The No Asshole Rule Versus Compassion for the Mentally Ill

I got an email from a colleague who I had not heard from for years, and as often happens when people contact me for the first time in a long time, her note touched to The No Asshole Rule.  She linked to an article published at Inside Higher Ed that described the strange case of Ohio University Journalism Professor Bill Reader who, "Despite glowing teaching evaluations and no documented trace of disciplinary action in his past" narrowly (7-5) was approved for tenure by the evaluation committee, which set the stage for several administrators to decide to deny him tenure.  I have never seen a vote like this... in fact, having voted on a lot of tenure cases, my guess is that a possible meaning of such a vote could be "we don't have the guts to make a real decision, so we will leave it to administrators to decide," as such votes are usually recommendations to them -- and a 7-5 vote really isn't a recommendation at all, it means "it is up to you."  In any event, it is no surprise that this vote "served as a precursor for recommendations of tenure denial from the school’s director, the college of communication's tenure review committee and the dean."  The No Asshole Rule (translated in academic language as "the norm of collegiality")  was cited as a primary reason for these denials, "Reader’s director and dean have cited a “pattern” of non-collegial and even “bullying” behavior as the reason for their concerns, and those misgivings were “heightened,” his dean said, by Reader’s admittedly angry reaction to the narrow tenure vote.

Apparently, the final decision around the case has not been made, that is coming in a few weeks. But regardless of how the decision goes, it raises a serious issue that advocates of The No Asshole Rule like me need to consider -- that people who show all the hallmarks of acting like an asshole may be doing so because they suffer from serious mental health problems.  Indeed, although claims and counter claims are flying in this case about whether Professor Reader made threats after the vote, it is clear that he was suffering mental health problems before the close vote and really freaked out after that.  As Reader himself admits in the article:

When Reader learned that Hodson planned to recommend against awarding tenure, he made the bizarre decision to expose scars on his arms where he had used a branding tool to burn the words “comfort” and “truth” into his flesh. Reader branded himself during a difficult divorce two years earlier, and he told investigators that he wanted to demonstrate to Hodson and Robert Stewart, the school’s associate director, that his commitment to work had contributed to the dissolution of his marriage.

“I just felt completely betrayed, and to be honest I was in the middle of a nervous breakdown,” Reader said. “I probably shouldn’t have shown them my arms, but I did.”

This incident and some nasty emails that Reader apparently sent do suggest that he was acting like an asshole.  Regardless of the exact facts of the story, it raises an interesting and difficult question about how to treat abusive and destructive people who are acting out because they are suffering from mental health problems -- and in this case there are hints that Reader was good at his job (and that students liked him, they don't give nasty teachers good teaching evaluations).  I am all for enforcing The No Asshole Rule in academia, and believe that consistently abusive and selfish people (who are otherwise competent) should not be rewarded and promoted -- and unfortunately I have seen too many cases were such people are promoted and then go on to leave a path of destruction for decades.

BUT if such behavior has not been a problem in the past, and is provoked by life pressures or changes in physical health, it seems to me that compassion and understanding is called for... so in a case like Reader's (I don't know the facts well enough to say what should be here done for sure), perhaps the best thing to do is to delay the tenure decision for a couple years and make it contingent on him changing his behavior -- in other words, contingent on him returning to sufficiently good mental health to keep his inner jerk in check.  I realize that circumstances vary from place to place, and that may not be right or possible in this case, but I think that showing  compassion and emotional support is necessary in such situations.  Skilled and well-meaning people are sometimes overwhelmed by what life throws at them, and discarding them despite great skill and potential troubles me -- especially if there is good reason to believe their behavior can change. 

To be clear, however, if someone has a pattern of abusive behavior and -- regardless of the cause -- it does not stop, that means to me that the person is incompetent to do the job, and should be grounds for not promoting someone or firing them.

This brings me to another lesson from this case -- if the report is accurate, the administrators who voted to deny him tenure made things much harder on themselves and ultimately on Reader because they did not have the guts or energy to call him out on his nasty behavior before the tenure decision (at least in writing).  In fact, his written evaluations suggest quite the opposite, especially from his bosses (notably school director Tom Hudson,  who voted against Reader apparently because of his hostile behavior). The story reports:

There is not a single piece of documentation from Reader’s eight years at Ohio, however, that shows he was ever disciplined for any “volatile, bullying, or other anti-social behavior,” according to a report of the university’s Office of Institutional Equity.... What is documented before the tenure vote is a pattern of congratulatory evaluations, endorsed by the very department head who is now challenging Reader’s tenure status. In 2004, Hodson called Reader “the ultimate team player.” He followed that up in 2007 by declaring “I am proud to be your colleague."

