Clearing the air

I’ve never done this before, but I am publishing this post without allowing comments.

As I was somewhat afraid would happen, my past has become an issue on a couple of the men’s rights discussion boards.  Specifically, folks there have been discussing this article from the Pasadena City College newspaper.  It seems impossible to continue to refrain from posting about this, especially in the current environment of attention this blog has received.

Yes, I was the lead faculty author of our college’s current policy on consensual relationships between faculty and students.  In consultation with other faculty and administrators, I began work on this policy in 2001, and it was finally passed by the Faculty Senate this past fall.  The article spells out my initial reason for taking the lead in working to create this policy: it was an act of institutional amends.  Yes, early on in my career, I did have "consensual relationships" with  adult female students enrolled in my classes. I am not going to provide numbers or details, but I will be clear that this behavior ended in 1998 as a consequence of an immensely important spiritual shift in my life.

Since that time, I have done everything I can to make amends for my unethical behavior.  Over the years, I have contacted most of the women with whom I was involved to offer my sincere regrets and apologies.  In 2000, I met privately and separately with my division dean; the VP for Human Resources; and  the president of the college himself.  Though technically my conduct had not violated college policy (because we had no such policy in place), I believed I had done harm not only to the women with whom I had been involved but to the institution itself.  I apologized to the administrators, and asked if I could take the lead in developing both a policy and a series of faculty workshops around the issue of consensual relationships.   Though I had tenure at the time I made these disclosures, I assure you it was a difficult and frightening thing to do.

Campus gossip is persistent.   Most of my colleagues and most senior administrators are fully aware of my past actions.  (And, for the record, so is the staff at All Saints Church.)  Most have been very supportive of my efforts to make amends.  Some have been angry.  I have learned to listen and really hear others’ anger and hurt.  That has not been easy, but making up for the kind of damage I did is not easy.

I had not wanted to blog about this because the sensationalism of the topic would,I feared, drown out anything else I wrote.  More importantly, I wanted to protect my family and friends — above all, my fiancee, who already has had to deal with so much in regards to my past!  I am a changed man, radically so — but as we move towards our wedding day, neither of us need to focus endlessly on what I was like prior to that transformation.

I am proud of the life I live today.  With God’s help and the support of family and friends and accountability partners, I am a safe, gentle man. I wish I could say it was always so.  But it was not.

I know some readers may have a very great desire to comment in response to this.  Please understand what ought to be my fairly obvious reasons for not permitting comments on this post.  I won’t be posting on this aspect of my past again.  But I did want to respond proactively to the rumors and stories that were travelling around the blogosphere.