Petition To Reinstate

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Department of Philosophy philosophy@wynd.edu
bcc: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 7, 8:10 a.m.
subject: Petition to Reinstate Professor Gavin Routledge

Dear students, faculty, and staff of the Department of Philosophy:

My name is Miles Holland. I’m a senior philosophy major and a student of Professor Gavin Routledge. For the past year I have also served, in an informal capacity, as his typing assistant – his amanuensis, as he likes to say.

Last week, the Department of Philosophy announced that Dr Routledge had been placed on leave pending the results of an investigation into allegations of misconduct. The announcement did not specify the nature of this misconduct, nor provide much at all in the way of context. I write to you today to provide, insofar as I’m able, some of this missing context, and to urge you to sign my petition to reinstate Dr Routledge to his endowed professorship in the Wynd College Philosophy Department, a position he has held for almost four decades.

Those of us who have been fortunate enough to study under Dr Routledge know how dedicated he is to his role as an educator. As he often joked: The only reason he worked so hard to get tenure was so he could stop doing the things he’d had to do in order to get tenure. Except, of course, for teaching. Dr Routledge’s students know, firsthand, that teaching is his calling. The idea that he would do anything to harm a student, or to risk the vocation he so deeply cherishes, is risible.

While the department has not been forthcoming with details of Dr Routledge’s supposed infractions, an article published last week in The Daily Wynd purports to provide an outline. The article’s author, Isabel Denis, claims her reporting found that Dr Routledge ‘lacks boundaries’ with students and that he often ‘blurs the lines’ between mentorship and friendship, thereby creating an ‘unsafe’ environment for students. Note, if you will, the vagueness of these statements. Misleadingly, the article states that Dr Routledge has a habit of requesting ‘dinner dates’ with his students. If by requesting you mean inviting and if by dinner dates you mean large group dinners in the living room of the home he shares with his wife, Marielle, then: certainly. As someone who has been fortunate enough to attend a number of these dinners, I can assert that they are thoroughly innocuous affairs, motivated by nothing more than Dr Routledge’s desire to get to know his students better, and – in the case of his annual Thanksgiving dinner – to extend a much-appreciated invitation to students who remain on campus during the holiday, including international students or those with less-than-ideal home lives. Speaking for myself, I will say that the first night I spent at the Routledges’ was the first night I felt I truly belonged here at Wynd.

Ms Denis, to her credit, does inform the reader that these ‘dates’ were not one-on-one rendezvous. Nevertheless, she claims that ‘several’ students (a mere two are quoted in the article) were made ‘uncomfortable’ by the invitations, in part because the group context was not immediately evident to them. I would like to posit that this should be considered exculpatory evidence, if anything. It was so overwhelmingly clear to Dr Routledge that his invitations had not the slightest improper undertone, so much so that he failed to imagine anyone might misconstrue them as such. No good deed, in Dr Routledge’s case, goes unpunished.

Ms Denis goes on to suggest that Dr Routledge’s practice of taking on an amanuensis is also, somehow, a problematic practice, rather than what it actually is – an unparalleled mentorship opportunity for undergraduate philosophy majors. Ms Denis quotes Emma Clifford, the sitting president of the Wynd Philosophy Club, who states that ‘Professor Routledge’s habit of hiring unpaid secretaries [sic] is inappropriate.’ The position, she says, was offered to her at the start of her junior year, and she ‘struggled’ with how to politely decline it. ‘If I wasn’t his advisee, I might have felt more empowered to say no right off the bat. I did eventually decline, but the whole thing made me incredibly uncomfortable. He presented it as some kind of apprenticeship, when as far as I could tell, he just wanted someone to type his emails for him.’

I quibble (to put it mildly) with Ms Clifford’s suggestion that the position she was offered was secretarial in nature. Dr Routledge’s practice of taking on an amanuensis is above all an extension of his commitment to teaching. Serving as his amanuensis is akin to undertaking a private, independent study, and I will go as far as to say that I consider my post as amanuensis my true education at Wynd. For a year now, I have typed Dr Routledge’s words, and in a sense, they have become my own. My vocabulary has grown substantially. My grasp of grammar. My ability to employ – deploy, as Dr Routledge likes to say – the subjunctive. (As you may have noticed, Ms Clifford fails to make such a deployment in the above quote, an error she may have avoided had she taken Dr Routledge up on his offer to serve as his amanuensis, or ‘secretary’, as she insists.)

