A Manweller Morning After

Note: the letter published in the Daily Record is slightly different from the one I originally submitted. The newspaper requested that I remove the portions shown in bold below. ⁰

The days after the election dawn chill for local Republicans. The only positive election outcome for them is the election of Matt Manweller, about which they must pretend to be pleased. Meanwhile, consequences of mismanagement by county commissioners are still mostly in the future, complicating 2014 election prospects for Obie O’Brien.^1,2

In his day job, Professor Manweller is embroiled in a sex-for-grades scandal. Now we can focus on what is important: CWU’s past, present and future handling of this scandal.^3,4

Manweller has been credibly accused of trading grades for sexual favors from students, of threatening students’ careers in an effort to keep secrets, and of stalking at least one student after graduation.⁵ According to the Manweller Report, his behavior was well known among students and CWU administrators and staff.⁶

Readers may find the details hard to believe, which is why everyone should read the Manweller Report for themselves.

One would think that it would be a mortal sin to trade grades for sexual favors. Manweller has failed his academic field and his colleagues at CWU and beyond. He has failed his department and Central Washington University. Most of all, of course, he has failed his students, and he has failed past and future graduates of CWU generally. His failure of his political supporters and of his party and new constituents is the least of it.

CWU has failed, too. The magnitude of CWU’s failure is virtually incalculable. Female victims learned not to look to institutions for help. Any students who might have played along with Manweller's alleged scheme learned that academic excellence is optional. Political science degrees from CWU are cheapened.

One would think that it would be a mortal sin to trade grades for sexual favors, but at campuses across the country, it isn’t.⁷

Here's the challenge, which we see in the most recent news reports: CWU isn't any more interested than Professor Manweller is in addressing these problems. CWU is in damage control mode, even as parents and students are working on their college applications for the 2013-14 school year.⁸

Professor Manweller has made a political career of claiming that he's a persecuted conservative in supposedly liberal academia. If nothing else, this case indicates the exact opposite: CWU avoided acting earlier, and avoids acting now, because of his political activities, not in spite of them.

For an annotated version of this letter, and a link to the Manweller Report, see whathappensinthecourthouse.blogspot.com .

Steve Verhey
Ellensburg

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⁰I pointed out that all information in the paragraph had already been published, but they were unmoved.
¹Interestingly, Manweller's support is lowest in Kittitas County, where his margin was about 60:40. In Grant County, it was 72:28, and in Lincoln County it was 77:23.
²A few quick examples of mismanagement: forcing the Upper County well moratorium instead of working with DOE for a job-saving compromise, continuing to drag out compliance with the Growth Management Act, skimming money from the hotel/motel tax to pay for the ill-fated work on the Armory, allowing multimillion dollar home construction in a fire-prone area without a Code-compliant exit road, use of road tax funds to balance the General Fund.
³Pre-election complaints about supposed political motivation were themselves politically motivated. The original student reports were not politically motivated, and nothing changes the reality and gravity of them.
⁴As one student I talked to observed, the reason the students didn't pursue formal complaints is that "they didn't feel CWU had their backs."
⁵ In the Manweller Report, the investigator uses the word "credible" to refer to all witnesses. The word is noticeably absent in describing Dr. Manweller's participation.
⁶While these details are technically allegations, a reasonable reader of the Manweller Report -- as opposed to Manweller or CWU spin -- will find it quite convincing. The body of the report is only 17 pages (double-spaced), and everyone should read it for themselves.
⁷There have been numerous news items and longer reports about this problem. Here's a sampling of articles about unsatisfactory college responses to sexual harassment: Naomi Wolf's "Sex and Silence at Yale," about faculty-on-student behavior and reporting; an article about student-on-student sexual harassment at Amherst. It is worth noting that Manweller's actions are far more serious than the sex scandal currently being played out in the national news, because of the asymmetric power relationship between faculty and students, and the trading of anything but academic performance for grades.
⁸Here's an excellent example of CWU spin: compare this article, in the Yakima Herald-Republic, to the last paragraph of the text of the Manweller Report.