Censorial Asshat Series: "She Kills Monsters." (#3 of 4)

 

Round #3 of our four-destination tour of Censorial Asshatitude takes us to Copley, Ohio, where the school’s production of Qui Nguyen’s 2011 play She Kills Monsters, was shut down early in the rehearsal process.  That cancelation was subsequently circumvented, then overturned… sort of.  We’ll get to that part in a moment.

Let’s start with the play itself.  Here’s the description on the Concord Theatricals (formerly Samuel French) webpage:

She Kills Monsters tells the story of Agnes Evans as she leaves her childhood home in Ohio following the death of her teenage sister, Tilly. When Agnes finds Tilly’s Dungeons & Dragons notebook, however, she finds herself catapulted into a journey of discovery and action-packed adventure in the imaginary world that was her sister’s refuge. In this high-octane dramatic comedy laden with homicidal fairies, nasty ogres, and 90s pop culture, acclaimed playwright Qui Nguyen offers a heart-pounding homage to the geek and warrior within us all.

Conspicuous by its absence in that description is the fact that what Agnes learns from the D&D notebook is that Tilly was apparently involved in a lesbian relationship.  This revelation, of course, accounts for both the controversy surrounding the play (this isn’t the first time the show has been censored) and, in a different way, its popularity, especially on high school and college campuses.  Curmie wasn’t initially able to determine whether the script that went into rehearsal at Copley was the original or the “Young Adventurers” version, which tones down some of the sexuality and makes Agnes a high school senior rather than the mid-20s English teacher of the original.  According to a Facebook post by parent Tiffany (TJ) Jamison, however, the script in question was indeed the YA version.

She Kills Monsters is, as noted above, extremely popular, with an average of over 100 amateur productions, most of them in educational environments, per year since it became available.  As recently as four years ago, it was tied for seventh in Playbill’s list of most-performed non-musicals in high schools.  Curmie has seen the show twice, both times at the collegiate level: a production directed by one of his former directing students and featuring a number of actors he’d previously directed, and a COVID era Zoomed production directed by a dear friend at another university. 

In many ways, Curmie is not the target audience: he’s not young or female or LGBTQ+, and he knows nothing about D&D beyond the fact that it exists, and that a couple of his friends enjoy it.  But every has dealt with grief, sometimes mixed with guilt.  And Curmie does remember struggling (like everyone else, presumably) with the transition from adolescence into adulthood, even if that process happened <mumblemumble> years ago.  One’s earliest romantic and sexual relationships are always both exciting and terrifying, irrespective of one’s orientation.  And whereas Curmie would never have self-described as a nerd or an outsider: let’s face it, that’s what he was.  

So, whereas She Kills Monsters might resonate a little more with one demographic than with another, there’s enough connection to everyone’s life experience that we’re ready to follow along.  The play, in Curmie’s opinion, is a good one: not brilliant, perhaps, but solid, with good opportunities for actors of different races, genders, body types, etc.  It also can be done on a very small budget, or it can stand up to a more design and tech-heavy production without getting lost in the glitz.  Its position as one of the most-produced plays in the current repertoire is not misplaced.

Ah, but those gay kids… 

The Copley production of She Kills Monsters auditioned on September 8, went into rehearsal on the 14th, and was canceled on the 16th.  If, as Superintendent Aimee Kirsch has said, the show was canceled not because of its gay themes but because the proper vetting procedure wasn't followed, the time to do that, or at least to demand a review, was as soon as auditions were announced.  If you’ve got a procedure that must be followed, then yes, it’s the Superintendent’s responsibility to check things out.  But the likelihood that Howard Sherman is correct in his assertion that “such approval process had not been applied to previous Copley Thespian shows” hovers somewhere between “beyond reasonable doubt” and “ontological certitude.” 

Curmie suggested last time out that the Superintendent in Watertown, Wisconsin was “a liar as well as an asshat.”  And now, cue Herman’s Hermits: “Second verse, same as the first.”  <Sigh.>

Oh, ever-so-coincidentally, of course, Kirsch received an email from the proverbial Concerned Parent.  The only difference this time from the plethora of previous cases is that this is apparently the parent of someone in the show, as opposed to someone who has literally no business exercising the heckler’s veto.  However much Curmie may disagree with your position, in a case like this, he supports your right to pull your kid from the production, just not to shut down the show altogether.  This person, of course, remains anonymous, but if the play goes on, as now looks likely, then either the kid will participate or the puritanical parent will be revealed.

As might be expected, students cast in the production and their parents weren’t thrilled about the cancelation.  They didn’t believe the show was shut down over a procedural matter.  The school’s most famous alumna, Carrie Coon, has a Critics Choice Award, three Primetime Emmy nominations and two Tony nominations among other accolades.  Here’s her commentary: “I find it absurd and offensive.  I just find that a wild abridgement of their First Amendment rights.”  She also contributed $1000 to a GoFundMe to find another venue for the production.  The goal was $800; well over twelve times that much was raised in very short order. 

Coon’s celebrity engagement certainly helped the cause, but it was the folks on the ground who made the strongest case.  Emily Neuheuser, the president of the school’s Thespian Society, served on the committee that chose Alice in Wonderland as a replacement show, but made it clear that she thought that process, with categories like Community Alignment, was ripe for abuse by those with an agenda.  She’s right, of course.

Howard Sherman writes that TJ Jamison led the charge for transparency and accountability, demanding “1. A public explanation of what occurred, the reasoning behind the decision, any identified mistakes and statements of support, and, 2. Transparency regarding the origin of the complaint and the process by which it was escalated so expeditiously.” She went on to ask for “specific and tangible steps to address the harm caused to students, families and the community.”

The big news, though, was that GoFundMe.   The students were in the position to begin working with the Millennial Theatre Project, a local theatre, to produce the show in their space.  But, as Howard Sherman reports, the venue they could offer has only about 5% of the seating capacity of the school’s auditorium.  Better than nothing, but…

The October 20 board meeting opened with remarks by Kirsch in which she said, “Recognizing how much the production of She Kills Monsters means to so many of our student performers I have provided the director with the facility rental paperwork so that an independent organization can lead our students in rehearsals and performances of She Kills Monsters right here on our stage, free of any facility rental charges.”

