The university show trials: what have I done?

I thought about my colleagues, the small college team I worked with every day. We were friends. We sometimes dined together. We would have walked across campus together after a hearing. It had honestly never occurred to me how that would look to an outsider desperately seeking a fair hearing for her son. In her eyes, the fix had been in. She told me what college her son had been expelled from. I knew some of those people. I knew my counterpart there, knew him to be a highly regarded senior student-affairs professional. I offered no defense, however, because I had none.

The inquisitors can console themselves with the thought that they meant well.