Poison Pen Poetry

So, the new winner of one of the most prestigious positions in poetry is stepping down.

The new University of Oxford’s Professor of Poetry Ruth Padel is resigning after it came to light that she was behind the smears and accusations against Derek Walcott who was favourite to take the position.

However, he withdraw after several allegations were passed to academics detailing sexual harassment claims made by a student over 20 years ago.

Story Here

So, was she right to pass the allegations around and is she right to step down?

From the article.

Quote:

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“I did not engage in a smear campaign against him but, as a result of student concern, I naively — and with hindsight unwisely — passed on to two journalists, whom I believed to be covering the whole election responsibly, information that was already in the public domain.”

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I wonder how that went down then? Were they discussing poetic merits and such when she suddenly had the urge to remind them of her opponent's sexual misdemeanor 20 years previously?

So much for the sensitivity of poets!

She passed on anonymous allegations - evidently unproven - that are 27 years old? There is no good defense of that, despite her heroic effort to make her behavior sound rational.

I'm certainly opposed to sexual harassment, but this is ridiculous. We don't know if he was even guilty. Even if he was, (a) times were different then, perhaps we shouldn't judge him by the standards of today; and (b) I'd say the "statute of limitations" has passed on that one. If he's really a heel, find something unseemly he did in the last 12 months, and present proof.

She has no class, and she is right to step down.

Minor hijack: As it happens, I myself was at the same school Derek Walcott was at 27 years ago, and took a graduate economics course in which I performed modestly but adequately - I received a B. A few months after I graduated, that very professor was accused of trying to trade grades for sexual favors. Huh. He never asked ME if I wanted to, ahh, improve my performance in his class. To this day I don't know whether to be relieved or insulted that he never approached me. It's not like there were a lot of females studying economics in those days, after all.