Death of the Ayn Rand Scholar

by Gray Cavender

  Jillian asked, “So what happened?”

  “A career thing. Grant had an offer from a solid Chicago firm, I mean a very good offer…one he couldn’t pass-up. And, while there would have been some university jobs in Chicago for Nelda, they just weren’t of her caliber. So, when the Mount Holyoke offer came through, she broke it off…her call…and never looked back. We totally understood.”

  “And his name was Grant?”

  “That’s right, Grant Everett. Far as I know, he’s still at the same Chicago firm.”

  “Dr. Siemens, it’s Wes Webb again. If I may, I’ll like to change topics a little.”

  “OK.”

  Jillian noticed that Wes was again looking at the photo of Dr. Siemens that she printed. It was almost as if he was speaking to the photo.

  “Again, Detective Sergeant Warne and I have been talking with your daughter’s friends and colleagues. Incidentally, your daughter had good friends, and colleagues who respected her. Nevertheless, they did share with us certain controversies…ranging from creating the Ayn Rand Center in the first place, to run-ins with students more recently. Can you talk us through this?”

  “Sure. Obviously, I don’t know what office politics are like in your profession, Detective Sergeant Webb, but in universities—and this is both in general, and in departments in particular—sometimes it’s like internecine warfare. Universities can be an especially hostile environment for principled libertarians. I experienced it throughout my own career, from my grad student days up and until the day I retired. And sad to say, Nelda has had her share of run-ins, too. And what was her great sin…it was that she wouldn’t tolerate any of the politically correct discourse—discourse AND policies—that’s endemic to universities these days. I know…there were a couple of complaints from disgruntled students…claiming all manner of alleged horrors that she’d unleashed upon them…including, of course, playing the race card. Be let me assure you, both of you…Nelda absolutely was NOT a racist.”

  As he spoke—his anger seemed to have revived him a bit—Jillian recalled reading the actual grievance that the English undergrads had filed. She also recalled Grace’s comments about Professor Siemens. But, she didn’t give voice to these recollections. Wes was quiet, too, content with letting him talk.

  Dr. Siemens continued, “The problem as I see it is that university students today can’t appreciate the rather significant difference between being a racist and being opposed to affirmative action programs. They’ve somehow conflated the two. And that put Nelda on a collision course with them. She is rigorous—we demanded that of her in her thinking—and always looking for the best students. Her view was…if you can’t compete in a gender-neutral or a race-neutral class, take some else…take some feely touchy class. Nelda’s classes never pretend to any kumbaya moments. Again, detectives, that how Sylvie and I raised her…that who Nelda is…at her very core.”

  Wes said, “OK, I see…thank you for that. So, mentioned that she’d been a professor at Mount Holyoke. Could you tell me about her move to ASU?”

  “You bet. Just as I described her move to Mount Holyoke as career move, so was her move to ASU. She was doing well at Mount Holyoke—she’d made Associate Professor with no difficulty—and was, I think happy there. Then, ASU recruited her to head the Rand Center. At first, I think she was only mildly intrigued with the possibility—truth be told, she was mainly using ASU’s interest to get a salary bump—but after she interviewed…I could tell that her attitude changed, markedly. ASU really wanted her, so much so that Nelda could essentially write her own ticket…a significant increase in salary, an expedited promotion to full professor, and in terms of the day-in-day-out of her university life, basically it was ‘whatever you want.’ She was especially pleased that she had a joint appointment in Business AND an office there, too. I think her negotiations on this was brilliant…that’s what comes from being the daughter of a successful attorney AND a successful academic. She knew what she wanted…she knew how to get it.”

  As he spoke, Jillian recalled how several of the people they’d interviewed mentioned that all these ‘perks’ that the Professor had negotiated were a source of resentment to her colleagues. She wondered…

  Wes continued, “I expect that her successful salary arrangement helped Professor Siemens afford such a nice condo.”

  “Yes, it did. Although…Nelda was always smart about money. Sylvie and I put her through college—BA through the PhD—but after that, she was on her own. She had a really great condo back east that she’d bought during the recession—somebody else’s loss was her gain—which she then sold on the uptick when she accepted the position at ASU. And of course, housing prices are considerably higher in the east than in Arizona. Nelda made a hefty down payment in Arizona, but I suspect she could have swung the entire cost, had she wanted to do so. She didn’t…she of course wanted some tax relief...again, a product of her upbringing.”

  “Dr. Siemens, it’s Detective Sergeant Warne again. I’d like to return to your daughter’s…dating status. Was she seeing anyone here?”

  “Oh, a couple of guys, I think…but…when I visited her over there last year, I met a man Nelda was seeing…David Roberts…he was a Business prof. Nice guy. He seemed to really be into Nelda, although they broke it off late in spring semester.”

  “Do you know why?”

  “I’m not really sure…Nelda and I don’t discuss her love life…that was Sylvie’s province…”

  He tapered-off and went quiet again, and Jillian wondered if maybe the magnitude of losing his wife and now his daughter was hitting him. She thought of those photos in Professor Siemens’ condo—the one with her family, the solo photo of her dad, the one of her winning an award—and the last image…in her English Department office.

