This is another piece of my personal philosophy: in the immortal words of Frank Herbert, fear is the mind-killer. In the first book of the epic Dune series, the main character’s mother belongs to a religious order of wise women, and this is one of their tenets. When you submit to fear, when you panic, when you try to frighten others, you lose your rationality, and with it, your power, and your humanity. I subscribe to this tenet. I’m not afraid of spiders, or the dark, or the neighbors who play their music too loudly, or ending up old and alone, or the person I’ve never met who is walking toward me on an evening sidewalk. To succumb to fear is to lose one’s ability to get out of a scary situation–and I can’t think of anything more frightening than that.

I’ve alluded before to the dangers of a culture of fear. I believe that America is in crisis right now. A generation or so of Americans have grown up without civics classes, and in many cases, not understanding much about how their government works. Many Americans aren’t sure about their rights, both in the sense of what they may have been as codified or practiced; and in the sense that some of them may be restricted by the government in the name of national security. The government is also setting new precedents about its authority–particularly in the executive branch. So far, fear has caused a lot of damage, and many Americans aren’t sure if what’s going on is legal, or smart, or good. A few examples: the United States of America pre-emptively invaded a country out of fear; the executive branch of the government authorized wiretapping that may or may not have been legal out of fear; and citizens comply with more restrictive practices, such as intense airport security, out of fear of what will happen if they don’t: will terrorist get us? Will the Air Marshall do something unpleasant to me?

I’ve mentioned my dissertation before, too. It’s about how violent societies develop. Among many other things I’ve discovered is that the worst violent meltdowns are steeped in fear. What are hate crimes, for example, but the violent expression of fear of a particular group? Take, for example, the former Yugoslavia, where Serbs, Croats, Muslims and others existed peacefully side-by-side for hundreds of years. Shortly before conflict broke out, many folks reported they had been getting along just fine, and either didn’t know their neighbors’ ethnic affiliations, or didn’t care. Things changed very suddenly by all reports. Slobodan Milosevic relied very heavily on fear to start a genocidal war. He told Serbs that Croats were taking their jobs and resources and wanted them dead. He told them they were entitled to much more and would have to take it by force or be subjugated. He reminded them of the war crimes of a small group of Croatians during World War II, and villified Croation people to frighten Serbian people into acting against them. The early stages of violent personalities, whether we’re talking about dangerous violent criminals, entire societal meltdowns, or attack dogs, always begin with being acted upon violently: terrorized, brutalized, subjugated. Fear is the very instrument of violence, and violence rarely occurs without it.

I went public with my story in part because I believe in public dialog, in openness, in my rights as an American citizen, and in myself as a good employee, educator and researcher. I knew it would be hard, and I knew I’d open myself up to criticism and the harsh judgments of strangers. Maybe I was just supposed to be embarrassed and slink away when DeVry fired me for blog postings still unknown. I thought, though, that the secrecy surrounding my firing and the impact it had on the community were bad for the folks who were still there. I am told that many are afraid for their livelihoods. Some of my students have expressed real separation anxiety, anger and disbelief, and are afraid of being expelled if they speak up about it. DeVry created fear in its own community by firing me in the way that it did. I think that was unintentional, but mind-killing fear is especially deadly for universities, which are supposed to be havens for free thought. Information, ideas, solutions: these things defeat fear, and they don’t generally happen in environments where their expression is disallowed or discouraged.

I’ve been asked if I’m afraid of what DeVry could do to me now, or if I’m afraid I won’t be able to get another job. Well, whatever DeVry does to me now, it does right out in public for all to see. You’ll all know about it. If I don’t tell you, my friends and supporters will tell you, some of the millions of bloggers will tell you, the Denver Post will tell you, Business Week will tell you, or maybe the EFF or the ACLU will tell you. I suppose DeVry could try to hurt me, but I am not afraid, and I’ll tell you why: they’ve already tried and failed.

This week, DeVry posted a job announcement on Monster.com for my former position. At the bottom of the posting, it read:

Additional Job Notes: Replacing Meg Spohn, who was hired in November 2005, then terminated in December 2005 due to conduct issues. Meg Spohn replaced Judy Lesser, Associate Dean of General Education, who moved to the Academic Dean position at Colorado Springs DVUC.