In other words, as long as the school can cravenly distance itself from responsibility, all is well.  There were other speeches at that meeting, including from the students including Neuheuser, four parents including Jamison, and an alumna, but the sound quality of those recordings make it too difficult to understand what was being said… so the quotations from Sherman on the second of his two pieces on the kerfuffle are what we have to go on.  

You’re encouraged to read Sherman’s entire account, but four things stand out in Curmie’s mind.  First is student Chad Fortin’s comment that “If the administrator had simply told the truth, the real reason of the show’s cancelation, I would at least respect its integrity in being open about the conversations. We could have had a real discussion about the issues involved. Maybe there would be no agreement, but at least it would have led to a productive dialogue. Instead, the administration chose a coward’s way out.”

Second is Neuheuser’s post-meeting recognition that mounting the production, which will apparently be added in the spring, with rehearsals overlapping with those of the musical, will require “jumping through a lot of hoops.”  The production will be headed by its original director, Amber Coughlin, who will be working as a contract employee, not a member of faculty, and who says “A lot of this will be done on volunteer time by myself and a couple other individuals.”

Another significant observation comes from parent Megan Stotter, who noted that the school’s Club America (linked to Turning Point USA) affiliate had appeared at a forum for student organizations to promote their programs.  “If the Copley administration is concerned with the community alignment of any club’s ideas, speech and activities,” she said, “then they cannot cherry pick which group is policed.”  Good point, that.

But the capstone, really, was delivered by another parent, Chad Kirkbride.  His summary: “Copley is embarrassed, and our community recognizes that censoring the arts puts this school district squarely on the wrong side of history.”

The folks on the front lines in Copley acquitted themselves admirably, in other words.  But we’re going to close with the words of the playwright, Qui Nguyen:

One good thing that’s come out of these moments is that in the aftermath, I get to hear about young artists finding incredible ways to push back, finding clever, brave, sometimes hilarious ways to tell this story anyways. I’ve always said this play has taken on a life of its own. It’s more their play now than even mine… Ultimately it’s amazing to see what fortitude, tenacity, creativity, and community can do when they’re channeled towards something good…. Battling boring people is a never-ending struggle, so don’t give up. Keep killing monsters.

Sometimes the monsters are terrifyingly humanoid.

Censorial Asshat Series: "Flashdance: The Musical." (#2 of 4)

 

We move on to the second installment of the four-part Censorial Asshat Series.  This time, we’re in Watertown, Wisconsin, where the spring show will apparently not be the previously scheduled Flashdance: The Musical.

The first thing Curmie thought when reading Howard Sherman’s article on the cancelation was, “Watertown High School in Wisconsin?  Isn’t that where they censored a piece of instrumental music last spring?”  Yes.  Yes, it is.  (Curmie wrote about that episode twice: here and here.)  There’s not a lot of respect among the educational powers-that-be in that town for faculty, students, the arts in general, or, indeed, the First Amendment.

The difference this time around is that whereas it was the school board that shut down the playing of “A Mother of a Revolution,” this time that particular herd of buffoons were only accomplices; the Censor in Charge was Interim Superintendent James Feil.  (Note: Sherman identifies Feil as “Interim”; the article he cites in the Watertown Daily Times  describes him him simply as “Superintendent.”)

OK, let’s start with the fact that questioning the appropriateness of a musical version of “Flashdance” for performance by high school kids is not at all inappropriate.  Curmie saw the movie 40-ish years ago, and remembers little except the iconic image of Jennifer Beals’s body double drenched in a dance routine that was, let’s say, clearly sexual in nature.  

But the way to find answers to those questions is to look at the script that had already been approved by Principal Jason Widiker.  Feil admits that he didn’t see the movie (that’s certainly forgivable), falsely describes it as X-rated (Sherman notes that the R-rated film “might well be considered PG-13 today”), and apparently couldn’t be bothered to do his fucking job read the musical script, either.  He claims he made his decision “after careful review.”  This makes him a liar as well as an asshat.

Prospective director Ryan Moldenhauser did what he was supposed to do: he received permission from the rights-holders to tone down or excise material that, in Sherman’s words, “wouldn’t be high school friendly.”  To make some extra money, for example, the central character “dances at night in a local bar that the script takes pains to make clear is not a strip club.”  And he submitted the altered script to the principal, as per protocol in that school.

Feil’s interference in the process, then, is certainly authoritarian.  Sherman says, “This was a case of the Interim Superintendent pulling rank and unilaterally shutting down the show, even though rules had been followed.”  It’s difficult to argue with that analysis. 

All that said, of course, it’s an odd choice: a musical that had never appeared on Broadway, was based on a popular but not especially good movie, and was a bowlderized version of material that, if Curmie remembers correctly, had little to offer except the sexiness that was now stripped out.  Curmie isn’t sure he’d go quite as far as OnStage Blog’s Chris Peterson that it was “the wrong choice for a high school,” but it isn’t a show Curmie would choose.

But there’s no arguing with Peterson’s argument that “this was the wrong way to cancel it.”  Making a decision right before auditions is, one supposes, at least better than after rehearsals have started, but it’s still bad timing.  More importantly, parent Tiffany Schultz appears to be absolutely correct in her analysis: “The evidence he got was not right.  So then he pulled something without knowing what it was and without even being willing to have a discussion about it. He simply came in and said, ‘I don’t like this and it’s done.’”

Feil’s arrogance and ineptitude are only compounded by the board’s attitude.  When parents asked that the situation be put on the agenda for the upcoming board meeting, board president Laurie Hoffman replied that the issue doesn’t rise to school board level.  Curmie asks one question: what the hell does, then? 

