Mark continued with his lecture, stumbling a few times before he got a rhythm going. My heart went out to him.

Somehow, Mark got through the lecture in one piece and even impressed me. He gave a coherent presentation that I understood. He told a couple of jokes and elicited some chuckles from the audience. When he finished he received another round of applause, again from about half the students. He didn’t acknowledge it, pretending to be busy putting his notes into his attache case. By the time I stood up and looked around, his accuser had disappeared.

The students filed rapidly out of the lecture hall. Mark remained occupied until they were gone and then looked up. In answer to my unspoken question he said, “Nobody is supposed to know about this. They told me it was completely confidential.”

“Somebody didn’t get the word,” I said. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised. Bad news has a way of leaking out, especially if someone has a reason for wanting it to be public.

As we walked up the sloping aisle toward the exit I heard loud, human-sounding noises coming from outside the hall. Now what? We reached the back and could see outside. A bunch of students, mostly women but also a few men, paraded in front of the entrance, carrying placards and shouting. I couldn’t make out what they were shouting because they drowned each other out, but the placards had words written on them.

Samples were: “RAPISTS ROT IN HELL,” “HARASS THE HARASSER,” and one particularly nasty one carried by a coed who looked like a sumo wrestler: “DO UNTO OTHERS: FUCK MARK PAPPAS.”