Barry M. Dank, "The Ethics of Sexual Correctness and the Cass Case,"
in BOOK OF PROCEEEDINGS, SEVENTH ANNUAL CONFERENCE ON APPLIED ETHICS,
pps. 110-115, 1996.

(c) Barry Dank

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  "Claudia Stachel and I have had a relationship, a very public
relationship, for over five years.  Based entirely on gossip and
innuendo surrounding this relationship, the administration wanted to pry
further into my other personal relationships... The administration still
doesn't get it.  What has particularly upset  and worried me-as it
should every thoughtful member of Penn's academic community-is not the
capricious denial of appointment itself, but the persistent attempt to
violate my privacy and, by implication, to attack my personal and
professional integrity." ( David Cass, Professor of Economics,
University of Pennsylvania,  May 1995)

    "In my case, I am not being protected, but rather persecuted long
(at least four years) after the relationship became public knowledge and
known to Janice Madden.  Running out of arguments, Vice Provost Madden
has recently stated...that I received special treatment because of my
relationship with Dave, either she is lying now or she has been lying
before...when she told me in July ...that  there are neither any sexual
harassment issues or any questions about me receiving favours."
(Claudia Stachel, former UPENN student, Fall 1994.)

    "I would not appoint a head of any graduate program who thought it
was OK to date graduate students.  I think that it is consistent with
university policy." (Janice Madden, Vice Provost, University of
Pennsylvania)

     "It is my judgment that the vice provost's actions in handling the
question of whether to appoint Professor Cass as Acting Chair of the
Graduate Group were appropriate.  Professor Cass's public behavior in
the past several months has strengthened my confidence in the wisdom of
her judgment." (Stanley Choderow,  Provost, University of Pennsylvania,
May, 1995)

      "In short, we believe that the administration's inquiry into
Professor Cass's sexual behavior was unwise and unacceptable." (From the
report by the faculty University Senate Committee on Academic Freedom
and Responsibility, May, 1995)

      "I am very sympathetic to them.  The graduate students are the
biggest losers in all of this." (Response to economics graduate students
petition in support of Dave Cass by Andrew Postlewaite, Economics
Department Chair, UPENN, September, 1994)

      "...we agree with the administration that intimate involvement
with a graduate student is a legitimate criterion for exclusion from  an
administrative position."  (Khin Aye Than, UPENN Economics Grad Student,
October, 1994)


These quotes reflect the diverse perspectives that came into being at
the University of Pennsylvania during the 1994-95 academic year as a
result of what  I refer to as the Cass case.   If one was familiar with
the relationship between economics professor Dave Cass  and economics
grad student Claudia Stachel during the first few months of 1994, it
would be difficult to imagine their relationship would shortly become
the subject of intense conflict and controversy.

Such would be difficult to believe since Dave and Claudia were involved
in  rather tranquil and "pedestrian" relationship.  They had been dating
for approximately four years, and had been relatively open about their
relationship. For Claudia Stachel, 1994 represented the end of her
tenure as a grad student with her obtaining a doctorate in economics
which was to be awarded  at the end of the Summer semester. Following
the awarding of the doctorate, she was to be an economist for  a "think
tank" in Moscow.     For Dave Cass, 1994 represented the continuation of
his research agend a as well as his decision to be responsive to the
recommendation of his fellow economics faculty  that he accept an
appointment as Chair of the economics graduate program.   To the casual
observer,  Dave and Claudia both appeared to be individually successful
but yet by contemporary community standards- a non-exceptional couple.

Of course,  in academia there is not one community standard, and Dave
and Claudia were in overt violation of campus feminist standards in more
than one way. They were  in multiple violation of  the feminist norms on
asymmetrical intimate relationships.    These norms hold that it is
inappropriate for persons to become intimately involved when there is a
significant power differential between the two parties to the
relationship.  In this framework, asymmetrical relationships represent
abuse and make consent suspect and even impossible while symmetrical
relationships are viewed as representing equality,  and freedom of
choice.   Dave and Claudia were in a multiple asymmetric relationship
since they were in age differentiated categories- Dave being about 25
years older than Claudia, as well as being  in power differentiated
positions in the university, Dave being a professor and Claudia a
student.