Despite Hodson's written praise, and a lack of any written documentation, Gregory Shepherd, the college’s dean (who also made the decision to deny Reader tenure), argued: 

“Just because something doesn’t occur in a narrow piece of the written record doesn’t mean there were never any discussions, conversations.”

Shepard declined to elaborate. So there may have been conversations where Reader was given pointed feedback and a chance to quell his nasty behavior -- I want to be careful to make clear that I do not have all the facts on this case.  But there is a key lesson here if these bosses lacked the will or skill to do to give Reader negative written reviews and work with him to change his alleged behavior.  This not only may  weaken their legal case against him, if such a spineless pattern persisted throughout Reader's career at the school, it damaged everyone involved.  Academic administrators have tough jobs, but I don't have much sympathy for any boss who lacks the courage to take tough but necessary action -- and then votes to fire someone (despite a history of glowing written reviews) by claiming that, really, this had been a problem all along.

There is an important and broader cautionary tale for every boss here: If you don't have the guts to do the dirty work, and can't or won't find someone to do it for you, you are in the wrong job.  If you let an asshole run wild for years and years, write glowing reviews all the while, but finally get so fed-up that you vote to fire him or her -- in my book you don't deserve any sympathy when the whole situation blows up in your face.  This theme, that the best bosses have the guts to do the dirty work (and understand that there is a big difference between what you do and how you do it... the best bosses make and implement hard choices without turning into bossholes) was also a central theme in my HBR article on "How to Be a Good Boss in A Bad Economy" -- the article is here and I talk about it here).

To return to Professor Reader's case, the whole thing sounds like an unfortunate mess.  I hope that it is resolved in a manner that is best for Ohio University students in the long run -- that is the most important thing, even if the impact on students if often ignored in such decisions. 

P.S.  Everyone involved in this case would have benefited from reading and following the advice in C.K. Gunsalus' The College Administrator's Survivial Guide.

P.P.S. Check out Sherman Dorn's post on this case, he does a great job of digging into the norm of collegiality and how tough it is to enforce and figure out what it means in practice.

 

Comments

[Anne McSorley]

In my work with Behavioral Risk Management, The situation described is "never out of nowhere." This unfortunate mess sounds like it has it's roots in emotional causes but I also detect some manipulative evaluations. Was he high visibility? Was the risk to do something (anything) determined by his to-date value? You hit the nail right on the head when you say it damages everyone involved.

[OU Journalist]

In case you're interested in reading about how Reader's tenure hearing went:

http://tinyurl.com/yb3nmlx

[Yung]

I totally agree with you Bob, I have lack of sympathy for a boss that does not have the courage to tell their employees when they are being an "asshole" and calling them out on it.

Part of proper leadership behavior is to be bold and state your concerns or take action on negative situations if someone is creating havoc in the work environment. I don't think it's right to fire an individual out of nowhere before providing him with notice and time to correct their actions.

[Deborah]

I think that not tolerating bad behavior has the potential to be a great way to ensure that people get the help they need.

I used to work for and now work alongside an "asshole" who is really just someone with serious anxiety problems who doesn't want to manage other people. Intolerance of her behavior by me and her supervisor is what got her into a position where she could look at the bigger picture and realize that she's not happy, that she needs to make changes.

Intolerance of asshole behavior a loving response that prompts the asshole to examine herself.

The guy in the story sounds like he got an opportunity to see himself from this whole tenure exchange, and I hope it all worked out collegially.

[Ergoboy]

It would be interesting to compare and contrast this story with the story of the Fort Hood shooter. For some odd reason, the powers-that-be in both cases overlooked something. It would be interesting to understand the dynamic of why a group in power ignores behavior until it blows up in their faces.

[G. Tod Slone]

We need to put a stop to over MODERATION (i.e., CENSORSHIP). Why not joining in on those who believe that pre-approved speech is not free speech at all! Anyhow, regarding the article in question, my comment was censored. Inside Higher Ed censors comments. The problem with your "asshole" rule is that an "asshole" for one person might be a nice guy to another and vice versa. See my censored comment at: http://wwwtheamericandissidentorg.blogspot.com/2010/01/censored-yet-again.html

[David Reuter]

It appears that a lack of honest communication allowed this situation to progress to the point where we are now discussing it.

[Glen S. McGhee]

Let us not forget the words of C. W. Mills (1916-1962):
"Yet the deepest problem of freedom for teachers is not the
occasional ousting of a professor, but a vague general fear -
sometimes called 'discretion' and 'good judgment' - which leads
to self-intimidation and finally becomes so habitual that the
scholar is unaware of it. The real restraints are not so much
external prohibition as manipulative control of the insurgent by the agreements of .... gentlemen."
(1951 / 2002: 151)

[working girl]

I wasn't completely clear about who the bad guy was in this story.