I do not mean to suggest that Dr Routledge receives no benefit from the amanuensis. One of my very first memories of Dr Routledge is of him forming an L with his fingers and pressing it against his forehead. L, he said, abashed, for Luddite. His discomfort with computers practically rises to the level of fright. Yet there were times one might have suspected him of merely putting on a show, pretending to need an amanuensis as part of a pedagogical ruse, knowing, all along, that it was the amanuensis who needed him.

Ms Denis goes on to insinuate that by engaging an amanuensis to type his emails, including emails to students, Dr Routledge violated not only ethical codes of conduct but also student privacy laws, and – melodramatically – labor laws. Whether or not Dr Routledge is in breach of the law is above my pay grade, but I can tell you with certainty that Dr Routledge takes student privacy very seriously. As with every one of his past amanuenses, he impressed upon me the importance of keeping any and all information I learned about other students ‘a state secret’. I believe I have met that standard and then some. But I will allow myself the following breach: I have read, and typed, Dr Routledge’s emails for over a year now. There is, among them, not a trace of impropriety to be found.

I would like to state, for the record, that Dr Routledge did not ask me to send this email, nor ask that I intervene on his behalf in any way. I write to you of my own accord, for the simple reason that I would not be the student, nor the person, I am today, without Professor Gavin Routledge. If you, like me, have been on the receiving end of Dr Routledge’s generosity as an educator, or, if you simply do not wish to stand idly by as a man is sentenced in absentia on our very campus, I call on you to sign my petition, which you may access through this link. The petition calls on President Linsler to reinstate Dr Routledge to his professorship, effective immediately. Another helpful action you can take is to voice your opinion to the Office of the President directly, by emailing president@wynd.edu. Finally, if you would like to pass along a personal message of support to Dr Routledge, you may email him at gavin.routledge@wynd.edu. The university has not (yet) revoked access to his email account, but, in the event that this should happen, you may email me directly and I will ensure the message makes it to him.

Thank you in advance for your much-appreciated support.

Sincerely,

Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
Vice President, Wynd College Philosophy Club
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language. 
– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland <miles.holland@wynd.edu>to: Cole Vinger cole.vinger@wynd.edu
bcc: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 8, 9:01 a.m.
subject: RE: Petition to Reinstate Professor Gavin Routledge

Dear Cole:

I was heartened by your message, which I will be sure to pass along to Dr Routledge the next time I speak with him. (When exactly this will be is somewhat up in the air – I have not heard from him for a little while and my suspicion is that he is – understandably – quite overwhelmed.)

Thank you again for your support.

Sincerely,

Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
Vice President, Wynd College Philosophy Club
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Emma Clifford emma.clifford@wynd.edu
bcc: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 8, 10:05 a.m.
subject: RE: Petition to Reinstate Professor Gavin Routledge

Dear Emma:

I am baffled (and frankly, somewhat hurt) by your email. Reading between the lines – though for the most part, the lines themselves are clear enough – I’m forced to conclude that you have a woefully distorted view of the situation at hand, of Dr Routledge, and of me.

I would think, having known me for as long as you have, you might offer me the benefit of the doubt when it comes to my ‘motives’. It is ironic that you would accuse me of the very cognitive errors of which you yourself are guilty. Yet you won’t find me accusing you of having ‘rose-coloured blinders’ anytime soon. An unwarranted (and mixed) metaphor.

Above all, I am disappointed by what appears to be your total lack of loyalty to Dr Routledge, a professor with whom you have taken almost as many classes as I, and with whom it appeared to me you enjoyed a mentorlike relationship.

Vis-à-vis the club: Consider this email my resignation as Vice President. I would like to thank you, even if you do not wish to thank me, for our working relationship over the past two years. I wish you and the club the best. I thank you, also, for the fact that I now have a fuller understanding of what it means, at a visceral level, to have one’s words and actions misconstrued to such an extreme extent.

Wishing you all the best,

Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
Vice President, Wynd College Philosophy Club
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Emma Clifford emma.clifford@wynd.edu
date: March 8, 10:19 a.m.
subject: RE: RE: Petition to Reinstate Professor Gavin Routledge

P.S.: Lest you be worried: I have now updated my email signature. The good name of the Wynd Philosophy Club will no longer be tainted by mine.

Sincerely,

Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Department of Philosophy philosophy@wynd.edu
bcc: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 13, 8:01 p.m.
subject: Update: Petition to Reinstate Professor Gavin Routledge

Dear students, faculty, and staff of the Department of Philosophy:

First, I would like to express my gratitude to those of you who have signed the petition, and to those of you who have passed along messages of support.

I am writing to kindly ask that you not use the reply-all function if you wish to respond to my email. It is clear to me that such emails are not sent in the spirit of engaging in legitimate debate (something I always welcome, provided my counterpart is acting in good faith), but rather, as transparent bids for peer approval, crude attempts at one-upmanship to see who best can make me the butt of their joke.

