The threat is revealed in this copy of a letter below, a response to the Chair of the Department of Film and Media Studies, Jay Roman, who was a messenger for the threat.
April 7
Jay,
This is a response to your November 11 letter. It shouldn’t be confused with that request you repeated at the November 7 meeting for me to contact Hunter Attorney Sandra Nunez. In this April 7 message to you, I address the saber rattling about “disciplinary action.”
The following action would much better serve the truth because it would be nonpartisan, impartial and independent as well as free of the department’s rank nepotism and cronyism and any Administration imprudence, and it would be transparent. Hunter is accountable to certain city, state and federal agencies. An investigation by such an agency, besides the benefits described, could require statements given under oath.
[Note: Regarding Hunter Attorney Sandra Nunez who emailed me April 10, Monday; see below. I have no idea what she means.
RE: Response to November 11 Letter
Sandra Mary Nunez
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2017 3:40 PM
To: Greggory w Morris
No. I did not.Sandra M. Nunez
Office of Legal Affairs
Associate Attorney/Deputy Labor Designee
Telephone: 212 -772- 4098From: Greggory w Morris
Sent: Friday, April 7, 2017 11:28 PM
To: James Roman
Subject: Response to November 11 Letter
April 7
Jay,This is a response to your November 11 letter. It shouldn’t be confused with that request you repeated at the November 7 meeting for me to contact Hunter Attorney Sandra Nunez. In this April 7 message to you, I address the saber rattling about “disciplinary action.”
The following action would much better serve the truth because it would be nonpartisan, impartial and independent as well as free of the department’s rank nepotism and cronyism and any Administration imprudence, and it would be transparent. Hunter is accountable to certain city, state and federal agencies. An investigation by such an agency, besides the benefits described, could require statements given under oath.The rest is in the attachment.
G Morris]
Also, regarding this latest attempt at censorship, you were dismissive in the November 7 meeting about the history of the conflict in the department, and you also said that the Administration would be dismissive of the history as well. An independent investigation wouldn’t be dismissive of information providing motive and context and that would be illuminating about such things as the cock-and-bull nonsense about predacious Colleagues being allegedly disparaged.
An independent investigation would also address the retaliation against me (reflected in my teaching schedule) as well as that circus caused by that student complaint filed originally by three students, two who flunked an important assignment and one who didn’t do the assignment. Telling flunking students to tape my class and also telling them that the department wants to get rid of me are characteristic of the sleaze as well as the bovinity that rules in this department. Bovinity? Who would be stupid enough to employ students who couldn’t satisfactorily complete a basic assignment to become agents of a surreptitious mission to attack a Colleague?
The Dean said you were responsible for my teaching schedule, you said the Dean didn’t tell the truth and that the Administration was responsible. An independent investigation can get around the deceit and subterfuge.
There is a clear accounts of Colleagues pursuing censorship that threatens Free Speech, First Amendment Rights and Academic Freedom. The Administration also has a record. And it seems another scandal or another round of scandals are in the making.
You, Colleagues and the Administration have a lot to hide. I don’t.
Part 1: RE: Larry Shore, Ivone Margulies, Peter Jackson, Kelly Anderson and her business partner, Tami Gold, Joseph McElhaney, Shanti Thakur, Robert Stanley, Erstwhile Colleague Billie D. Herman, Et.Al. Part 2 will pick up where Part 1 leaves off.
First Paragraph of Your November 11 Letter to Me That Starts “The purpose of this letter is to memorialize our meeting of Monday November 7th, 2016.”
The following is untrue. During that meeting, we discussed the fact that a department colleague reported that you persist in posting derogatory communications to and about him and his work at Hunter College on your Hunter related blog. You made a statement about you, Hunter Legal, and Colleagues being upset about alleged action against Colleague Larry Shore. And that was it. There was no discussion. No details. Colleague Larry Shore, nevertheless, is discussed below.
Poppycock: There are concerns that this is interfering with this[sic] right to pursue his teaching profession in an environment free from harassment, threats and intimidation. We also discussed the fact that other colleagues have reported similar interactions with you over the years and that these concerns were expressed to you. You didn’t describe “this” alleged interference. There hasn’t been any interference on my part about his teaching. I certainly haven’t intruded into his classroom nor his office as Colleagues and staff have intruded on mine. I certainly haven’t participated in any nefarious grade appeal perversions as he has when he was an one-semester chair of a grades appeal committee. I certainly haven’t recruited students or contacted alumni to dig up dirt on him nor to harass him nor disrupt his teaching. D:F/M has never been an environment free of harassment, threats and intimidation as long as I’ve been here.