  The interview lasted only a few more minutes. Wes ended it with the usual “call if you think of anything that might help us.” And, they both thanked Dr. Siemens for his willingness to talk with them at such a difficult time. Dr. Siemens didn’t say the usual comment about wanting them to catch whoever’d killed his daughter…he was mostly quiet there at the end.

  Afterward, Wes said, “Well, between what Susan Moser said and now the dad, I think we have a better sense of how the Professor could afford her condo AND her high flyer lifestyle.”

  Jillian just nodded, and Wes said, “Yeah…”

  They planned tomorrow’s schedule, double-checking the times of their appointments. When they finished, Wes said, “And, Jilly, please print Professor Spann’s photo and add it to the gallery for Peter Voss.”

  “Already did.”

  Wes and Marilyn had plans for later so there was no debriefing session at Postinos. He did drop Jillian at her condo, and she went through the usual ritual: keys; gun; tea; change clothes.

  When the tea had steeped, Jillian took it into her office. First, she took Atlas Shrugged from the bookshelf, but instead of opening the novel, she placed it on her small desk. Then, she opened a file cabinet and sifted through old class notes. She had always kept her notes, not so much for posterity as because sometimes she could use something from before when writing a paper later. She found the spiral notebook with her notes from several English classes, and thumbed through the pages until she found the course where they’d read the Rand novel. Sure enough, she had an entire section of notes on the novel as well as some general discussion about Rand’s ideas.

  Jillian had taken the class as a freshman so initially she didn’t remember much about it. For example, as she’d told Professor Gilroy, she didn’t remember the teacher’s name. But, here it was on the course syllabus folded into a side pouch in the spiral notebook: Michael Brown. It was all a bit vague, but she remembered that Mr. Brown was a tall, fairly thin white guy. He was a PhD student and had been maybe in his mid-to-late 20s, which had seemed a lot older than most of the students. Jillian smiled at that memory…Mr. Browne was roughly h
er age now. Yes, it was coming back a little…he was clean shaven, and he always wore a coat and tie…and not just a sport coat, rather, a suit. But he was a grad student, so, as she recalled, he had only two suits. Still, as best she could remember, he seemed to enjoy teaching the material, and was always respectful of the students. So, while the class was required, she’d enjoyed it. “He’s probably finished with his PhD by now,” she thought, and wondered if he was a professor somewhere.

  She turned back to her notebook. According to her notes, Atlas Shrugged was about a future society that had become mired in government laws and regulations. This over-regulation was strangling business, and worse, some employees were trying to confiscate what output businesses could manage to produce. In her notes, she’d highlighted the word ‘confiscate.’ A group of business leaders essentially go on strike, led by an activist named John Galt. They relocate to some hidden place. Eventually, the strike is successful and the government collapses. In the denouement—she’d highlighted this word, too—Galt oversees the creation of a new society, one that extols the virtues of individualism and capitalism. Her notes squared with what she’d told Wes, and she was pleased that she remembered so much of the novel.

  Another section of her notes was headed: Rand’s Philosophy. Here, she’d written ‘reason over faith and religion.’ There were some sentence fragments with notes about objectivism and rational individualism. In parenthesis, she’d written ‘rational & ethical egoism…the virtue of selfishness.’

  A date in the side-margin indicated a different class period. This lecture began with a section on Rand’s economic ideas. Here Jillian had written ‘individual rights over collective rights.’ There was a short statement about Rand’s ideas on ‘laissez-faire capitalism.’ In parenthesis, Jillian had written ‘free market capitalism.’ Mr. Brown’s lecture that day connected Rand’s economic ideas with themes in the novel. The next paragraph in her notes—same day—caught Jillian’s attention. Mr. Brown had mentioned how Ayn Rand’s ideas fit into the contemporary economic landscape of ideas, and he specifically mentioned Milton Friedman. She smiled.

  Although the spiral notebook remained open, Jillian stopped reading, looked away and just thought. Obviously, this class was long enough ago that she didn’t remember much about it. But, she thought about what Rand’s ideas meant to her. Not back then…now.

  These ideas about selfishness and…what was it…she glanced back at her notes…rational egotism…she didn’t think she could agree with these ideas. OK, in part, her perspective was informed by having been a Justice Studies major…notions of the collective and the common good…she’d learned that these were a part of a ‘just society.’ She wondered what would Iris Marian Young have thought about Ayn Rand’s ideas? Jillian figured that she’d have been very critical…that Rand’s self-centered, individualistic approach would not be a part of the sort of the ‘just social arrangements’ that Young envisioned.

  But, as Jillian thought about this, she realized that it was more than the perspective in her college major…it was also her upbringing…Mom was a teacher and Dad helped people trying to retire…they’d always taught her to help others. She thought of how different her upbringing had been from what Dr. Siemens had said about how he and his wife had raised Professor Siemens. She shook her head and exhaled.

  Jillian glanced back at her open notebook. As she scanned through some of what she’d just read, she thought that it was all well and good to write about a fictional new society that extolled the virtues of the individual over the collective, and of a free market capitalism, but in the real world of here and now, Jillian asked herself, isn’t that pretty much what we already have? “And, how’s that working out?” she actually asked aloud.

