EPH SAT GLUMLY outside Titus Cooley’s office. Until seeing the piece in the Daily, he hadn’t been overly concerned about the incident in his class. College kids did all sorts of strange things these days, and besides, why would he be a target? Mostly, that day in class struck him as odd, almost like a piece of performance art or agitprop.
He probably didn’t disagree with the students’ basic views, even if he thought the whole trigger-warning thing was silly. Most other professors felt the same about trigger warnings, he was sure, but were reluctant to say anything, as the concept was gaining traction. How or why this was the case was a mystery to Eph. Who drove these things, anyway? It couldn’t be the ragtag bunch who’d sandbagged his class.…
He could hear Titus talking on the phone. The words were unintelligible behind the formidable oak door, but Eph was pretty sure the conversation was about him. He’d meant to go to Titus earlier, just in case the incident became a “thing,” but he’d gotten sidetracked, and then a few more days went by and he figured it had blown over.
Then the article appeared in the Daily.
In the online version, there were 247 comments and counting. He’d read a few but quickly stopped. He was called a lot of unpleasant things. The word fascist came up a lot. Arjun Choudhary, the dean of students, canceled Eph’s class today as a “safety precaution.”
Titus’s door swung open. “Ephraim. Come in, come in.”
Eph walked into the magnificent office with its view of Bingham Plaza and Titus walked him over to a sitting area. “Let me say right off I know you’re not some damned racist or, what was it…”
“‘Fascist.’”
“No, that wasn’t it.”
“‘White supremacist’?”
“That’s the one. You’re not one of those. I don’t suppose you’re a fascist, either.”
“Thank you, sir. That’s quite a low bar we’re setting.”
“Well, these are strange days, Ephraim, strange days.”
Titus had a habit of repeating words and phrases. He pulled a pipe from a rack and carefully stuffed it with tobacco. Striking a wooden match, he held the flame steadily over the bowl, drawing it in with a series of puffs. “I know, I know, it’s against the rules, but I contain the practice to this office, and no one seems to complain.”
Being the éminence grise of the English Department clearly had its benefits. Eph couldn’t recall the last time he’d seen someone smoke a pipe, and the smell was oaky and sweet. He found it calming.
“You could say the inmates are running things around here, you know,” continued Titus. “Between you and me, Strauss is terrified of them. The students, I mean. Well, everyone, really, but you didn’t hear me say that. But they’re an angry lot, and they use social media to hype everything up. Not that I really understand any of it, all this Twitter nonsense. They even have some sort of online petition about you.”
“Professor, if I may, what happened was clearly staged. Some of those students weren’t even in my class, and that video had to be doctored. I never said ‘I love it’ or ‘excellent’ after the kid read that passage. I know I must have said those words at some point, but it must have been in another part of the class.”
“I’m sure, I’m sure.” Titus puffed again. His eyes, framed by those impossibly bushy white eyebrows, stared at nothing in particular. “It’s just that this comes at a sensitive time, what with this ‘content’ committee being formed. Plus there’s talk of a down year for the endowment, and the Board of Governors is watching matters closely.”
“Respectfully, Professor, I’ve done nothing wrong. And how can I teach when my class is canceled?”
“I know, I know. But here’s the rub of it. President Strauss is concerned about how this looks, particularly at a time when we’re competing with Yale and Harvard for the best minority high school students. You didn’t hear it from me, but really we’re fighting every year over the same few hundred candidates.”
Titus paused to puff some more, creating a small cloud over the couch. “Here’s what’s going to happen. There’s going to be a hearing conducted by this ‘Bias Response Team,’ which I’ve never heard of, if you want to know the truth. Ten years ago—hell’s bells, five years ago—this would have been a nonevent. But it’s out there, you understand? The university can’t be seen as doing nothing. In the meantime, you can still teach. The university will be posting a security guard, just in case.”
“A security guard, in a classroom?”
“It will be discreet. You should know Strauss wanted to shut the class down. I argued it’s too far into the semester and it wouldn’t be fair to the students.”
“What about fair to me?”
“You don’t have to convince me, but I’m afraid the matter is out of my hands.”
That doesn’t sound good. “Who will conduct this hearing?”
“Martika Malik-Adams, dean of diversity and inclusion. The Bias Response Team is part of her department. You’ll want to step carefully around her.”
“Thank you for the advice, Titus.” Eph had heard of Malik-Adams but had never met her.
“Bit of an agenda, that one, I fear. She’s also fond of wearing these pants—spandex, I think they are—which are a clear violation of the university’s dress code for employees, but she’s been heard to say it’s a cultural choice. Naturally, no one will say anything.”
Eph flashed back to the woman at Blue Nation Coffee earlier in the year. Could that…?
“Don’t worry too much, my lad. I’m sure this will work out,” Titus said, not sounding convinced at all.
Riding his bike back to his apartment, Eph thought, No wink today.