Reflections on the Barrows saga

Last Friday, the University of Wisconsin's Academic Staff Appeals Committee ruled in favor of Paul Barrows. After a two-day hearing earlier that week, this came as little surprise. But suffice it say, the whole vindication of the former UW Vice Chancellor has rocked many on campus – myself included – who once saw the matter as being rather clear cut in the other direction.

As I noted in a Thursday column:

[O]ver the course of Monday and Tuesday while the hearing proceeded, a strange factoid seemed to slowly come to the surface as Louis Brandeis’ famed prescription of sunshine was properly applied: We had almost all been deceived.

In the end, the Barrows saga proved to have no true winners. The Chancellor was scorned in September for his part in providing paid sick leave, Susan Steingass' ethos have taken a hit with revelations that her report valued questionable characters over due process, LuoLuo Hong looks like a malicious manipulator with no regard for justice and Barrows himself remains scarred by the public disclosure of his questionable private behavior.

Indeed, this is a sad time for UW. And many, including myself, must now admit to having been largely wrong. That is a weight I carry with no small amount of humility.

In the end, there truly were no winner in this story.