I am sure an investigation by an outside agency would address all “this.”
Colleagues have been acting like hooligans and barbarians for years and laying claim to sainthood. I’ve been complaining for years and filing complaints in several College channels, writing memos, talking to administrators and bureaucrats about transgressions that include invasions of my office and classroom and the results were more transgressions by Colleagues. All you and the Administration want to do is to try and cover up the sleaze as you create more.
This message to you includes a brief description of a conversation with the former Provost who referred specifically to you in regards to the Coach Academic Freedom Scandal* and about the internecine conflict in the department. You trivialize my legitimate complaints, confer legitimacy on Colleague Larry Shore’s absurd allegations in a complaint with Public Safety as well as alleged allegations, vague and incoherent, of predacious Colleagues allegedly being disparaged.
Regarding your comment about memorializing the November 7 meeting, veracious memorialization would identify the subterfuge, artifice and outright deceit your were indulging in at the November 7 meeting and that you repeat with gusto in your November 11 letter. Your account of what was discussed is so far removed from reality (and veracity, needless to say) that it’s beyond the pale. The allegations and statements, purposefully vague and ambiguous and deliberately misleading, add to the maliciousness and profaneness of the letter.
Are you, a designated messenger, ready to make those same statements and comments under oath?
Recall:
– That you were the one who sabotaged this Colleague’s application for an emergency salary increase during a period of financial desperation – typical of the malicious spite you indulge in and that got you in trouble when you summoned Public Safety to remove a staff member from a department meeting. Also, it was the Provost who granted me the emergency increase despite your attempt to block it for spite.
– You and that hellacious former assistant dean violated the contract with the Ford Foundation for my multimedia ethnic journalism project signed by Hunter and CUNY but sundered out of spite. It happened during that period with all that whining at department meetings about a lack of funding support for the department. I regret following the Provost’s wish not to make this an issue, I should have contacted CUNY Legal forthwith. All the comments about protecting the image of the College are really about covering up bonehead decisions repeatedly made as well as reducing if not hiding the accountability of the decision makers.
Regarding the comment about the hellacious former assistant dean: She was the one who emailed you and copied me that she was ready to come to a department meeting to tell everyone that I was on drugs. She was targeting my efforts to try to protect my Ford grant.
– A special writing project I was developing for students was ripped off by you and one of your buddies so that the two of you could pitch it to a magazine for personal gain. A lot of that ripping off and attempts at ripping off by Colleagues and staff of my projects took place in this department.
– Your creepy behavior at department meetings; you’re obviously believe that this can’t be substantiated. Your pretentiousness and affectations in the November 7 meeting, not described in the letter, supposedly portraying you as impartial and neutral and just bearing messages for the Administration, not you as an active instigator as well as an exhorter, were absurd. Your comments about Arnold Gibbons and Mr. Bernard Stein were telling. The Duh Defense won’t work well in an independent investigation but I won’t be surprised if you give it your best.
More poppycock from the November 7 letter. We also discussed the fact that other colleagues have reported similar interactions with you over the years and that these concerns were expressed to you. Colleagues did not like the written complaints and memos and the exposés on Hunter-L about such things, for example, as Public Safety summoned to a department meeting to remove a staff member about to reveal the bad news about the consequences of porn sites on the department servers and the ending of Hunter IT service for the department. Colleagues also engaged in retaliations, which are clearly noted and documented, and you and the Administration believe you can spin the disgruntlement into allegations to be used against me? And, again, there was no discussion, just you making a statement lacking one iota of truth.
There has been a lengthy period with Colleagues and staff actively invading my classroom and offices, insulting my students, insulting me and engaging in other reprehensible behavior, such as using the grading and grade appeal procedures to undermine my teaching and classrooms. Whether you and Colleagues and the Administration will be able to make this pig swill look kosher remains to be seen.
Regarding Colleague Larry Shore. Colleague Shore filed a complaint with Public Safety which passed it on to Dean John Rose. Colleague Shore’s allegations in his Public Safety complaint were typically loony, misleading and, of course, prevaricating. One in particular stands out: He wrote that he was upset that I wouldn’t let him post on my blog – an absolute lie and absolutely absurd. You and others are trying to spin this poppycock and ludicrousness and swill into allegations for disciplinary action? The findings of an independent investigation could become a source of major embarrassment.
Regarding Colleague Larry Shore again. Colleague Shore has been on the attack in forums and venues public and otherwise, as well as in the byways and passageways of this campus, for years. Colleague Shore has sent me, and still does, unsolicited loopy, insulting and vulgar emails. He was asked to stop long, long ago. He didn’t, of course. He appointed himself D:F/M’s Cerberus regarding complaints and public criticisms, exposures and exposés of the department and he resorted to prevaricating whenever his imagination and intellect fell short. His responses are logged in several archives.