For campus feminist fundamentalists, the fact that Claudia felt OK about
the relationship had no import; the fact that she said she freely
consented to the relationship had no import since the fundamentalist
position holds that when there is a formal power differential between a
man and a woman, the woman's ability to freely give consent is impaired,
and therefore the relationship is not considered to be consensual or
voluntary; it is only when the relationship is not formally power
differentiated that the woman's perception becomes  the defining factor.
The fundamentalist feminist position is that  to ignore the power
differential, leads one into mythological thinking, leads one to embrace
the myth of consent and therefore abet and aid the lecherous professor.
And given this perspective,  Dave Cass was readily cast into the role of
the lecherous professor, the older middle-age male professor who uses
his power to seduce the innocent-female-child-student-victim.

Such a casting represents the drama of political correctness, a drama
that was being played out during the early nineteen-nineties at the
University of Pennsylvania, and it was a drama that was gaining rather
large national audiences, featuring scenarios focusing on" racial
epithets" such as water buffaloes, the seizing of politically incorrect
student newspapers, the usage of politically incorrect speech in the
classroom.    By 1994, the University of Pennsylvania had gained the
reputation as being one of the leading, if not THE leading politically
correct universities in the United States. And, in fact,  UPENN, had
also developed a reputation as being quite hospitable to sexual
correctness, which is an important subset of political correctness.
The UPENN administration had aggressively pursued cases of  sexual
harassment when there "appeared" to be a complainant and an harasser.
For example, in April 1994,  they forced the resignation of Malcolm
Woodfield, a UPENN professor, for allegedly sexually harassing a
student.  The Woodfield case had a complainant-Lisa Topol-who was quite
adamant and forceful in her demands that the UPENN administration do
something about Woodfield.   Within a year and a half after the
Woodfield resignation, the UPENN administration publicly admitted that
they were wrong, that Woodfield had not harassed Ms. Topol, that Topol
had actively pursued the relationship, but no matter, Woodfield would
not be reinstated since even "consensual" student-professor
relationships were wrong.

Student-professor relationships such as the Cass-Stachel relationship
represent a problem for sexual correctness advocates since Claudia felt
there was no problem.  The problem facing campus sexual correctness
advocates is to how to protect those who do not feel they need
protection.   Specifically, the problem facing  fundamentalist  feminist
administrators is to how to justify punishing the offending prof,
protect the victimized student when the "victim" denies one is a victim.
The rationale for "helping " the student is that the student has been
incapacitated  as a result of her victimization/abuse and it is the
responsibility of  mature feminists to "help"(control) the student.
Going beyond the welfare of the student is the belief that the
victimization is causing other students to become victimized via the
creation of a hostile learning/working environment  and threatens to
undermine the whole educational enterprise thru the perception of
unfairness.   In addition, by punish ing the professor one is c
ommunicating to other professors what can happen if  one has a
"consensual" relationship with a student who verbalizes consent.
Student verbalization offers no protection from punishment.  The irony,
of course, is that such rhetoric functions to disempower female
students; female students are incapacitated to decide for themselves.
It makes a sham of the feminist chant that "No means no" since now  "yes
means no" as well.

So during the Spring semester of 1994, Vice Provost Janice Madden
activated the fundamentalist feminist scenario when she objected to the
recommendation by the economics faculty of Dave Cass as Chair of  the
economics grad program due to the fact that he had an ongoing
relationship with Claudia Stachel and may have had relationships with
prior students who were economics grad students.    She needed to know
more about Dave Cass's sexual behavior, now and in the past.  Cass and
Stachel both insisted that Dave 's sexual behavior was a private matter,
and they would not  be r esponsive to Madden's demands.  I say demands
since if Cass was not cooperative it became quite clear that he would
not be appointed as Chair.  Cass and Stachel did indicate that their
sexual relationship began after Stachel was no longer in his class;
such was not challenged by any  of  the disputants.

