speaking loudly and gesticulating
wildly. I could see her about ten or fifteen feet from me, standing
near one of the officers. She was falsely accusing me of having
followed her to the Boot. The truth: I had not seen, or
certainly had never previously noticed this person; neither her appearance
nor her manner rendered her in any way appealing to me; I assumed she had
mistaken me for someone else, and I tried to say something to that effect;
I have never followed anyone at Tulane, in the sense of pursuing
them. On the basis of this hysterical report I was informed by one
of the Tulane Security officers that they would have to frisk me. I
indicated that I was willing to cooperate, but requested that I be taken
to a private place for that procedure. People viewing such a scene
are apt to make all sorts of erroneous assessments of the situation.
After brief consideration my request was denied and I was publicly
frisked. I was then transported by golf cart to Tulane Security
headquarters to be interviewed by the officers. After about
forty-five minutes I was told I could go about my business.
Soon thereafter, I was excluded from campus
by T.U. Security officer LeBlanc with instructions not to return until
clearing things up with his superior. That gentleman referred me to
the office of Tulane University Counsel, where Linus Coignet has since
been supervising the situation.
As I explained to Mr. Coignet at the time,
the young lady had made a false report, I was willing to file a formal
complaint about it and that in order to be equitable, Tulane would have to
treat her just as it had treated me. She would have to be publicly
frisked and carted off, just as I had been on the basis of her lie.
She had committed the crime: filing a false report. I was innocent
in the situation and yet I was the one who had suffered the consequential
embarrassment and inconvenience. Is this justice? Mr.
Coignet's position: Oh no, we can't frisk the young lady or cart her off;
she's just an innocent young thing who probably did earnestly believe
she'd been followed. It would just be too stressful for her. I
explained to Mr. Coignet that whatever the young lady's motivation, if she
were not given like treatment, the effect would be that the office of
Tulane University Counsel would be setting up T.U. Security as a blind,
behind which any student with a dislike for any apparent outsider on
campus, Tulane affiliate or non-, could hide and throw stones (file false
and/or specious reports) without fear of question or consequence.
This, Mr. Boh, is tha tacit approval and cooperation of the Kelly
administrators I spoke of in the second paragraph of this
letter.
I pleaded with Mr. Coignet to allow me to
confront this young lady who had accused me. I was curious about her
motive