I especially recall his brief tenure as chair of the department’s grade appeals committee and the academic sleaze – I do not use that word lightly – that resulted from that committee giving Former Student Gulnick credit to pass a course that she had flunked for cheating. That department decision was unanimously rejected by the Senate Grade Appeals Committee. Erstwhile Colleague Peter Paris was on that committee. Do you recall what you said at that Christmas party about Peter’s actions?
Colleague Larry Shore wrote in the decision that I should be investigated for flunking the student and he clumsily worked in disingenuous and insulting innuendos. It’s too late to try and conceal what he and the committee members Bob Stanley and Mr. Bernard Stein did but I have no doubt you and others will do your best to make the swill look pretty. For posterity, taking a cue from Mr. Stein’s jab at me about a course I taught, I labeled that grade appeals committee the Four Barnacles of the Apocalypse. Guess who was the Fourth Barnacle?
I regard Colleague Larry Shore as a key corroborator of my accounts about things vulgar and, academically speaking, depraved and debauched in this department whether he (and you) acknowledge it or not. He was the one at a department meeting who stated that the department’s image on this campus was poor. It was during that period of discussions about the department being shunned by the campus and that departments in other areas of campus were being encouraged to start media curriculum because this department dropped the ball as being the College’s go-to department for media.
Colleague Larry Shore has himself created a virtual walking, talking, prevaricating paper trail. Which Is why I’ve published some of his unsolicited emails – and have told him on more than one occasionally, sardonically speaking, of course, to keep up the good work.
One of his gems involves his prevaricating comments and statements about the former relationship between the department and the Center for Communication, Inc. An arrangement that I started and made fruitful until it was sabotaged.
Regarding Former Student Gulnick’s F. I must recall Student Gulnick’s compadre-in-arms, her tag-team buddy for insolence, Former Student Benitez, who “shit-fucked” the same class for several minutes because she didn’t want to do assignments. She shouted your name during her exit from class to elude Public Safety, “shit-fucking” all the way.
Insolent students cheating and disrupting class and shouting your name as a resource for help as they fled the scenes of their misdeeds should have raised suspicions. Based on written statements as well as accounts (Dean Escott, the Ombuds Officer at the time and Joelle), extraordinary largesse was bestowed on those two to shield them from the consequences of their actions. There have been other occasions and some much more recent of extraordinary largesse for rogue students.
Regarding Colleagues you alleged who have been “disparage.” Would any of the allegedly aggrieved Colleagues, not identified in the November 7 meeting and the November 11 letter, include the Film Colleague who sashayed into my reporting class one day, strutted around like a peacock in heat and eye-fucked one of my female students? Vanessa and I had a discussion about that incident. You remember Vanessa, right? She was an eyewitness to that debauchery. You and Dean Rose were highlighted in one of her news blogs.
Would any of these other allegedly aggrieved, conspicuously unidentified Colleagues be:
– The ones who served on those grade appeal committees whose decisions were summarily reversed by the Senate? I wrote numerous emails about these situations. I am more than willing to talk about that under oath. Are you?
– Who came to Room 470 HN door shouting at me when my class was in session?
– Intruded into my office and other classes and insulted my students, especially females students?
– Tried to provoke altercations?
– Did provoke altercations?
– Sent students into my class to secretly tape me? This one is as obscene as those Colleagues collaborating with SLAM about my WORD project.
– Violated the rules of the student complaint system.
– Followed me down a Hunter hallway, shouting insanely after a department meeting because she came up on the short end of an argument that she provoked?
– Active participants in the orchestration of that student complaint about my journalism ethics class.
There is lots that I’m leaving out here, I’m just providing the tips of the icebergs. The reason should be obvious.
The more recent meeting with you, February 21, especially keeping in mind your comments and reference to the Dean’s lack of veracity and the role of “the Hunter Administration” regarding, among other things, my status as the only professor in department history not allowed to schedule his classes, was more forthcoming. You said at the meeting you would deny everything that you revealed to me in the meeting. It’s easy to do that when one is not compelled to speak under oath.
I talk to the Dean and he says one thing and, or, contradicts you. I talk to you and you do the same. You both shuddered when I inquired about President Raab’s role in all this. “You don’t want to go there,” you said at the November 7 meeting. I won’t describe here how the Dean responded to my question about the “Administration’s” complicity in Billie D. Herman’s mission to dig up dirt to be passed on to “the Hunter Administration.”
