Thread:Una74/@comment-71.58.210.121-20171010133156/@comment-71.58.210.121-20171018202700

Another consideration for the moderators: some recent commenters on the Venting page seem very upset that in 2012, I treated Historiann (Professor Ann Little of Colorado State University) differently from “Freeh-dom” in an Inside Higher Ed comment thread in 2017. They surmise that I did so because Historiann is a professor and “Freeh-dom” (allegedly) is not. This is nonsense. Historiann asked me, in response to my essay on resigning the Paterno Chair at Penn State, why I resigned (she missed the passage in which I say precisely why). Whereas “Freeh-dom” accused me of being an apologist for criminals (Spanier, Curley, Schultz) who did not go to the police in 2001 when they had a credible report that Jerry Sandusky had sexually assaulted a child. That’s a wholly different speech act from Historiann’s. That’s not even apples and oranges– that’s apples and chainsaws. “Freeh-dom” (one of many nyms, btw) is simply a liar and a slanderer. That's why I replied dismissively to him/her. And once again, the idea that I somehow can divine the academic employment status of pseudonymous IHE trolls is just all kinds of bonkers. As is the idea that Joe Paterno himself would have consulted me about a sexual assault that happened before I came to Penn State. – Michael Berube