty Code. [This dogged, mulish defender did not specify what higher authority he was invoking. I guess that higher authority is confidential.]

My abbreviated list:

The Starr Chamber took over the evaluation of a member of the faculty and directed a departmental evaluation. Whence did The Starr Chamber get the authority to involve itself in any department’s evaluation?

The Starr Chamber set aside recommendations of a formal hearing board. What discernible authority in The Faculty Code or the by-laws permitted the Professional Standards Cult [PSC] such sway?

When the chair of the hearing board protested The Starr Chamber’s takeover of the evaluation, a member of the hearing board not only mocked his stammering but threatened any member of the hearing board who discussed the remedy directed by the hearing board with anyone except the Professional Standards Cult. Is "contempt of PSC" authorized somewhere aside from the febrile mind of this or that tyrant?

The Starr Chamber, informed that it was overruling a hearing board by inverting the remedies that the hearing board had directed, declared that the hearing board had expired the moment the hearing board issued its directives. Where does the code say that? Was this a formal interpretation? If so, why wasn't the Faculty Senate informed and why weren't the trustees asked to approve? Was this an informal interpretation?

The Starr Chamber declared the hearing board to have completed its work despite the fact that the hearing board had held no hearing. The Faculty Code prescribes that hearing boards conduct hearings before making determinations and directing remedies. The Starr Chamber overruled The Faculty Code based on what higher authority?

Starr Chamber heard a formal grievance almost 60 days after that grievance reached the committee. The Faculty Code allows the PSC 15 days. The Starr Chamber overruled The Faculty Code based on what authority?

The Starr Chamber “interpreted” The Faculty Code to demand that the PSC hear a formal grievance within 15 “working” days rather than the 15 days explicit in the code itself. The Starr Chamber reported this “interpretation” to no one – not the grievant, not the respondent, not The Faculty Senate. Square that with the bylaws or the code, if you will.

Having reinterpreted the code to excuse the tardiness of The Starr Chamber, the committee then convened the grievance hearing more than 15 working days after the committee had received the formal grievance. Yep! The Starr Chamber concocted "15 working days" to excuse the PSC's tardiness, then dallied past its re-imagined code. It seems that for some of its decisions, even the Starr Chamber could not imagine authority.

The Starr Chamber then entertained a grievance that the grievance itself showed to have exceeded the 30 working days allotted by the code. Quo warranto, tyranni et tyrannae?

Having decided against the grievant, The Starr Chamber then issued a report to the President that criticized and characterized the respondent harshly. The Faculty Code authorizes the PSC to condemn anyone whom it chooses?

The President shared the report of The Starr Chamber with grievant and respondent because The Starr Chamber decided that The Faculty Code did not permit or allow The Starr Chamber to share its report with either party to the grievance. The Starr Chamber had shared its report immediately with grievant and respondent in a grievance earlier in that very academic year [2003-2004]. One or the other interpretation might be consistent with the code. It is hard to see how both could be. I am certain the fact that a member of the PSC was the respondent -- the person grieved -- in the first grievance had nothing to do with the differential treatment.

Has this list suggested one reason why the Professional Standards Cult had, over the years and the deans, invoked various sorts of confidentiality not to be found in The Faculty Code or elsewhere?

Do you now see why the staunchest senatorial defender of the Starr Chamber cited only double-secret authority higher than the code?

Did I just pose rhetorical questions?

Quo warranto? By what authority?