Dr Routledge likes to say that correspondence is a lost art, and the past few days’ worth of emails have certainly done nothing to counter that conclusion. (I might argue that his practice of taking on an amanuensis is in part a battle cry against this quietus. He once told me – in jest, lest you yet again misunderstand – that he and I might single-handedly have to keep the art of correspondence alive.)

If you will not heed my words, perhaps you will heed those of Wittgenstein: ‘Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent.’ These words, to which I was exposed thanks to Dr Routledge, left me dumbstruck the first time I read them. I have little hope they will have the same effect of you, but I offer them to you now, for posterity if nothing else.

Sincerely,
Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.
– Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 13, 9:35 p.m.
subject: Checking in

Gavin,

I hope this email finds you well, or, at the very least, that it finds you. I do not know whether you are still able to access this email account. I hope you are, because, as I have realized, I do not have your personal phone number. (Another piece of counterevidence, surely, to this accusation of boundary-blurring.)

I have stopped by your house a couple of times, but it seems it is currently unoccupied. Wise, I’m sure, to lie low at the moment.

I hope to hear from you, of course, but part of me hopes you won’t be subjected to the vitriol that now crowds your inbox.

As for myself, you needn’t worry. I do not mind being the object of hatred and mockery when their roots are so thoroughly irrational. If I must stand alone, so be it. I will stand alone.

I stand, of course, not alone, but alongside you. I take solace in the idea that I’m serving as a lightning rod of sorts, absorbing some of the viciousness that might otherwise make its way to you. While I do not want you to worry in the least, a couple of the emails I have received warrant a brief debrief so that I can be confident my replies do not contain factually inaccurate statements. The last thing you need is for me to become an obstacle, rather than an aid, in your path to reinstatement.

I can imagine that, given the circumstances and the university’s refusal (so far) to re-hire you, you may not currently have much use for an amanuensis. But I’d like to stress, in case there is the slightest doubt in your mind: If you need my assistance, as your amanuensis, or in any other capacity, I stand ready.

I hope you are well, and to hear from you soon. Please give Marielle my best – I imagine this ordeal must have taken quite a toll on her as well.

All my best,

Miles

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 14, 1:34 a.m.
subject: RE: Checking In

P.S.: I meant to mention this in my previous email: There is a rumor (bereft of reliable sources) that you were not terminated, but rather, voluntarily resigned. Would you please confirm that this is not the case? I will do my best to dispel this rumor, and in the service of this quest, it would be helpful if I were able to impart to the rumor-mongers that I heard the truth from the horse’s mouth.

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Ana Eldridge ana.eldridge@wynd.edu
bcc: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 15, 12:33 p.m.
subject: RE: FYI

Dear Ana (if I may),

Thank you for your email. I hope you will forgive me for my delay in responding to you. For one, I wanted to do my due diligence, to ensure, for instance, that I was speaking with an actual member of the student body and not an elaborate extension of the taunting that has come my way in the wake of my initial email. I believe (hopefully not against my better judgment) that you are indeed a student here. I believe, in fact, I met you once, briefly, at last year’s student fair.

There is no way of telling another person you believe they are wrong without sounding as if you simultaneously believe they merit judgment. I hope you will take my forthrightness as a sign not of disrespect, but its opposite. I am not calling you a liar. But I am asking (and I do mean asking, genuinely) myself, whether you may be under a misapprehension about what happened. I say this because the story you are presenting me with has several material inconsistencies with what I know to be true from my years of knowing Dr Routledge.

Most crucially: Dr Routledge, unless he is the world’s best actor, is not capable of using technology in the way you described. Furthermore, as you’re no doubt well-aware, there is nothing stopping anyone from creating a non-university email account under the name Gavin Routledge. My question to you is, therefore: how certain are you, that gavin_r1@gmail.com is an email address belonging to Dr Routledge? Perhaps we should begin with examining this question (I am very happy to assist you with the matter), before proceeding down a line of inquiry that may prove moot.

Sincerely,

Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

 – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin_r1@gmail.com
bcc: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 15, 1:10 p.m.
subject: Cease and Desist

To whom it may concern:

This is to inform you, lest you were unaware, that impersonation is a criminal offense under New Hampshire state law (statute § 438:39) as well as federal law (U.S. Code § 912).

Legal ramifications aside: On the off chance that you have a conscience, you should know that your actions have had profoundly deleterious effects, not only on Dr Routledge, but on the recipient(s) of your emails.

Please consider this a formal cease-and-desist.

