Vol. 85: Penn’s silence, and mine

A great dean’s flawed legacy

         In 2017, after dozens of women accused the celebrated movie producer Harvey Weinstein of sexual harassment, his colleague Quentin Tarantino— who had directed nine films with Weinstein— acknowledged that he had been aware of Weinstein’s predatory behavior to some degree but had said nothing.

         “I heard the same stories that everybody had heard,” Tarantino told Chris Wallace on CNN. “What I wish I had done was talk to Harvey about it and say, ‘Harvey, you can’t do this’.”

         I’ve been suffering a similar crisis of conscience for more than 15 years, concerning someone who was every bit as admired in academia as Weinstein was once revered in Hollywood.

         Willis “Lee” Stetson, who ran the University of Pennsylvania’s admissions department from 1978 to 2007, was in many respects an administrative genius. On his watch, which embraced the regimes of five Penn presidents, Stetson vastly improved Penn’s student recruitment programs, tripled its international and minority enrollment, and immensely expanded its nationwide profile. Most important to my mind, Stetson developed innovative methods to look beyond mere high school grades and test scores in order to identify uniquely gifted potential college students. The result was a community of undergrads who were not merely bright but also capable of exposing their schoolmates to a rich diversity of experiences and talents— in short, a vibrant student body that was the envy of colleges across the U.S. During Stetson’s tenure as dean, Penn’s annual applications increased from 7,000 to nearly 20,000. Over the past half-century, Penn’s academic standing climbed from the lower half of the Ivy League to fourth in the nation (as ranked by the Wall Street Journal in 2019). Stetson surely deserves much of the credit for this transformation.

Disturbing rumors

         Yet within the Penn community, this remarkable legacy was long overshadowed by a disturbing and persistent rumor: Stetson, it was said, was a serial sex abuser whose favorite targets were the attractive young women who worked in Penn’s admissions office and consequently were especially vulnerable to his advances. These alleged abuses were never substantiated, which in itself isn’t surprising: Stetson wielded immense power within the Penn community, whether it was among applicants or undergrads (for whom acceptance to an Ivy League university could be a life-changing matter), or coaches dependent on his approval to stock their teams with superior athletes, or administrators and professors grateful for the stimulating student body he assembled, or loyal alumni like me who basked in the reflected glow of his work.

Everybody, it seemed, owed Stetson a favor, or thought they did. (When Penn accepted my niece in 1999, Stetson shared the good news with me personally— thus creating, whether deliberately or not, feelings of obligation.) So, neither Stetson’s colleagues nor his alleged victims ever publicly accused him, and no hint of his supposed misconduct ever came to light. Except….

Early in the summer of 2007, when he was 65, Stetson announced that he would retire at the end of the following school year, in June 2008. Yet on August 29 of that same summer of 2007, Stetson abruptly resigned, without explanation either from himself or Penn’s then-president, Amy Gutmann. "Having announced my impending retirement earlier in the summer,” Stetson’s two-sentence statement began, “I now recognize that it is in the University's, and my own best interest, to step down immediately, before the commencement of the fall semester.” Gutmann’s brief statement praised Stetson as “one of the country’s leading admissions deans,” but she too provided no explanation for his hasty resignation. Both the Philadelphia Inquirer and the Chronicle of Higher Education expressed mystification over the puzzling circumstances of his departure but declined to delve further, and a Penn spokesman declined to comment further.

Moral limbo

So what had happened? I am told by Penn administrators I trust— but, again, people with at best second- or third-hand knowledge— that Stetson’s proposed final retirement year had been forced upon him so that the rumors of his abuses could be buried with minimal embarrassment to either himself or Penn. But barely two months into that retirement year, Stetson allegedly made a pass at a work/study undergrad employed in his office. This young woman allegedly responded by reporting the incident to her lawyer father; the father threatened to file a lawsuit against Penn; and within barely 24 hours, Stetson was gone.
         I stress that I have been unable to corroborate this story. I’m well aware that wagging tongues on college campuses can be just as petty and malicious as any small-town gossipmonger. (When Bartlett Giamatti was asked why he gave up the presidency of Yale to become commissioner of Major League Baseball, he explained, “In baseball, you’re dealing with a higher class of people.”) As a young journalist in a small Indiana town, I was periodically tasked with chasing down unfounded rumors that everyone in town believed with certainty.
        Were the campus rumors about Stetson similarly baseless? It’s possible. But the mysterious nature of his departure suggests otherwise. When a large institution suddenly removes one of its most valuable players without investigating the allegations against him, it’s not unreasonable to conclude that the institution already had good reason to believe the allegations were true.   
         Stetson was thus cast into a kind of moral limbo. If he was innocent of sexual harassment, he never had the opportunity to prove it. If he was guilty, he was denied the opportunity to make amends or seek forgiveness.