Board vice president Samuel Ouweneel seems to be an even bigger jackass than Hoffman, responding to a request from a student asking for the cancelation to be an agenda item with, “None of us wants to see the spring pass without a musical. If the board draws this discussion and speculation out, it will only serve to jeopardize whether or not the musical takes place at all. At this time, I do not believe it would be in the best interest of the students in the district to take that path.”  Curmie imagines Ouweneel speaking in a B-movie Mafioso voice, saying, “Nice little theatre program you got here… be a shame if you weren’t allowed to do any shows.”  Seriously, what a pompous ass!

The other variable here is that Moldenhauser says he won’t do a different show.  Whether the real reason is lack of preparation time, as he claims, or simply petulance on his part is unclear.  The same questions regarding motivations could be asked of an apparently considerable number of students who say (now) that they don’t want to be associated with a show that Feil and the board would approve, or with a show directed by anyone other than Moldenhauser. 

The bottom line, therefore, is that the school is now without either a director or a show for their spring musical slot, and with, one supposes, at least a diminished pool of student performers.  More importantly, they’re stuck with a trio of censorial asshats in leadership positions.  Feil, Hoffman, and Ouweneel evince a disturbing confluence of laziness, cowardice, and hubris, not to say stupidity.  None of them should ever be allowed within hailing distance of making educational policy.

Perhaps something might change at the forthcoming board meeting.  It’s unlikely, but even curmudgeons can dream…

Censorial Asshat Series: "The Wave." (#1 of 4)

 

Chances are, Gentle Reader, if you’ve been following this blog for any length of time, you know two things about Curmie even if you’ve never as much as met him: that he’s a retired theatre professor, and that he’s very much a 1st Amendment advocate.  It’s no surprise, then, that he’s chronicled over a dozen cases of high school and college theatre productions being shut down by school administrators or other morons for, let’s just say, less than persuasive reasons.  That doesn’t count the other shows that met similar fates but which Curmie mentioned only in passing… or, of course, those that he never even heard about.

One of Curmie’s best sources for information about such cases, going back to 2014, is Howard Sherman.  His blog, now called Downstage Center, migrated to Substack back in July.  This month, Sherman has written about four (!) cancelations of high school shows.  That’s a lot, needless to say.  Curmie intends to write about all four.  He’s decided to start with what he considers the least problematic of the stories (it’s bad enough, though) and move up to progressively stupider and less excusable examples.

Anyway, writing about all four is going to take a while and make for a very long blog post, indeed… so: each story gets its own post.  Curmie has decided to start with what he considers the least problematic situation and move up to the most colossally stupid.  You are free, Gentle Reader, to disagree with either the strategy or the ordering, but we’re doing the four stories in this order: The Wave  at Grunin Performing Arts Academy in Toms River, New Jersey, then Flashdance at Watertown HS in Wisconsin, She Kills Monsters at Copley HS in Ohio, and finally Little Shop of Horrors at South Grand Prairie High School in Texas.

A good way to open this discussion is by quoting the intro to Sherman’s series:

High school theatre productions are in rehearsal across the country, so it’s unfortunately inevitable that in a few cases, school theatre censorship rears its head as well. That these incidents all arose in the run up to the annual Banned Books Week is sadly fitting, especially when there is no Banned Plays Week to draw attention to this related, but separate, example of censorship in high schools.

So, let’s talk about The Wave.  We’re leading with this one primarily because Curmie knows nothing about the show other than what appears in Sherman’s article and what can be gleaned from a change.org petition.  Curmie quotes here from the latter:

The Wave is about a real incident that happened in a highschool in 1967, adapted from a novel into a stage play. It portrays an experiment that a teacher did on his class after they learned about World War II and Nazi Germany to show how people fell for what Hitler told them and how Germans who weren't Nazis didn't notice what was going on. The Wave shows how history can repeat itself when propaganda is presented as something nice and teaches a valuable lesson in individuality and thinking for yourself even when a group of people tells you otherwise.

The play was scheduled to be performed during School Violence Awareness Week, i.e., October 19-23.  Sherman quotes from the Asbury Park Press’s Ilana Keller that Superintendent Gary L. McDonald wrote that the school wanted to “create a culture of empathy and acceptance rather than divisiveness,” and was concerned that the students involved might not “fully understand the complexities of the material they were set to perform” or “feel the weight of responsibility to perform it with the sensitivity it requires.” 

The first of these is a very odd argument, given that the play appears to be an examination of anti-Semitism and how such hate-based ideologies can take hold.  Curmie might have thought that Fascism is rather more divisive than inclusive, and that therefore critiquing such a movement isn’t really all that bad.  This is why he will never be a high school administrator.  Well, that and worries that Medicare might not cover the required lobotomy.

As for McDonald’s worries about the play being performed for younger students, the solution appears pretty damned obvious: don’t show it to them.  That’s fundamentally different from not allowing the high school kids to do the show. 

That said, the concern that the students might not grasp the implications inherent in the show isn’t completely out of line.  It’s not an overwhelmingly persuasive argument and it comes rather too late in the process, but at least it’s not screaming-into-the-night looney.  That’s why it’s the least objectionable of the quartet of closures in Curmie’s mind.

Significantly, Curmie (because he’d signed that change.org petition) received an email a few days ago that the show is back on—not for its original October slot, but “some point in June of 2027.”  A link to the petition site led to a page saying, simply, “Victory!”  Whether the 1100+ signatures on that petition mattered at all, we can’t say, but they couldn’t have hurt.  Nor could the support of the New Jersey Thespians, the state’s chapter of the Educational Theatre Association, which sponsors the International Thespian Society, which as of seven years ago had inducted 2.3 million members (including Curmie).

The rationale offered by Grunin Principal Tierney Meeker is at least superficially reasonable, a variation on what we saw a couple years ago when school officials at Cesar Chavez High School in Phoenix delayed the opening of The Laramie Project by a week “due to the need for additional time to better prepare our audience and the public for the seriousness of the play’s content.” 

A six-month delay isn’t exactly the same as a one-week delay, but the perceived need to, in this case, “provide… students with meaningful educational opportunities, historical context, and access to resources that will deepen their understanding of the Holocaust, genocide, and the circumstances that allow prejudice, authoritarianism, and blind obedience to take hold” does sound familiar… and not entirely unreasonable.

