No exit

Daniel Klaidman made a naïve comment about special prosecutor Kenneth Starr in Newsweek (April 12). I assure you this is not a column about Starr; I don't do politics on this page. It's about Klaidman's assumptions, evident in this comment: "Starr would like to return to the comforts of a prestigious law firm or the tranquillity of academia."

Let's investigate that scene of tranquillity. Though I was able to escape factionalism and fighting for the third of a century that I taught the University of Chicago Divinity School (it really was as encouraging to teaching and learning and as distanced from feuding and fussing as I recall it), clips from the Chronicle of Higher Education and other magazines prove that campuses are sometimes more like ivory turrets than ivory towers.

Here's a sample from two weeks' worth of magazines piled on my desk. A cartoon shows an alligator walking past a sign: "Carnivore University." Headlines: "Accreditation of On-Line University Draws Fire." "MIT Acknowledges Bias Against Female Faculty Members." "2 Held Hostage at Seattle College." "Student Wounded at Modesto College." "University Lecturers Demand Unionization." "At Stanford, a Neighborhood Feud Over 'Infill Housing.'" "N.Y. Governor's Proposed Cuts for Higher Education Draw Fire from All Sides." "The War Against the Faculty." "Animal-Rights Group Ransacks Minnesota Labs." "Leaders of California State U. Faculty Union Vote to Authorize a Strike." "Michigan State Rioters Face Punishment." "Taming the Rampant Incivility in Academe."