Don’t want to go there? We are there.
Regarding the November 7 meeting, I told you about Peter Jackson still trying to disrupt my class and members of his student staff doing likewise and about Ivone Margulies and her whack-o intrusions into my office. You were nonchalant and blazé about the accounts. There is no reference in you letter about their behavior.
You were equally blasé when I said you were a prime instigator, one of the main reasons over many years that I’ve filed complaints with the Ombuds office and the Senate and wrote posts on Hunter-L and other forums about the aberrant going-ons in the department. I write “aberrant” but maybe aberrant is the norm in this department. You said nothing in the meeting or in the letter about the complaints that I’ve filed regarding this department over the years. This attempt at censoring you believe you can impose on me about how I am suppose to communicate with my Colleagues is pure poppycock. I’ve been communicating my concerns for years.
Ivone Margulies – sashays into my office, and parks her ass on the desk nearest the door and has this goofy look on her face. More than once.
Peter Jackson – last semester walked in on one of my Room 470 classes, says in a loud voice that he has to escort one of his student staff into my class because the student assistant was in a state of fear because of my reputation. This semester, one of his student staff rushes into Room 503, creates a distraction, saying loudly, “Peter says I have to use a computer to … .” I’ve had two more intrusions this semester.
Colleagues usually ready to fall on their swords, sabers, pickaxes for a cover-up will have no problem doing the same for Peter Jackson, yes? One of his student staff – awhile back – rushed into my classroom with a video recorder in hand, shouting that he was on a mission from Jackson.
For the record: I did have a meeting a while back with the former Provost about you as well as the conflict in the department. In my most recent dialogue with her, in her new position as CUNY University Provost, she commented: “We have known each other for quite some time, and I was delighted in my new position to be reminded of your enduring commitments — to students, to great journalism, and to causes that matter in the workplace.”
Why am I citing this? You’ll know when the times comes, if it isn’t already obvious.
Erstwhile Colleague Billie Herman wrote in emails that he was trolling for students enrolled in my classes as well as for former students who could provide him with dirt on me to be turned over to you and erstwhile staffer Tina Turner to be delivered to “the Hunter administration.” He crowed about his role. His emails corroborate the obvious, that Colleagues, and “the Hunter Administration” are and have been diligently trying to undermine my classroom and role in this department.
Colleagues have been using and manipulating students to participate in their harassment campaigns for years. This kind of behavior occurs in other departments and other campuses but not in the extraordinary manner that occurs in this department.
Former grad student George Lawson comes to mind. You remember him, right? Remember former Senate Chair Richard Stapleton’s comments about that matter? He flunked my grad class (stopped attending class after a few weeks and didn’t turn in any assignments) and was given a passing grade that he didn’t deserve. It is clear that that most recent student complaint against this Colleague – the only one ever filed in this department – was an orchestrated attack. Two students flunk an assignment and another doesn’t even do the assignment and they are told to file a complaint and recruit others? Absolutely obscene – as well as bovine.
There is a clear record – the Administration chooses to ignore it or pretends it doesn’t exist – of Colleagues using grading and grade appeals as well as the CUNY Violence in the Workplace Policy in their ongoing altercations that started years ago after Colleagues failed to intimidate this Colleague into surrendering control of the WORD to a collaborative effort of Colleagues and thugs in the Student Liberation Action Movement known as SLAM.
Shortly after a Colleague a while back provided a copy of one of my department memos to Dean Rose when he was still in his Acting Capacity, Rose contacted me. The Colleague provided the email with the anticipation that I would somehow get in trouble. Instead, Rose insisted that I participate in an investigation of several Colleagues for alleged inappropriate behavior with students. He wanted the identities. He wanted accounts. And he decided I was to be the one, so to speak, to drop the dimes.
I did meet with Rose about another matter in another meeting and was told in the course of the conversation that I should put up with the Insulting behavior of my Chair. I thought his rationale at the time was loony, in a vein similar to those after-midnight, unsolicited emails coming from Colleague Shore. I met with him for support or at least insight about how to deal with the increasing harassment I was experiencing. Of course, when Rose became Appointed and was no longer Acting, and I was hit with that phony Violence in the Workplace Complaint (after that faculty meeting when you beseeched me twice to hit you), it was clear that I was in a hazardous situation because of the role of the Administration.
And there was this subsequent attempt by the department to cover up Tami Gold’s behavior after that meeting where you blamed Joelle and me for the flap over the cancellation of the Clemente Soto Velez screening that he and his students worked so hard on. I wrote Rose about Tami’s behavior. I had been in touch with Rose about her jihad against Joe.