That doesn’t mean that the school acted appropriately.  Howard Sherman’s follow-up piece, posted after the administration’s partial reversal, makes a couple of significant points: that the play was already well into rehearsal, and that school officials could have said initially that they were delaying rather than scuttling the production… or even, had the re-instatement been even under consideration, that they were contemplating such an action.  While it was important to make these arguments, it’s not like Sherman was opening vast new vistas of understanding: they’re pretty obvious.

Sherman also points out, however, something that might not come immediately to mind, but is just as important: a warning against “over-preparation,” which could actually diminish the play’s impact by taking away any element of surprise.  That’s why Ron Willis, one of Curmie’s most important mentors, actively discouraged having his Intro to Theatre classes read a play before seeing it.  This preparation is first cousin to the trigger warnings that Curmie wrote about earlier this month: if you know something is coming, you’re anticipating that moment instead of going where the play and production want you to go.  

It is also rather condescending to suggest to high school kids that they can’t really understand a play based on… wait for it… a classroom exercise for high school kids.  <Sigh.>  There are problems here... not as severe as those in the upcoming posts, but bad enough.

Anyway, there’s essay #1 in our series of 4.  Watch this space!

 

It’s Déjà Vu All Over Again.

There’s major consternation in the realm of college football.  No, it’s not that Miami became #1 by squeaking by a Florida State team that had a losing record in the ACC.  At home.  In double overtime.  After two controversial calls went the Canes’ way in that second overtime.  Oh, and they haven’t played a ranked team yet.  There are, by the way, three undefeated teams—BYU (more on them in a moment), Texas Tech, and UCLA—that have a win against a ranked opponent.

Curmie is more than a little baffled, but that’s not the subject of this essay.  For the second time (actually the third: but the other one was at the FCS level) already this season, there’s a concern about when a game actually ended.  You will recall, Gentle Reader, that back on September 5, millions of viewers saw the clock go to zero while a pass was still in the air, thereby seemingly clinching a major upset for the Western Michigan Broncos over the Michigan Wolverines.  But there was a review, and some mystical clock that only the chosen few are allowed to gaze upon showed Michigan still had a second left. 

Of course, they scored on the next play, winning the game in the minds of literally no one except the referees and Michigan fans.  Even the NCAA’s Division I Football Bowl Subdivision Oversight Committee said that “instant replay protocols were not followed in the contest’s second-to-last play. Had the protocols been followed, the outcome of the game would have been different.”  They couldn’t overturn the game result, but everyone whose favorite colors are anything but maize and blue knows what happened.

Curmie wrote about the whole business on the 20th, arguing that literally everyone—both teams, the Big 10, NBC, the NCAA—lost, one way or another.  And now, for the second time in six weeks—and indeed for the second time in Curmie’s memory of over 60 years of watching college football—we have a replay by… uh… not having a replay.

This time, the game was between the #2 Notre Dame Fighting Irish and the #8 BYU Cougars.  BYU scored a touchdown with less than two minutes remaining to take the lead, 28-24, but Notre Dame was driving down the field to try to regain the lead.  They drove 67 yards to the BYU 8 with four seconds left on the clock.  Irish quarterback CJ Carr took a shotgun snap, rolled out to his right, and tried to hit Jaden Greathouse in the endzone.  The pass was incomplete, and the game was over, with the Cougars getting a big win.  Fans stormed the field, and there was great rejoicing in Provo.

There’s a problem, though.

The headline of an article by Mike Florio on the nbcsports site reads, “Notre Dame gets screwed, twice, on ‘final’ play at BYU.”  Unfortunately, that’s an accurate description.  Yes, BYU cornerback Evan Johnson got away with pretty obvious pass interference in the endzone.  And yes, there was still one second left on the clock when the pass hit the ground, as you can see in the photo above.  That’s the stadium clock in the background; ESPN’s clock shows the same thing.  If the refs get either call right, Notre Dame has one more chance.  The only question is whether it would be from the 2 yard line (if the penalty is called) or the 8 (if it isn’t).

OK, the pass interference call, or rather the lack of one, was a judgment call: pretty incompetent judgment, but judgment all the same.  There’s pressure to have the refs not interfere late in a close game when calling a penalty could have a direct effect on the outcome.  But, of course, failing to call a penalty has a similar result.  Too often, the go-to motto of “let them play” slides into, well, “let them cheat.”

The more serious concern is the clock situation, because that is absolutely objective.  And we’re not talking about some mysterious “other clock” here.  The problem is that no one even bothered to check: not the referee on the field, not the guys in the replay booth, not the folks at the Big 12 Conference official Replay Operations Center in Texas.  The ESPN announcers both thought that pass interference should have been called, but neither bothered to notice that the very replay they were showing clearly indicated that there was, or should have been, still a second remaining. 

No one asked a question about either the clock or the non-call at the post-game interview.  Even Notre Dame coach Marcus Freeman didn’t question the clock business, either, although he apparently wanted to know why there was no penalty flag.  To his credit, however, he refused to “put blame on somebody else.” 

It was, in short, a confluence of incompetence of staggering proportions.  It was “embarrassing for all officiating” and a “ridiculous miss,” as rules analyst Mike Pereira put it.  Let’s face it, if Curmie, who wanted BYU to win, ends up agreeing with the likes of Pereira and Matt Austin (both of whom he thinks are bozos) that Notre Dame got hosed, it looks pretty bad.  The Big 12 issued a statement confirming that yes, they fucked up.  (They use slightly different language.)  “The conference will conduct a complete review of its end-of-game officiating process in advance of next week's games.”  In the future, of course.  Not now.

There’s a distinct possibility, of course, that time really should have expired.  It doesn’t seem likely that Carr could wait for a shotgun snap, roll out a couple of steps, and throw the ball over 20 yards—not a “seed” or a “laser,” or any of those other metaphors for speed—and have the ball hit the ground in less than four seconds.  Perhaps the clock didn’t start on time, etc., etc.  The problem is the lack of review.  Well, and the egregious lack of a penalty call.