Madden admitted that she had presumed for a number of years that Cass
and Stachel were in a relationship.   In the UPENN's Academic Senate
investigation of the matter, Madden stated that approximately 4 years
prior she had seen Dave and Claudia on a downtown Philadelphia street
"walking together in a physically affectionate manner."  She also
reported that  she had previously received reports from some students
and some professors that Dave Cass had dated a "series" of students, and
that some students reported that they felt that Claudia had an "unfair
advantage" re other students.   But none of these complaining students
or faculty would come forward, none would sign a complaint  and Madden
would not identify any of these faculty or students for the Academic
Senate Committee.  And what did Madden do about these complaints which
apparently occurred over a number of years?  Absolutely nothing, she
made no attempt to informally consult with Cass or Stachel.  Such would
appear to be a reasonable decision since it would be fair to
characterize this alleged faculty-student input as simply academic
scuttlebutt.

But now that Madden had blocked Cass's appointment and now that Cass was
publicly protesting her actions, she then decided to escalate the
situation by going public with both her comments about Stachel having
"unfair advantage",  and her citation of anonymous student/faculty
complaints which were published in the October 19, 1994 issue of the
Chronicle of Higher Education.    Of course, any administrator would be
on unsafe ethical ground for making personnel decisions based on
anonymous unverified statements.  By going public with such statements,
Madden descended into the politics of degradation, a politics which
functioned to attempt to cheapen the value of Stachel's degree and which
implied that Stachel had prostituted herself in the process of obtaining
her degree.

Madden insisted to the Academic Senate Committee that she had every
right to investigate Cass, to block Cass's appointment since if he
became Chair he would be in a supervisory capacity over Stachel which
would be in violation  of the UPENN policy banning intimate
relationships between persons who are in a supervisory relationship.
When Madden was informed as early as May 11, 1994 that Stachel would
definitely graduate prior to Dave Cass becoming Chair,  Madden refused
to drop her inquiry.   Madden insisted that she must probe into Cass's
"sexual affairs" since she needed to know that if in the past Cass  had
a relationship with any student who was in the economics theory area
since if such was the case then Cass would have been in violation of
university policy "...because of Professor Cass's pre-eminence in that
field, such a student would in Dr. Madden's opinion, be under his
control whether or not the student were (sic) formally enrolled in the
class or working as his advisee"(Academic Senate Report).

Madden insisted that if she were to approve of Dave Cass as Economics
Graduate Chair, "he must avoid social interactions in any way  that
might have any hint of a sexual relationship" (Senate Report).   Cass,
of course, protested that this would infringe on his freedom of
association and would differentially impact on female students.   Madden
insisted that she was not asking Cass to forgo social relationships, but
only but only relationships that could be interpreted as sexual
relationships!

The Academic Senate Committee Report found that the UPENN probe into
Cass's private life was "unwise and objectionable".   They made no
recommendation as to Cass's Chair appointment.   Professor Cass
requested that UPENN remove Vice Provost Madden from office. Provost
Choderow refused to do so and affirmed the correctness of Madden's
decision not to appoint Cass.   Cass chose to go on leave from UPENN
effective 9/95 and accepted an appointment as an economic theorist in
Italy, a country in which he feels he will not be subject to feminist
vigilantism.

Dave Cass shared much of his experience with me as it was happening to
him via an email correspondence.  Suffice to say, this was an agonizing
experience for Cass.  All that Cass needed to do to was to be contrite
re authority.  He refused to do so.  He refused to give up what all
authoritarians want- ones personal autonomy.    He came to represent for
me core human values- individual autonomy and personal responsibility;
the affirmation of  personal dignity, the basic right to personal
privacy.