The Westminster campus currently has no full-time faculty in the area of writing, communication, or composition. To ensure student success in the writing and communication area, and meet expectations for accreditation and academic quality and accreditation, DeVry Westminster needs a lead faculty to coordinate efforts in Writing Across the Curriculum, writing assessment, leading the composition and communication sequence committee, and assisting the GenEd Dean in faculty hiring and evaluation, curriculum review, assessment, and program reviews in the composition and communication areas.

Today, the “additional job notes” section has been deleted from the posting, but those of you who downloaded it and Monster.com itself are aware of the discrepancy. Does it make me angry? No, not really. It makes me feel sorry for DeVry (obviously, I am not ashamed to repost it myself). People do some inadvisable things when frightened. Fear is the mind-killer.

The “conduct issues” mentioned were never disclosed to me. My firing consisted of a single, three-claused sentence: “We have become aware of your blog, and you say disparaging things on it about DeVry and the students, so we are letting you go.” You all know already that other members of the faculty with blogs that bothered or frightened the administration in some way had the opportunity for discussion rather than being fired outright, and that I did not. You already know that I never said anything disparaging about the students, and that I think that calling my other comments “disparaging” is a stretch. I think discussion and compromise are productive, and that acting out of fear is damaging. A lot of members of the community were frightened or hurt–probably a lot more than I was–and that many lights, many ideas, in that community have now been extinguished. Fear is the mind-killer.

I am also not afraid because the more DeVry tries to villify me, the more of you tell me you stand with me. I’ve even received support from inside the organization, men and women who overcame their fear of what might happen to their jobs, their livelihoods, if they contacted me while DeVry was watching. I can’t express how grateful I am for your kindness, your support, your courage, and your wholesale rejection of fear.

I was briefly concerned about getting another job and wondered if my experience would hurt my chances. I have spent my entire adult life training for a career devoted to the love of ideas. I’ve done the right things: contributed to my communities, did my jobs well, made positive contributions wherever I could, studied my brains out, wrote well, shared what I knew, made good friends, accumulated student debt that’s like a second mortgage. Indeed, I mortgaged my whole future for a shot at the one I wanted.

“You’ll be labeled as a whistle-blower,” a few folks said. “Your career is over.” Well, I’m not a whistle-blower. I saw a number of things going on at DeVry that I wasn’t comfortable with, and I haven’t publicly talked about a single one. Instead, I chose to reject fear and write about the things I loved, the things I will miss. I told my story exactly as it happened to me and let you come to your own conclusions about it. I haven’t characterized DeVry to you here, either, because I’m not afraid of your thoughts, and it would insult your intelligence to suggest that you need me to interpret an event for you.

I do think that there are certain places I could have worked before where I won’t be able to work now (although I’m not sure that they were places where I would have been happy). I think it’s also possible, though, that there will be places I couldn’t have worked before that may take an interest in me now. I have a broad and deep formal skill set, I’m good at a lot of different things, I’m a quick study, I’m doing cool research, I always get warm receptions to my teaching, and people still enjoy working with me. As an employee and as a faculty member, I am not one iota different than I was the day DeVry decided I was enough of a rock star to offer me a department chair position at the tender age of 34–nothing has changed. Furthermore, the folks who have contacted me with their similar doocing experiences have all said similar things to me: Hang in there. The same thing happened to me, and now I’m at a place that is much more open to free thought.

I think I will probably get other jobs, and that they’ll be at places that are a much better fit with my interest in ideas and their free expression. Nobody should be afraid of hiring someone who just had something lousy happen to them and talked about it, particularly someone who continued to maintain confidentiality about everything else after being fired, even as the former employer tried to add insult to injury in an employment forum that is viewed by millions of people every day. In the post-Enron world, a great deal of value has begun to be placed on “telling truth to power.” Well, my powerful friends, truth is more powerful than fear. Fear is the mind-killer; truth sets it free.

Socrates points out that it is better to have injustice done to oneself than to do an injustice to someone else. I agree, and I subsribe to Socrates’ love of ideas and exploration, and fearlessness even in the face of the ultimate retribution. Lucky for me, DeVry can’t make me drink hemlock. Responding to me in a fearful way says a lot more about them than it does about me, and if they are trying to assassinate my character by implication, I leave it in your capable hands to discern the nature of my character. Fear is the mind-killer.