There has been a common thread running through all of the letters The Mac Weekly has published regarding the last month’s tabling of Terry Boychuk’s tenure case. Everyone from Ilya Winham ’03 to German Studies and Russian Professor Linda Shultze-Sasse have labeled the trustees’ decision a grave violation of due process-both in tenure and in sexual harassment. The students who wrote the letter should have gone through the normal grievance channels, they argue, and the trustees shouldn’t have let third-party accusations of sexual harassment stop them from acting on Boychuk’s tenure.

But can Macalester’s procedures really follow due process?

Both procedures-tenure and sexual harassment grievance-are top-secret affairs. No one except for the people directly involved are able to see these processes at work. In the case of sexual harassment, the college argues that this confidentiality is in place to protect the accusers and the accused from public scrutiny; it claims that the secrecy will encourage people to come forward with their complaints. But keeping the process secret has another effect.

Because no one is allowed to know how the process is working, it is free to work in any way the college needs it to. This is as true for tenure decisions as it is for sexual harassment ones.

The concept of due process comes out of the legal system, in which cases are dealt with publicly. We can be assured of due process in these cases, because we, the general public, are free to observe the process at work. Without public oversight, how are we to believe that Macalester is handling all cases in a fair and judicious way?

In a letter to the editor, History Professor Jim Stewart held up Macalester’s internal processes as a beacon, where the same procedures would apply equally to “a coach, a Dean, a member of the clerical staff or a student.” But without public oversight, how can we know this is true? How can we be certain that what Winham called “the best tenure process we have” holds every professor to the same standards once the curtain is drawn around its deliberations? Everyone knows that tenured professors hold a lot more job security than untenured ones. Only royalty have more job security than tenured faculty.

Would these same students and faculty be urging us to trust the system to work in secret if the subject was military tribunals for suspected terrorists? What about any other alleged criminals, for that mattter? Would we call that “due process?”

It seems that, especially for the faculty, Boychuk’s case hits too close to home. Tenure is academia’s most coveted prize, and the thought that it could be snatched from their hands by a band of protestors is too much for them to bear. But they ought to examine their allegiances.

Perhaps the grievance process is kept secret for a reason-perhaps without confidentiality no one would ever come forward with a grievance-but that is not how it is done in the real world. You can call it “the best system we have,” but don’t call it “due process.”