Internet scuttlebutt

         In the ensuing years, Stetson did not slink away quietly. Nor did he retire. On the contrary, he carved out a new career as a college admissions consultant. Now his strange departure from Penn became the topic of Internet scuttlebutt among his potential clients. Perhaps to bolster his reputation, Stetson often appeared— shamelessly, I felt— at Penn functions. When I encountered him at these affairs, I tried to avoid him, lest my proximity be construed as condoning his behavior.
         This wasn’t always easy. At one Penn football banquet, Stetson and I were both assigned to the same circular ten-person table. Before dinner, I deliberately staked out a seat across the table from him. Unfortunately, at this point I committed the mistake of going to the men’s room; and when I returned, I found that the only empty seat was right next to Stetson.
         Throughout those years, I was determined to confront Stetson directly. Like Quentin Tarantino with Harvey Weinstein, I imagined saying something like, “Lee, I have tremendous admiration for all you’ve done for Penn. But you should know that I’m aware of why you left so hastily. Even now, you owe the Penn community some explanation.” But the opportunity never arose— or, if it did, I failed to seize it. On one or two occasions, I found myself alone in a room with Stetson for a few minutes. But it just didn’t seem the right time or place to bring up such a delicate matter.

A public letter

         The closest I came to raising this issue publicly was a carefully worded letter I wrote to Penn’s alumni magazine, the Pennsylvania Gazette, in December 2017. Its four paragraphs read:
         “The recent revelations of sexual harassment by executives at major corporations raise what seems to me an obvious question: How are universities— which involve countless power relationships between adults and students— approaching this issue?
         “I write because I am personally aware of two cases in which a male Penn administrator or faculty member pressured female subordinates or students for sex. In both cases the University, to its credit, dismissed the perpetrators upon learning of these offenses. But in both cases, to its discredit, the University concealed the reason for their departures, thus failing to deter other potential sexual harassers (not to mention enabling the perpetrators to resume their predatory practices elsewhere).
         “Since I am barely conversant with the University’s inner workings, I suspect that these two cases may be just the tip of a larger iceberg.
         “I don’t pretend to know the solution to this sensitive issue. I do know that sexual harassment can wreck individual lives, not to mention the fragile but essential moral fabric of an institution. I also know that sexual harassment can flourish in an atmosphere of secrecy. I urge Penn’s administration to take this issue seriously and openly.”
         I had hoped my letter might provoke some response from Penn administrators. But the Gazette never published my letter. I’m sharing it here publicly for the first time. 
Willful blindness

         Stetson died on July 31 at the age of 82, so you may well wonder why I’m going public with this story now, when Stetson is no longer here to defend himself. As Mary, the meek lady’s maid in Gosford Park, asked rhetorically, “What purpose would it serve?”

I can think of two purposes. First, sexual harassers must be put on notice that their offenses won’t necessarily be buried with them. And second, I would ask my own rhetorical question: If a thick-skinned professional journalist like me— who makes his living by sticking his neck out in the public arena— hesitated to confront an alleged sexual abuser, what must it be like for a powerless young woman to bring such an accusation against a powerful man?

Movie producers, orchestra conductors, media moguls, U.S. presidents, and, apparently, college admissions deans often get away with private sexual offenses thanks to the willful blindness of their enablers, which includes many of us. It takes great courage for a young woman to stand up to an acclaimed admissions dean in his prime. If I couldn’t do it, how can we expect as much from the victims themselves?

Enjoy Dan Rottenberg’s newest book, The Price We Paid: An Oral History of Penn’s Struggle to Join the Ivy League, 1950-55. You can also visit his website at www.danrottenberg.com