Mr. Hassler at Mayfield was arrested for a crime (child pornography); I committed no crime (and at the time, I didn’t even violate college policy, one reason I was never disciplined!) To suggest that selling child porn (the felony with which Hassler is charged) and conducting an inappropriate affair with an adult are the same thing is, well, problematic. That doesn’t justify what I did, it just puts it in a different category. What I did wasn’t criminal, but unethical. What happened at Mayfield was criminal and involved much, much younger individuals. That’s not an unimportant distinction legally or morally.

My colleague has the right to her views. But to repeatedly insinuate that I haven’t changed — when all the evidence suggests I have, and she has no evidence I have not — is, well, uncharitable. It’s not slander (at least I don’t think so), but it’s unkind and it does my students no service. But as I said, I’m not “entitled” to be trusted. I can wish that everyone would trust me, but I know that not everyone will.

That said, MJ, my previous comment probably ought to be revised. My colleague has the right to say whatever she likes (short of slander), and all I can do is continue to work to prove her wrong. As the years roll by and I continue to live as I do and work as I do, my track record grows deeper and stronger — and her lack of faith in that transformation can do nothing to stain that.

In any event, I almost regret including that paragraph in this post. It’s distracting the thread away from the main point: about how we restore trust after it’s been lost.

You’ve changed, you’ve made amends, you have apologized, you’ve helped set policy. That’s something rarely seen with bad behavior. Some people make excuses. Few people make amends. Fewer try to make a difference

But the fact remains, you did something wrong. You destroyed the trust this person had in you. You accept that that trust cannot be regained.

There is something to be said for professionalism, for not speaking ill of one’s colleagues. I don’t know the situation as well as you do; I don’t know you or her. Maybe she doesn’t take your transformation seriously. Maybe she’d like to. Maybe she’s angry, or trying to damage your reputation. You don’t know her heart, (unless she’s told you that she’s just trying to hurt you, in which case, ignore the rest of this!). You accept that she does not take your transformation to be genuine. But you don’t seem to accept that the faculty member continues to speak of your past.

You seem to stress ‘this one person’. Would many people not believing you diminish what you’ve accomplished? Would the disbelief of the last holdout among your colleagues, I suppose, change anything? I doubt it, because you say that you accept that you can’t rebuild trust with everyone. The last line of your comment gets under my skin. She isn’t entitled to speak of her lack of trust?

I’m still a bit confused here. Maybe I do not understand something, but I don’t believe that your transformation entitles you to her silence.

http://hugoschwyzer.net/2007/12/05/against-compartmentalization-a-note-on-the-repercussions-of-a-local-scandal/

You wrote that post. You wrote that a month ago. I looked it over again today, hoping it was from a guest blogger. You wrote about shock and betrayal, how horrified the students felt. Should they trust someone who had ‘crossed the line’, if they do not believe them to be a changed person? Are they ever obligated to be silent about the past?

I can’t reconcile the fact that the comment at 12:18 pm and the December 12 post on ‘….Repercussions on a Local Scandal” came from the same person.

(You can delete this. You probably will. It’s rude. It’s more a rant than a comment. I can accept that you did something bad in your past, that you have made amends for it. I cannot accept the comment you made today. I cannot accept your belief that someone who does not trust you is obligated to keep their mouth closed about prior bad behavior. In the same situation as the faculty member, I would probably feel obligated to disclose the information).

Although my remark was meant to be a comment about bad behavior in general, I appreciate the clarification. (The blog itself is an incredibly raw self examination & thoughtful commentary that would convince me were I the colleague.)

Can anyone explain why we often have more success repairing the relationship with the wronged party than those who were merely witnesses?

I have done the best I can to make amends for my past misconduct with my students. I have made direct amends to the students involved (where possible); I have made amends to my colleagues and to the administration. I took the lead in designing the college’s consensual relationships policy (which didn’t exist when I was behaving so badly); I have spoken to faculty groups about the issue and done my best to hold myself and my colleagues accountable. I have no shame about my past any longer, though I deeply regret having “crossed a line that ought not to have been crossed.”

In the case of this one colleague, this one person has refused to believe that my transformation is genuine, and unlike the vast majority of fellow faculty members, doesn’t take seriously my public and open efforts at making amends. That’s her prerogative, of course, but it doesn’t necessarily entitle her to continue to raise the subject to students and fellow professors alike.