There will inevitably be comparisons to that game in Ann Arbor six weeks earlier.  Let’s start with differences.  First, whereas the earlier game was indeed decided by the addition of the extra second, this one only might have been.  If the pass interference had been called, Notre Dame would have had one play from the 2 yard line.  Whether they would have converted is pretty much a 50/50 proposition.  For reference, we can look at the percentage of 2-point conversions successfully completed: 45.8%.  That’s from the 3 yard line, so one might guess that the likelihood of a touchdown would go from just below even from the 3 to just above from the 2.  Had the ball been marked at the 8, the likelihood would be lower, but certainly not zero.  If Michigan can score from the 49, Notre Dame can score from the 8.

Another difference is the prospect for significance in the post-season.  Neither game was a league contest, so no one moves up or down in the conference standing depending on the outcome, but Notre Dame/BYU could have significant implications.  It’s unlikely that the Wolverines will go exactly 2-4 in their remaining games or that the Broncos will go 1-5: in other words, that the outcome of that game will affect bowl eligibility.  Michigan won’t make the playoffs, anyway, and if Western Michigan runs the table from here on out, they’re definitely going to be in consideration as the Group of 5 (there are actually six of those conferences now, but who’s counting?) representative. 

On the other hand, the voters who determine the rankings tend to be both lazy and stupid (see elevating Miami to #1 after a narrow and lucky home win against a mediocre opponent), so Notre Dame dropped five places this week for a road loss to a top-10 team they should have had one more chance to beat.  If you’re not in the SEC, two losses put you in jeopardy of dropping out of the playoffs, and three are pretty much a guarantee you’ll have to settle for the Mrs. Lovett’s Meat Pies Bowl in Duluth in late December. 

Notre Dame still has to play two ranked teams, Miami and SMU (both at home); BYU has a road game against top-10 and currently undefeated Utah and, assuming they take care of business, a Big 12 championship game.  Plus, of course, there’s the possibility of a big upset.  But there’s also the possibility of a first-round bye, the difference between playing at home or on the road, etc.

The similarities between the two games in question are concerning, however.  In both cases, the refs’ decisions benefitted the home team, which was also the team from the same conference as the refs.  The latter point in particular matters.  Yes, it’s easier to keep the home fans happy, but the possibility of pressure to help the conference’s representative is difficult to ignore.  It’s good for the Big 10 if Michigan wins; it’s good for the Big 12 if BYU wins.  (It’s also good for the ACC if their best team doesn’t lose at home to a team that very well might not qualify for the postseason at all.) 

Curmie is not suggesting malfeasance as the basis for some pretty strange calls, but phrases like “Caesar’s wife” and “appearance of impropriety” do come to mind.  Some folks on Reddit and similar sites remind us of the presence of big-money gambling and hint at a connection to game-time decisions.  Again, Curmie makes no accusations, but he does partially raise an eyebrow.

It’s certainly time the NCAA stepped in to ensure that games end neither before nor after they should.  Curmie has long believed that the NCAA is second only to the Trump administration as the perfect storm of corruption and incompetence, but they’re what we’ve got.  Perhaps they might even be interested in salvaging what remains of a reputation.

Three Cheers for Student Journalists

Cereese Qusba and Sophia Dasser
of the Cornell Daily Sun

There was a period of only a few days, from September 18-21, during which reporting by three different student newspapers led to coverage by, among other national outlets, the New York Times, NPR, Inside Higher Ed, and the Chronicle of Higher Education.

Curmie already wrote about one of the stories, the bizarre decision by someone at Stanford University to use AI to alter a photograph of a trio of students, not merely altering the images of two of them, but changing the third from a Hispanic man in a GAP shirt to a black woman in Stanford garb.

Interestingly, Curmie heard about that story before one that came out three days earlier and has garnered far more publicity.  Curmie refers, of course, to the Cornell Daily Sun’s reporting of the lawsuits filed on behalf of a now former Cornell University student, alleging that she had been drugged and gang raped at the Chi Phi fraternity house in October of 2024.  By now, Gentle Reader, you would have had to be living under the proverbial rock not to know at least the basics of the saga of Jane Doe and the Cornell 7.

It is not Curmie’s intention here to urge you to believe or disbelieve anyone associated with the case—Jane Doe (subsequently identified as Lucy Craig) herself, any of the alleged perps, Cornell, the Tompkins County DA’s office, the various lawyers…  The only thing we can say with certainty is that somebody is saying things that aren’t true; Curmie isn’t even going to say with confidence that anyone is lying, although there is of course a reasonable likelihood that someone is.  If nothing else, Cornell’s UPD said, at least initially, that they provided the DA with their complete file; the DA says they did not.  Someone is at least wrong, if not mendacious. 

It’s also important to note that what is unethical and what is reasonably prosecutable are different things.  There is no possible reading of what we know that doesn’t show at the vast majority of Chi Phi members are assholes, but whether there would be a legitimate chance of convicting any of them is another matter.  There’s also apparently a state law (Curmie regrets that he can’t find the source where he read this) that says that if an alleged victim voluntarily took alcohol or other drugs, she (“she” in this case) cannot subsequently claim to have been unable to consent.  Curmie understands the impulse, but the downside ought to be pretty obvious.  Brock Turner, anyone?

As new information, or at least material not previously known by the general public, emerges, we begin to see predictable responses that tell us more about the predilections of the commenter than about the facts of the case.  Curmie has his suspicions, as do you, no doubt, Gentle Reader, but he doesn’t know, beyond the proverbial reasonable doubt, what actually happened.  Not yet, at least.  This may be the ultimate postmodern paradigm, in which meaning is literally constructed, rather than merely interpreted, by the reader.  Certainly, a renewed investigation is called for.  It’s likely to be political in nature, however, so there will inevitably be some folks who, not without justification, will reject its findings.

What matters for the purposes of this essay, however, isn’t the legitimacy or lack thereof of Jane Doe’s allegations.  It is, instead, the coverage of the Cornell Daily Sun.  They may not have been first on the scene—it’s unlikely that Doe’s attorney wouldn’t have publicized their suit—but their reporting certainly pre-dated any national sources Curmie can find. 