Sincerely,

Miles Holland
B.A. with Honors, Philosophy
miles.holland@wynd.edu

Philosophy is a battle against the bewitchment of our intelligence by means of language.

 – Ludwig Wittgenstein, Philosophical Investigations

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 15, 11:14 p.m.
subject: Checking in again

Dear Gavin,

I hope this email finds you well. There is an important matter I would like to discuss, sooner rather than later. I walked past your house a couple of more times since my last email, but it seems you’re still away. Should you need it, my own address is 105 Lind Avenue, Apartment #4. And, as ever, you can reach me via email.

All my best,
Miles

[DRAFT]
from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Ana Eldridge ana.eldridge@wynd.edu
date: March 17, 5:59 p.m.
subject: RE: RE: FYI

Dear Ana,

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Ana Eldridge ana.eldridge@wynd.edu
date: March 18, 9:33 p.m.
subject: RE: RE: FYI

Dear Ana, 

Thank you for your email. Will you forgive me if I spend a few days gathering my thoughts before composing a response?

In the meantime, I would like to extend an apology. It was not at all my intention to be hurtful, but in this case, the intention behind my words and their effect diverged sharply. I have re-read your email, and mine, many times over now. Each round deepened my embarrassment at how clumsily I worded myself. At a certain point, I could no longer believe I had written them. It was as if the me who had written the words was years younger. I don’t mean to imply that somehow, I am writing to you now as someone all that much wiser. Only that now, whenever I re-read my email to you, I feel like I’m reading the email of a stranger. A stranger I’d rather remain a stranger.

I won’t lie to you: I don’t quite know what to make of what you have told me, and I don’t know how to square it with the person I know Dr Routledge to be.

But it’s beside the point. My original email to you was rash, dismissive, and ill-mannered, and I am sincerely sorry.

I will send you a more comprehensive response soon. In the meantime: Mea culpa.

All my best,
Miles

[DRAFT]
from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Ana Eldridge ana.eldridge@wynd.edu
date: March 27, 11:11 p.m.
subject: RE: RE: RE: FYI

Dear Ana,

First, please accept my apologies for the belated response. I

[DRAFT]
from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Ana Eldridge ana.eldridge@wynd.edu
date: March 28, 7:22 p.m.
subject: RE: RE: RE: FYI

Dear Ana,

[DRAFT]
from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 28, 8:07 p.m.
subject: (no subject)

Dear Gavin,

I’m hoping I may have a chance to speak with you, sooner rather than

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 29, 9:38 a.m.
subject: Checking in again

Dear Gavin,

If you are getting these emails, would you please let me know?

All my best,
Miles

[DRAFT]
from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 30, 7:17 p.m.
subject: (no subject)

Dear Gavin,

I am somewhat

[DRAFT]
from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: March 31, 2:10 a.m.
subject: (no subject)

Dear

from: Miles Holland miles.holland@wynd.edu
to: Gavin Routledge gavin.routledge@wynd.edu
date: June 16, 1:37 p.m.
subject: (no subject)

Dear Gavin,

The other day, I thought I saw you at the library. But the man I confused for you didn’t resemble you much at all. They never do, when they turn around, the men I think are you.

I graduated. It’s strange – this is my first summer that isn’t a gap between school years. ‘It’s all gap from now on,’ my grandfather says. That, and: ‘I hear they’re opening a philosophy factory in town, better start working on your cover letter.’ He means well. I’m staying with him for the summer, doing some work on his roof while I look for a job.

My grandfather lives by a lake. Clean enough to swim in, more or less. I like to go in the morning. I set my alarm for dawn and bike down just as the sun rises. The water is cold but I don’t mind. Afterward, I lie on the pier in the sun for a while, drying off. I let my mind drift. Sometimes I imagine where you may be in that same moment, what you may be doing. You once mentioned you’re an early riser.

It struck me, today, I don’t even know whether you’re still in the state. The thought was disorienting. My life seems so clearly divided into two parts that have nothing to do with the other: before and after my first class with you. When I walked out of your lecture hall I felt, at a fundamental level, my life was about to change. That it had already begun to: I was already someone else, becoming yet someone else. I remember I slept so long that night – ten, eleven hours. I remember a kind of marveling. There was a way to know – know what that world was, know what it meant to be in it, know what it meant to know those things.

I’m my only interlocutor now. This morning, at the pier, I went back and forth in my head, one self cross-examining another. Little came of it. A sunburn.

There are terns at the lake. Sometimes, when I’m swimming, I imagine what I must look like to them. Who is that? What is he doing? Where is he going. Why.

I know that you know what I mean.