University of Virginia Library

Bureaucratic Nonsense At Student Affairs

Unfortunate it is that a
university, by definition if
nothing else, must contain
students. For as anyone in the
Office of Student Affairs will
testify, their bureaucratic
machinery (read: computers),
which seem to control both the
input and the outflow of that
Office would function much
more smoothly if they were
not continually required to
scrape dissidents out of the
circuits.

The following exchange of
letters between Robert
Canevari, Dean of Students,
and Alex Bell, Secretary, Order
of the Coif, an honorary
society comprising the top 10
per cent of the graduating Law
School class, illustrates well the
lack of rational communication
between the Office of Student
Affairs and those subject to it.
"And," as Mr Bell notes, "he
[Mr. Canevari] asks why
students rail - indeed,
sometimes riot - against
administrative insensitivity!"

* * *

At the request of the
Committee on Calendar and
Scheduling, I am writing to
you concerning the possibility
of sexual discrimination within
your organization.

According to Baird's Manual
of American College
Fraternities, 18th Edition,
your group is listed as one that
does discriminate.

I am aware of some changes
within the groups; however I
would like to request that if
your group has changed since

1968, the Committee on
Calendar and Scheduling would
like to receive notification as
soon as possible.

If you have any questions
concerning this, please feel free
to call on me.

* * *

No, Mr. Canevari, our group
has not changed its sex
discrimination policy since
1968; moreover, we never
intend to do so.

As Mr. Charles Majors has
told you personally twice
within the last three weeks,
after making inquiry of me on
behalf of your committee, the
Order of the Coif does not and
has never discriminated on the
basis of sex. Indeed, even if Mr.
Majors had not expressly told
you we did not discriminate,
that fact should have been
obvious to you from the most
cursory perusal of the list of
Coif members in (1) The Finals
Program going back as far as
1923; (2) The University of
Virginia Law School Record
for half of the years since
1944; and, indeed, (3) The
Founder's Day Exercises
Program, prepared by your
office, for every year (except
1970) since 1967. I would have
thought that before sending me
your letter you would have
read these official University
publications as carefully and
given them as much weight as
you have Baird's Manual of
American College Fraternities.

Since I take the matter of
sex discrimination at least as
seriously as you, and, I suspect,
a goodly number of other
members of the University
community, I consider the
allegation repeated in the
second paragraph of your
inquiry libellous. As soon as
possible, therefore, I expect
you to send a letter to any
person or group you or others
on your committee have told
about your inquiry to me,
retracting the falsehood you
have knowingly, or at best,
recklessly, disseminated about
the Coif. I would appreciate
copies of the letters for our
records.

If you have any questions
concerning this, please feel free
to call on me.

* * *

I am writing to acknowledge
receipt of your letter of March
3, 1972, in which you
responded to my previous
letter regarding possible sexual
discrimination in your
organization.

Thank you very much for
your prompt attention to this
matter.

* * *

A week ago you sent me a
"have-you-stopped
beating-your-wife" form of
"inquiry" about sexual
discrimination in the Order of
the Coif. That you sent an
inquiry in that form was
offensive enough; but that you
sent it to me in the face of
personal knowledge that the
Coif did not discriminate—a
fact corroborated by
University records (some of
them compiled by your office)
going back as far as 1923—was
outrageous.

In my reply to your inquiry,
I demanded that you retract
your defamatory repetition of
an assertion in an obscure tone
that the Coif discriminates.

Today I received to your
"acknowledgement" of my
reply, thanking me for my
"prompt attention to this
matter." Rather than write you
a letter speculating on the
reasons for the breathtakingly
unresponsive nature of your
acknowledgement—none of
them, I am afraid, very
flattering to your or your
office—I have decided to share
our correspondence with The
Cavalier Daily (there being no
campus humor magazine) so
that all of the members of the
University community might
enjoy this example of an
"open-door dialogue."

* * *

I think you'll find this
exchange interesting grist for a
short column in the letters to
the editor section.