APOLOGIA

{.2.

مرحح

by Eric Cashen

I do not deny the scurrilous rumors that have been passed around these parts the last few weeks; it is not worth my while to do so. I will attempt to defend myself not through refutation but by bringing to bear contrary evidence which will prove to clear me. Often when sitting in judgment on faculty boards I have observed (not blameless) the lack of tolerance of reviewers and the initiate guilt of the defense.

I have been severely charged with something called "repressed homosexuality." The supposed incident took place in an art studio during a legitimate conference with a not-nearly-as-legitimate a student. The boy in question is wronged. He has grappled with Plato and come up with Oscar Wilde.

I teach art at this college, like some of the rest of you, for reasons going above and beyond monetary reward, academic award, or personal satisfaction. I head a department. I do executive work, for which I am ill-fitted if not illtrained. My real life here is four-parted: teacher, student, citizen, and husband. I am not too good at any of this. Only the student manages to survive. Back to cases, Hard facts. Slander.

To tell me in one breath as the president did "that I am a teacher beyond reproach," and then to charge me with this thing is mere fallaciousness. How can I be a teacher beyond reproach and a homosexual criminal? I was conferring with a student when I supposedly made an attack upon him.

I did not approach him; I made an attack upon him. I am five-foot-eteven, weigh 187 pounds, and am toward sixty years old. This boy stands at least six feet and an inch, weighs easily 180 pounds, and is noted for intramural wrestling. I do not think I succeeded in making this attack.

He claims before you, before the president, to have been outraged by my behavior. I may have been teaching him something, I don't know. We were studying da Vinci's drawings. He had made several pale casts on artist's paper, copied from the original. I was trying to show him what was wrong with his drawings. Leonardo knew a great deal more about art and men than I pretend to. He should be here. I could have used, if not him, Wilde and Tchaikowsky in my mass assault. He would have smiled. He is above our incarnations of perverted devils.

one