Significantly, their reportage, thanks primarily to the  work of reporter Cereese Qusba and editor-in-chief Sophia Dasser, but also to the rest of the editorial staff, is the most complete Curmie can find.  They were on the case early, and ready with far more background than any of the national outlets.  Equally importantly, they didn’t stop after that first story; they followed up with new information as the story developed. 

One other point: it’s clear where the editorial board stands, but their news stories are fundamentally unbiased.  They had the opportunity to speak with Jane Doe, who has apparently been unwilling to talk to other reporters.  Their  reporting acknowledges this, but they are careful to articulate the arguments of the Cornell administration, the Tompkins County DA’s office, and the defendants’ lawyers.  Their editorial on the case is clearly identified as such; whether you agree with the Sun’s position or not, their argument is well-researched and well-articulated.

The other element at play here is the fact that this case has repercussions far outside Cornell.  That is why there are protests and rallies across the country.  A piece by Stephen Lambert of The Collegian (at the University of Tulsa) is another example of student journalists doing their job.  It’s worth reading in its entirety, but Curmie wants to call particular attention to these two sections:

By bringing the allegations and questions surrounding the university’s response into public view, The Cornell Daily Sun gave students at other universities an opportunity to examine how their own institutions and organizations respond to allegations of sexual violence. What began as an investigation into one campus has consequently become part of a broader conversation about accountability, transparency and the culture surrounding Greek life….

When reporting publicizes an issue, students and organizations are given an opportunity to examine their own practices rather than waiting for administrators to act. In this way, the work of independent student journalists can extend beyond the original story, prompting conversations and actions that reach far beyond the campus where the reporting began.

Irrespective of the details of this case, in other words, students—especially but not exclusively women—see parallels with their own experience of college campuses in general and fraternities in particular.  Curmie, who was GDI (God-Damned Independent) as an undergrad at a frat-dominant college that was only slowly transitioning to co-education, understands.  Moreover, the problem of sexual violence on college campuses does not go away even if Jane Doe’s allegations are proven to be spurious.

And so we turn to the third story regarding student journalists, this one at Dartmouth College.  On September 21, The Dartmouth (a.k.a. the “Daily D”) ran a story by Alex Klee and Isabela Pierry claiming that Provost Santiago Schnell  had been using AI to “write” both academic articles and opinion pieces.

The paper employed the AI-detector program Pangram to compare Schnell’s work prior to the November 2022 release of ChatGPT with more recent publications.  What they found was that pre-ChatGPT, Pangram determined that Schnell’s articles were “100% human-written.”  After that date… well, a different story: a median AI-written text percentage of 96%.  Um… wow.

True, Pangram and similar programs are not perfect.  Allow Curmie to quote himself from a couple months ago: 

You may recall, Gentle Reader, that last year Curmie asked ChatGPT to write an essay about Elon Musk in Curmie’s own style.  It did so rather frighteningly well.  Some time later, Curmie fed that composition to one of those programs that purports to determine whether an actual person wrote something.  He was assured that it was 100% certain that it was written by a human.  Oops.  Maybe we ought not to be too trusting of computers’ conclusions?

There is, furthermore, some evidence that it is more likely to deliver a false positive on non-native authors like the Venezuelan-born Schnell.  But how, then, were his earlier publications, i.e., the ones written when he had spent less time in the English-speaking world, deemed original?  And the presence of a false negative does not necessarily imply the likelihood of a false positive, certainly not over multiple texts. 

Indeed, a piece that appeared under Schnell’s name in the Washington Post was determined to be “100% AI-written.”  The irony: Schnell (or whatever AI software actually wrote the article) argues that “a degree should distinguish what students can do independently from what they can accomplish with AI.”  Yes, indeed it should.

Schnell does confirm that he uses AI for “language refinement, copyediting, improving clarity and organization and making writing processes more efficient,” but “review[s] the final text and take[s] responsibility for its content.”  He says that, according to the article in The Dartmouth, in an email which was itself “’100 AI-written,’ according to a Pangram test.”

The hole he’s digging just keeps getting deeper.  Look, virtually everyone uses a variation on AI, but not GenAI.  Curmie almost always (which is to say, when he remembers to do so) uses Word’s “Editor” function to catch typos and similar errors.  Sometimes he gets a offer to re-write a section of text.  He literally always declines.  Generally, he looks at the passage in question to make sure it’s clear and that it says what he wants it to say.  Occasionally, he clarifies a sentence or two; far more often, he leaves the wording completely unchanged, in the perhaps arrogant belief that he’s a better wordsmith than some bot is.  Importantly, no one really believes that minor changes in grammar or spelling lead to a false positive in Pangram or similar analyses.

It’s clear to Curmie that Schnell, the highest-ranking academic at an Ivy League school has crossed the line into behavior that would get an undergrad suspended if not expelled.  Dartmouth’s official policy states that “Dartmouth assumes the general rule that GenAI tools are disallowed by default.”  The policy for undergrads says explicitly that “Even in matters of unintentional violation, students are responsible for their work and for upholding the standards of our community.”  In other words, ignorance of the law is no excuse… not to mention that no one ought to know that law more than the Provost.

Having been busted, Schnell now tells the Chronicle of Higher Education that “Moving forward, my standard practice will be to disclose use of AI in my public writing and academic publications upon submission, and I will proactively follow all policies set forth by each publication.”  This level of after-the-fact ethical epiphany might fly in a freshman, but it is woefully insufficient in someone leading a reputable college, especially since at least one of the instances violated the explicit terms of the publisher.

Schnell’s job is probably safe, despite his outrageous and unethical misrepresentation of AI-generated work as his own.  That’s because Dartmouth President Sian Beilock is an apologist not only for anyone in her inner circle, but for all things AI.  The New York Times quotes her article in The Atlantic (the original is behind a paywall) as follows: “There will be missteps and that’s part of how an institution learns.”  Give me a damned break.  After four decades in higher education, Curmie also knows very well that the surest way to maintain the status quo at a college or university is to appoint a committee to study the question, which is what she did.

