“You dress like one of the students. You’re supposed to be the professor.”
“What do you want, a tweed coat with patches? Should I carry a pipe, too?”
I’m sitting in my office on the third floor of the law school with Professor Anshuman Bindra, who looks the part naturally, with his owlish face and trim beard, hair the consistency of a scrub brush, which manages to not move but look unkempt regardless. Anshu leans back in his chair. “Simon, my friend, you just got quoted in a U.S. Supreme Court opinion. It’s like the Supremes collectively leaned over from Washington to Chicago and whispered to the committee, ‘Make this guy a full professor.’ You should be walking tall today. You should be the new King of the Fourth Amendment. But instead, you show up looking like you’re going to a frat party.”
“It shouldn’t matter how I dress. It’s what I say, what I teach, what I write, that—”
But he’s already making a mouth out of his hand, yada yada yada. “Now Reid, he looks the part. He wears a sport coat and dress pants every day.”
Reid Southern? That guy is to academia what Pauly Shore is to dramatic acting. He has parents with pull, and that’s it.
“He wears a sport coat because his stomach hangs over his belt,” I say. “And he probably can’t fit into jeans.”
Anshu drops his head, pinches the bridge of his nose. “Yeah, and you run marathons, and half your students probably want to bone you, but Reid looks like a law professor. He acts like one. The guy listens to Mozart in his office. You listen to REM and Panic! at the Disco and N.W.A.”
“Okay, first of all,” I say, leaning forward, “I do not and would not listen to Panic! at the Disco. And now it matters what music I listen to?”
“It’s not one thing. It’s the whole package. The . . . grungy look, the music, the whole attitude. You don’t think appearances matter? I know they shouldn’t, but you know—”
“No, they do, I know.” But I’m not going to change for them. Why should I? There’s no dress code here. I’m twice the teacher Reid Southern is. His students hate him. I’ve read the reviews. And his scholarship is pedantic at best. He’s writing about a different way to understand mutual consent in contract law. I’m writing about the government violating the constitutional rights of its citizens on a daily basis.
“You’re too self-deprecating, while we’re at it,” says Anshu.
Sure, why not, let’s keep going.
“You’d rather I was pompous and self-congratulatory? Anshu, jeez, you’re undoing everything my mother taught me.”
He flips his hand at me. “What did you just say to Loomis in the hallway? The vice-chair of the damn tenure committee compliments you on your article getting cited by the Supreme Court and what did you say?”
“I don’t know, what did I say?”
“You said, ‘Must have been a slow day at the Court.’ ”
Oh, yeah, that’s right, I did.
“I mean, how about thank you?” he says. “The highest court in the land just cited one of your articles. Can’t you bask in the glow just a little? But no, you can’t take the compliment. You have to tear yourself down. And Reid doesn’t have a blog,” he adds.
I open my hands. “What’s wrong with my blog?”
“You make jokes,” he says. “You crack wise.”
“And I talk about judicial decisions and whether they’re right or wrong.”
“You wrote a limerick about the chief justice of the United States.”
“Yeah, but it was funny.”
“I know, but you’re so . . . so casual and irreverent.”
“You mean I’m not stuffy? I don’t use footnotes or Latin words? You know how I feel about footnotes and—”
“Yes, I know how you feel about footnotes.” He reaches out with his hands, as if beseeching me. “But law professors use footnotes! Law professors use Latin!”
I’m not doing it. I’m not changing how I dress and I’m not sucking up to the faculty at poker games and cocktail parties and I’m not using Latin words and I sure as shit am not using footnotes.
Okay, it’s not quite Roosevelt charging up San Juan Hill, but I’m taking a stand.
“Get the spot first,” he says. “Once you’re a tenured full professor, challenge every convention of academia. But this whole laid-back thing . . .”
I’m not laid-back. I’m anything but laid-back. I’m stubborn. There’s a difference.
“Here’s some Latin for you,” I say. “Ego facturus est via mea.”
Anshu sighs. “Now I suppose you’re going to tell me what that means.”
“It means, I’m going to do it my way.”
“Of course you are.” He flips a hand. “Of course you are.”
“Now if you’ll excuse me, Professor, I need a haircut.”
“That was on my list, too. Your hair’s too long. You look—”
“Like one of the students, I know.”
And then my phone rings.
Not five minutes later, I’m entering the office of one of the associate deans, Martin Comstock, who also happens to be the chair of the tenure committee. Silver-haired and dapper, going all-in on the stereotype with the bright red bow tie.
Actually, he wears bow ties so people will ask him about them, and he can reluctantly reveal that he clerked for U.S. Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens, who wore bow ties, and then served as an aide to U.S. Senator Paul Simon, who also wore them. Oh, this? Well, I suppose it’s kind of an homage, if you must know . . .
Our dean is retiring next year, and everyone says Comstock will take the reins. Not everybody’s happy about that. I might be one of those people. He’s a politician, not an academic. A blue blood, not a scholar. He’s everything I hate about academia.
Other than that, I’m sure he’s a great guy.
“Ah, Simon, good,” he says when I knock on his opened door.
“Hi, Dean.” He likes being called by his title. He pretends he doesn’t, but he does.
He manages a quick, disapproving appraisal of my outfit. For the record, my button-down shirt is tucked in, and my jeans are clean and not torn. I look just fine.
“Thanks for stopping by,” he says. “I’ll get to the point.”
His office, all leather and walnut, is a monument to his greatness, with all his diplomas and awards, photographs with presidents and high-court judges. He sits in a high-back leather chair behind a magnificent desk.
“Simon, you applied for full professor,” he says, his hands forming a temple in his lap.
“I did, yes.”
“Yes, good stuff, good for you,” he says. “You’ve done fine work, I’ll say it to anyone.”
It’s time for the but . . .
“Now, I don’t want you to take this the wrong way, Simon.”
In the history of mankind, nobody has followed I don’t want you to take this the wrong way with something that could be taken any other way.
“I wonder,” he begins. “Well, here. You may be aware that Reid Southern has applied for the position as well.”
I sure am! I’m also aware that his daddy has given more than five million dollars to the school over the last decade, which just happened to coincide with when his son started working here.
“Yeah,” I say.
“And Reid, I’m sure you’re aware, has been here a year longer than you.”
“I’m aware of that. And I’m aware that you’re only granting one position.”
“Just so, just so,” he says, so eager and condescending that it feels like he might toss a dog treat into my mouth. “And, well, this is delicate, but you can probably imagine that Reid has a fair level of support. You know how these things go—it’s his turn.”