Text of non-academic grievance section submitted in January, 2009

Grievance #1: Dr. Lotan’s Attempt to Rescind My Admission

Dr. Lotan has often said earnestly that I should not doubt her good faith efforts to work with me, and believe her assurances that she has no ulterior motives. I am not revisiting the events of last spring to regurgitate dead history, but to demonstrate that I have good cause to doubt both Dr. Lotan’s motives and her good will.

In March-April 2008, after Dr. Lotan learned from a staff member that I might not have acceptable views, she called me into a meeting that was ostensibly about my question regarding student teaching. In fact, the meeting was clearly an attempt to discourage me from accepting STEP’s admittance. Although Dr. Lotan did not ever say this directly, she warned me that I would have difficulty passing the final project and would be under intense scrutiny if I attended STEP. It was not a pleasant meeting; I was deeply upset and contacted Stanford’s ombudsman, Dr. Rasch, with a detailed description of the meeting to ask if I should worry about retaliation. He assured me that I should accept if that’s what I wanted to do. I also contacted Dean Labaree, who was then Associate Dean of Student Services and asked for help, but he refused involvement. After extended consideration of the risks involved, I accepted Stanford’s offer on the last day possible.

The day after I accepted, a week after our meeting, Dr. Lotan wrote me a letter with a wholly fictional description of my behavior, saying that my “potential participation” in the program was dependent on my resolving her concerns. To determine the accuracy of Dr. Lotan’s description, consider the following:

• I wrote Dr. Rasch on the day of the meeting. My letter makes it clear that my first impulse was to reject Stanford’s offer out of concern for retaliation, and shows none of the emotions that Dr. Lotan describes in her letter.

• If I had behaved as Dr. Lotan described, the logical response would have been to immediately document the behavior and ask for a second meeting before I accepted. Instead, by writing the day after I accepted, she appears to have assumed I was “scared off” from accepting, and only took action when she realized her intimidation attempts didn’t work. This timing strongly suggests that Dr. Lotan resorted to a letter as “phase 2” in her attempt to be rid of me, rather than a genuine response to the meeting.
  
• I categorically denied her description at the time, and do so to this day.
  
• My actions upon receiving her account are entirely consistent with that of a person given a false account of her behavior.

I strongly suspected (in fact, “knew” would not be too strong a word) upon reading her account that Dr. Lotan was trying to build a case to rescind my acceptance, by creating a false record of misbehavior. Having constructed one untrue account, she could then insist that I meet with her and my denials would “prove” that I was unwilling to work things out, and so on.

I contacted Dr. Rasch and Dean Labaree to ask for advice, but the first was unavailable and the second again refused involvement. I then contacted the Foundation for Individual Rights and Freedom, because I needed to know whether Stanford could legally rescind an admission. FIRE staff suggested that I refuse the meeting politely and told me that all available evidence said that admissions were legally binding. I wrote back to Dr. Lotan, telling her that I disagreed with her memory of the events, and that I wasn’t able to meet at this time, but would be happy to meet with her after classes started. Dr. Lotan responded, insisting that I meet with her, which put me in a quandary. At this point, I was certain that Dr. Lotan was trying to meet with me to build a case to rescind my admission and that I was at risk for additional fictional accounts of our meeting. However, refusing to meet carried additional risks.

Fortunately, a misdirected email confirmed my reading of events. (Name and position omitted) accidentally emailed me her response to Dr. Lotan, in which she made it clear that Dr. Lotan had already contacted Stanford legal counsel and that the two of them were “strategizing” to keep me out of the program. This email put an end to Dr. Lotan’s covert attempts to build a case against me, as I had a phone call with Dr. Rasch and told him that I was contacting him before I contacted a lawyer myself. Dr. Rasch suggested a meeting with Dr. Lotan, which I agreed to only on the condition that my Stanford attendance was an established fact. Dr. Rasch told me Dr. Lotan had agreed. In the meeting, Dr. Lotan made several comments:

1. She found it difficult to believe that someone with my views could have the goals I expressed in my Stanford application.
2. She was upset that I had expressed disagreement with [name omitted], a teacher at [name omitted] that often serves as a cooperating teacher. Dr. Lotan had been anonymously sent an email alerting her to a website I run, and found a link to [name omitted]’s blog and read the debate there. She argued that she could not in good conscience place me with [name omitted], given our conflict, and seemed to think this was another reason why she should not be forced to accept me into the program.
3. At one point, she burst out in anger to ask me why I wanted to go to Stanford, “if I was such a good teacher. You can get a credential anywhere. Why go to Stanford?” I found this puzzling, as I had mentioned that I was a good teacher in my application. Surely the admissions review process should have highlighted this, if it was a concern?
4. Finally, she reneged on her agreement that was the basis for the meeting, saying that my attendance was not certain and that she would continue to seek legal advice to prevent my attendance. This statement surprised both me and Dr. Rasch.

I never heard from Dr. Lotan again prior to starting school. After the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education wrote a letter to Stanford’s president recounting the events, the Provost’s office confirmed that I was attending.

I had hoped that Dr. Lotan had changed her mind about me once I began attending classes and teaching. Indeed, in early August, Dr. Lotan told me that she was very pleased I was doing so well. However, this didn’t last. In fact, I have only been trouble-free at Stanford when Dr. Lotan was away from STEP (on vacation in July and out on illness in October-November).

Because of our troubled beginning, I have done my best to avoid any unnecessary interactions with Dr. Lotan, and to avoid asking for any consideration at STEP. I was happy when she temporarily seemed to have put off her animosity, but I have never forgotten how I first met her, and what she tried to do. Dr. Lotan has never apologized for the stress she caused me, and seems to think I have no reason to doubt her good faith.