There is literally no doubt in Curmie’s mind that Schnell should absolutely be fired, as was true for Claudine Gray at Harvard, Jason Arday at Cambridge, et al.  Here, he aligns himself The Dartmouth’s editorialist Eli Moyse and with 300 or so other faculty, student, and alumni signers of a letter to the Trustees demanding Schnell’s removal. 

The rationale here is not what John Warner writes at the end of an otherwise useful opinion piece in Inside Higher Ed.  This is not “a short-term attempt to quell student displeasure.”  It is, rather, a necessary purging of a once-respected academic who has revealed himself as a hypocrite and a fraud.  It is imperative that any institution of higher learning maintain the highest level of integrity in all things related to its educational mission.  In its own way, that’s as important as protecting the safety of the student body.  And that cannot be accomplished with the likes of Santiago Schnell on the faculty, much less as Provost.  He not only violated the standards of academic integrity; he did so as a representative of Dartmouth.

So... three stories, three of the nation’s premier academic institutions, three tips of the cap to the student journalists involved.  We just might be okay in the years ahead.

Full disclosure: these stories are listed here in the order Curmie found out about them, but they also appear in increasing order of his attachment to the college/university involved.

Curmie almost mentioned in the Stanford piece that he’d come very close to at least applying there for his PhD.  There was, back in the days before email, an exchange of letters expressing mutual interest, before Curmie ended up at… wait for it… Cornell.  Curmie spent four year in Ithaca before leaving as an ABD (All But Dissertation).  He suspects he had a few fraternity members in his classes, but never really spent any time with the undergrads outside the classroom, and couldn’t tell you if Chi Phi even existed, let alone what their reputation might have been.

Of course, Curmie got his undergrad degree at Dartmouth, and indeed did some writing and editing for The Dartmouth.  Most of his work there was for the arts page, but he did write a couple of articles for the news section, although he never did what might be called investigative reporting.  Curmie cares more about this story than the average person would, because people like Provost Schnell devalue the degree he worked pretty hard to get.  The Cornell story rightly gets the most publicity, but it’s the Dartmouth one that hits closest to home for Curmie.

Updates: Trigger Warnings, Wally World, Sheeran et al., Smith and the Hawkeyes

 

Curmie didn’t expect to be doing another “follow-up” post quite this soon, but there are a couple of new developments of late.  He’ll return to new topics soon, but not yet…

Trigger Warnings.  We’re going to take these updates in the order of Curmie’s original post on the subject.  We start, then, with this piece, written in May of 2024.  Curmie described the reactions of three of the world’s foremost actors—Sir Ian McKellen, Ralph Fiennes, and Dame Judi Dench—all of whom disparaged “trigger warnings” in live theatre events.  McKellen called many of them “ludicrous.”

Curmie managed to miss the news that the University of the West of England issued 220 warnings about Shakespearean plays, including, according to the New York Post, things like “storms, extreme weather and ‘popping of balloons.’”  But now there’s another furor surrounding a Royal Shakespeare Company “content advisory” for First Encounters: Julius Caesar, an adaptation set in a women’s prison, starring Dame Harriet Walter as Brutus.  If nothing else, the Daily Mail’s headline, “Forget the Ides of March, just beware the 14 trigger warnings of Julius Caesar!” is pretty apt. 

Walter hasn’t commented, at least that Curmie has seen, but two other acclaimed Shakespearean actresses have.  Felicity Kendal calls the warnings “patronising” and “absurd”; Janet Suzman’s word is “mollycoddling.”  Quoth Dame Janet, “They should be shouting out to audiences to come and be shocked and surprised and intrigued and not creep in nervously.”

Curmie once again notes that there are legitimate reasons for certain warnings: prospective spectators with certain medical conditions, for example.  Thus, the production’s flashing lights, which could trigger an epileptic episode, and which are not inherent in the script, do mean that the company should err on the side of caution.  But “characters experiencing grief” in a version of a Shakespearean tragedy?  Say it ain’t so!  Yeah, “patronising” seems pretty accurate.

It’s unclear exactly how these warnings appear.  It’s fine with Curmie if you have to look up specific concerns on the website.  If, however, those warnings are in any way unavoidable, then the RSC is in fact doing more harm than good with their nannying.

Walmart Follies.  At the end of the post about the trip Curmie and Beloved Spouse took to Ireland in July, he wrote about the fact that his old laptop died somewhere in transit.  He mentioned the fact that although the Walmart website said they’d deliver the replacement the day we ordered it, we subsequently got an email that said it wouldn’t be delivered until the following week.  So, we cancelled the order… and they sent it anyway.

We got information about how to return it to the local store.  But when Beloved Spouse (whose Walmart account we used for the order) tried to do that, she encountered no fewer than three rude and unhelpful people supposedly in the “customer service” business who informed her that they couldn’t take the laptop back because it was bought through “Walmart Marketplace.”  Needless to say, there was nothing on the website to indicate that, or we wouldn’t have bothered with them, given that the Marketplace is, shall we say, not famous for either competence or integrity.  Supervisor Dude made a big deal out of being “generous” and offering a gift card.  Beloved Spouse demanded a refund of the money we’d spent on the credit card, since it was Walmart’s fault.  Nope, he couldn’t do that.  We’d have to contact Walmart.com.

With no other choice, she came home and spent an hour and a half “chatting” online with Walmart customer service.  They gave the same line about a third-party vendor, and said the earlier message to take the laptop to the store was in error (well, whose fault is that?), but they also said they’d do what needed to be done to get us our refund; we’d hear back in 24-48 hours.  Needless to say, we didn’t. 

So, Curmie called Discover.  “Jessica in Illinois” was very helpful, took down a lot of information, and told me that they’d put a temporary hold on those charges until they could investigate further.  We had 15 calendar days to provide any documentation we could.  We sent stuff in online within that timeframe, and the status changed to having been ruled in our favor, but, reasonably enough, allowing the merchant to respond with their side of the story.