Larry Shore’s loony allegation in his complaint with Public Safety, the sending of students into my class to tape me as well as recruit others to join in a complaint, the fabricating of department minutes for years, the ongoing invasion of my classes and office and so many more perversions of Academy traditions and customs that I’m not identifying in this reply – you really believe you can make all the prevaricating look respectable?
I don’t engage in misconduct, I’ve been fending off misconduct for years. Colleagues believe they won’t or can’t be held accountable for their perversions. The cavalier way that Colleagues lie, cheat, scheme, all the while trying to cover up with more lying, cheating and scheming has to expose them to more derision and ridicule and accountability for their actions than any blog I could ever write on this planet.
An investigation by an independent outside agency at the very least could shine a light on the Augean Stables in this department.
GM
P.S. As Chair, you might do something about Colleague who likes to bump, rub up against me, obviously to provoke an incident. This is the same Colleague who has engaged in weird behavior at department meetings, such as his behavior reminiscent of that scene from the Exorcist with Regan, played by Linda Blair: Regan’s head, with a hideous and menacing SEG, spins and spins, spewing contempt. Maybe you could do something before the Colleague ends up on YouTube and his name in a harassment complaint filed with NYPD.
Also, I originally declined your request for an opinion about Sissell McCarthy and about her plans for internships. I might change my mind on this one.
End Part 1
Below is the text of Department Chair Jay Roman’s November 11 Letter
November 11th, 2016
Professor Gregg Morris
Hunter College Film and Media Studies Department
695 Park Avenue
New York, N.Y. 10065
Dear Professor Morris,The purpose of this letter is to memorialize our meeting of Monday November 7th, 2016. During that meeting, we discussed the fact that a department colleague reported that you persist in posting derogatory communications to and about him and his work at Hunter College on your Hunter related blog. There are concerns that this is interfering with this right to pursue his teaching profession in an environment free from harassment, threats and intimidation. We also discussed the fact that other colleagues have reported similar interactions with you over the years and that these concerns were expressed to you.
As we discussed, in accordance with City University of New York policy, all members of the University community are expected to maintain a working and learning environment free from violence, threats of harassment, intimidation, or coercion. You are expected to communicate with your colleagues at Hunter College in a civil, collegial and professional manner.
My guidance to you is that it is imperative that you treat your colleagues and co-workers with civility and respect. If you have any issue with one of your colleagues in the department, I ask that you raise your concerns with that colleague directly, or with me, before you disparage your colleague on your Hunter related blog. I am willing to discuss these concerns with you and whoever you have an issue with in the department in order to resolve any problem in a civil and courteous manner. If the College receives any additional complaints about any of these issues, and, after appropriate investigation, determines that you have engaged in misconduct that is subject to discipline, the college will be forced to proffer disciplinary charges against you. If you have any questions about these matters, or any other issue at Hunter College, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thank you.
Sincerely,
J. Roman
Professor & Chair
Note to readers: This copy received additional proofing after minor typos were found. Also, there was an April 14 update marked with this * about the Coach-Hunter College Academic Scandal; head line of Adweek article is,
“Report: Hunter College Probe Slams Coach-Sponsored PR Class”
Tags: Academic Bullying, Andrew J Polsky New York State Assembly, Andrew Lund, Arnold Gibbons, Bernard Stein, Bill Williams, Billy d Herman, campus bullying, Christa Davis Acampora, Eija Ayravainen, Faculty Delegate Assembly, FDA, Greggory w Morris, Gustavo Mercado, Harold Newman Dean of the School of Arts & Sciences, Hunter College, HUnter College Faculty Delegate Assembly, Hunter College FDA President, Hunter College Ombuds Office, Hunter College Ombudsman, Hunter College Senate, Hunter College Senate Chair, Isabel c Pinedo, Ivone Margulies, James B. Milliken, James Roman, Jennifer Raab, Joe McElhaney, Joel Zuker, John Wallach, Karen Hunter, Kelly Anderson, Larry Shore, LumpenGoombah, LumpenGoombahAwards, Martin Lucas, Mick Hurbis-Cherrier, New York Healthy Workplace Advocates, New York State Senate, Peter Jackson, Peter Parisi, Professional Staff Congress, PSC, Ricardo Miranda, Robert Stanley, S3863/A4965 – The NYS Healthy Workplace Bill, Shanti k Thakur, Sissel McCarthy, Sissell McCarthy, Steve Gorelick, Stuart Ewen, Tami Gold, The Peter Jackson Who Signed the Moveon.org Petition, Thomas DeGloma, Timothy Portlock, Tony Doyle, Vita C. Rabinowitz, workplace bullying