Collusion

Dozens, or maybe hundreds of people, over the years, had to know that Ronell had a history of abusive behavior. Administrators, colleagues and former colleagues, students, and their friends and other people they told about her. It was open knowledge, essentially, and her own defenders had to know it too. Not even the defenders of her really deny the overall pattern; they just say that we should find a more palatable name for it, like "transference." Or they make the argument that students want to be treated in this way, are consenting adults or brought it on themselves. The defenders participate in the cult of personality that is the originating problem.  

The worst of the defenses try to argue that it is actually good that she is an abuser, someone who doesn't follow the rules. Would we want a world in which nobody took risks? they ask. Or they say that that's what queer people do.  Well, no. I've had a lesbian and a gay chair of my department, and neither of them created that kind of atmosphere.