We just put a rather substantial charge on that account and were about to add another, so it was worth checking to see if there was any resolution to the affair.  Under “disputes” is this (unedited) message: “This case was previously closed in your favor and an adjustment(s) were applied to your account. The time allowed for the merchant to request additional review of this decision has expired. As such, We consider this investigation to be complete.”  In other words, after trying to take the laptop back for a refund, we now get the refund without having to return the computer.  Not a bad deal, even taking into account all the bullshit we (especially Beloved Spouse) had to endure.

Three take-aways, in whatever order you choose: 1). Avoid anything that even might be Walmart Marketplace.  Hell, avoid Walmart altogether if you can.  2). Discover customer service is actually very good.  3). Fight the bastards if you have to.

The Kraft/Macklemore/Sheeran Debacle.  Curmie wrote about Robert Kraft’s de facto firing of Macklemore from the Ed Sheeran concerts scheduled for September 24 and 25 at Gillette Stadium, which Kraft owns.  All the other artists—warm-up bands and Sheeran’s backing group—quit in solidarity.  Sheeran subsequently did a show in Philadelphia alone, and was apparently going to do the same in Foxboro… and then the nor’easter hit, and both shows were cancelled.  There’s some ironic finality there.

The other follow-up is that country star Zach Bryan set the all-time attendance record for Gillette Stadium on October 3, attracting 73,538 fans for the second of his two performances at the venue.  More significantly for the purposes of this essay, however, is that he wore a “Free Palestine” t-shirt at both shows.  Other members of the band also wore pro-Palestinian garb.  Bryan’s shirt didn’t have the Palestinian flag; instead, there was a pine tree logo and the phrase “An Appeal to Heaven.” 

This links to John Locke’s Second Treatise of Government.  [Side note: Curmie went over 15 years without mentioning Locke’s name in a blog post; now it’s appeared twice (the other one is here) in three weeks.]  The motto refers to the right of people to overthrow an oppressive regime, and, complete with the pine tree logo, was used on flags by colonial sailors in the Revolutionary War.  More recently, there’s some linkage to Christian Nationalism.  It’s unclear, in other words, what message Bryan was attempting to impart.

Bryan’s politics are, he says, libertarian and non-partisan; he has little use for either major party.  We do know that he’s pro-LGBTQ+ rights and anti-ICE, making him a bit of an outlier as a country singer, but not as an everyday citizen.  Is he advocating for the Palestinian cause because he believes in it, or because he doesn’t want to be told he can’t?  Certainly, whatever else Bryan may be saying, it’s a direct poke in the eye to Robert Kraft.  A good article in The Jerusalem Post argues that this is a variation on the Streisand Effect, and concludes: “Most major musicians are not wearing ‘Free Palestine’ shirts. If pressed and feeling that they are being told not [to], however, it’s possible that more of them will be.”

Of course, Kraft let the second night happen, despite folks like Sean Spicer tweeting, “Here’s hoping there is no night 2,” and that second night audience was even bigger than the night before’s.  Exactly why Kraft didn’t intervene is unclear—did he think it was too late, or he feared an even more significant Streisand Effect, or he wasn’t going to shut down the headliner, or Bryan didn’t have any track record of anti-Semitism, or refunding eight figures worth of tickets would be no fun at all, or…?

It’s Not about the Hawkeyes.  Or, rather, it’s only coincidentally about the Hawkeyes.  There’s no question that Senator Eric Schmitt made an absolute fool of himself in a botched “gotcha” moment in which he tried to prove perjury against former Special Counsel Jack Smith.  Schmitt had a very flimsy case to begin with, and then proceeded to have the whole thing collapse on national television when he called Smith a “dirtbag” for denying that he was in Atlanta the day after Fani Wallis admitted to her affair with Nathan Wade, as if that somehow proved something nefarious.

But it turned out that the basketball game Smith attended that night wasn’t the Golden State Warriors at the Atlanta Hawks, but the Iowa Hawkeyes (featuring star Caitlin Clark) at the Maryland Terrapins in women’s hoops. 

Three follow-ups: First, Curmie would love to believe that Smith suspected what Schmitt was attempting, and his obvious befuddlement at the line of questioning was in fact feigned, thereby giving Schmitt a little more rope with which to hang himself.  He did attend an Iowa/Maryland game about that time, he thinks…  If that’s what happened, Curmie likes him more than ever.  Smith would never admit it, of course.

Second, the intervention of Senator Klobuchar was timely and effective.  Her suggestion that Schmitt was confusing the Hawks and the Hawkeyes was plausible, and confirming that game on that date did blow up the whole interrogation.  Thing is, though, it was the assumption that the only basketball game in a large arena that night was in Atlanta that caused Schmitt’s self-destruction.  Klobuchar’s analysis was reasonable; it was also wrong. 

As Curmie wrote on October 1, “The problem wasn’t the coincidence of “Hawks” and “Hawkeyes” playing at the same time.  It was, rather, the casual sexism of being unable to understand that a grown man might want to watch a women’s game, even one that a). featured a player about to break the record for points in a collegiate career, and b). was within easy driving distance.”

The problem is that not only are the comedians and memesters making that mistake, but Klobuchar herself is taking something of a victory lap (“when you're from the Midwest, the Hawks also mean the Hawkeyes”) for something that turned out to be an irrelevant coincidence.  This was after we knew the real story.  That’s not cool, Senator.

Finally, Smith’s attendance at the Power to the People Festival last weekend has resulted in two sets of headlines.  Those of one political persuasion love the fact that Dave Grohl (in Maryland, in an Iowa Hawkeyes t-shirt) dedicated one of the Foo Fighters’ biggest hits, “My Hero,” to “my new friend Jack,” and got a few thousand fans to sing along.  Those of the other perspective are predictably exercised by the fact that Smith wore a “No Kings” t-shirt to the event, which also featured a set by Bruce Springsteen.  How dare someone who, after a thorough investigation, got multiple indictments against 45 only to have them dismissed by a Trump appointee exercise his 1st Amendment rights as a private citizen, after all?  <Sigh.>

There you go, Gentle Reader: four updates.  We’ll return to normal programming next time out.