  She turned several pages in her notebook, but there wasn’t much more in her notes about Milton Friedman. Mr. Brown had said that Friedman had received a Nobel Prize in Economics (so she’d been right about that), and that he and Rand were, and she’d underlined this, the darlings of the free market economists. But that was about it for Friedman in her English notes.

  Jillian was a good student, and often would work on her own to flesh-out concepts that she’d heard in classes. But, she wasn’t a Business major so she’d never taken any Econ courses, and there were no comments in the margins of her notes suggesting that she’d done any more reading on this. But, she did remember that in his class on Regulation, Professor Naremore had covered some of Milton Friedman’s ideas about the free market.

  She went back to her file cabinet and dug-out a spiral notebook for Professor Naremore’s class. She was still using notebooks then…this was before she switched to notes on a laptop. Jillian thumbed through the notes until she found the place that she was looking for. This class was a lot more recent than freshman English, plus, it was in her major, so she actually recalled it.

  Professor Naremore had lectured about the belief, widespread among conservative economists and many politicians, that the free market would provide all the regulation that was necessary, so the government should repeal most regulations. According to this belief, the regs (that’s what she’d written) weren’t necessary and inhibited the economy.

  Jillian could see how Atlas Shrugged AND Ayn Rand’s philosophy were consistent with this line of thinking. But, Professor Naremore had trashed this belief, had called it a ‘convenient ideology,’ and said that in the absence of regulation, many corporations would engage in problematic behavior…there was nothing to stop them. He’d reference someone named Sutherland—apparently a major criminologist back in the 20th century—who had written a book about corporate crime. Sutherland’s argument was that, because corporations had the power to lobby lawmakers, they were able to keep many of their wrongful behaviors from being crimes. Had they been individual people, those same behaviors would have been criminal. According to her notes, Sutherland had concluded that many major corporations weren’t just criminals, they were recidivists…repeat offenders.

  Professor Naremore had used Sutherland’s work as a backdrop in a discussion of his own book about Enron, and those other corporate scandals in 2002. Here, her notes referenced what he had called “‘Enronization, the process wherein employees were socialized—using rewards (bonuses) and punishments (getting fired)—to come to accept criminal and unethical behavior as a normal part of doing business.” This sentence was in quotes. So was her next statement from Professor Naremore: “Enron was the poster child for deregulation.” This reminded her of the quote she’d just read from Michael Brown about Friedman and Rand being “the darlings of free market economists.”

  Professor Naremore’s course topic was deregulation. He presented a lot of arguments that were offered by those in favor of deregulation, but then always dismissed them. She did note a section wherein he’d discussed more of Milton Friedman’s ideas…but here with some positive comments. He’d said that even though Friedman was a libertarian, he’d supported some anti-poverty programs…in parenthesis, Jillian had written a negative income tax. Even though she was a good student, Jillian admitted that, at the time she’d taken Professor Naremore’s class, she hadn’t much understood what this economic discussion meant. And now, it was important…a way to understand the life of a murder victim. She was glad she’d save her class notes.

  She glanced at them again, and picked-up where she’d left off. The days changed and in the next lecture, Professor Naremore had essentially tricked the class. He’d read from a book in which the author had collected and analyzed quotes from corporate leaders about the recession of 2008, as reported in major newspapers. These leaders blamed the recession on over-regulation. Professor Naremore had read several of the quotes to the class, and then asked for discussion. Some students, especially Business majors and, as she recalled, a few students from the downtown CJ program, were careful—they knew Professor Naremore’s views on regulation—but they did see some ‘truth’ to the concerns of the corporate leaders. A few s
tudents disagreed, either because they really disagreed or because they were just trying to please the professor. Jillian recalled the class fairly vividly because, at one point in the discussion, Professor Naremore had looked directly at her…non-verbally willing her to say something…at least it seemed like that to her.

  So, she did say something. She brought-up his comments from an earlier class that some individuals (or corporations), if left to themselves, might be honest, but others might not be. She even recalled a quote (OK, a paraphrase) from that discussion about the necessity of some form of external social control for civilization to persist. She restated that earlier quote…Professor Naremore smiled.

  Then, Professor Naremore revealed that he had tricked the class…he’d also apologized for doing so, and said it was to make an important point. The quotes that he’d read, the quotes that some students had agreed with, were not from newspaper interviews with corporate leaders with respect to the recession of 2008. Instead, they were actual quotes from corporate leaders at the start of the Great Depression back in the late 1920s. These guys had all blamed the depression on over-regulation at a time—as Professor Naremore had emphasized—when there was virtually no regulation of the corporate sector. He’d concluded that the Depression had occurred because there were no regulations on the single-minded pursuit of profits by the corporations. The quotes from back during the Depression really sounded as if they were current statements from the corporate sector. In her notes, she had written a name and title for the book about the quotes, the one he’d read from: Suttles, Front Page Economics.

  Professor Naremore had said that in the aftermath of the Depression, that Congress had over the years enacted laws and regs that were designed to avoid such an economic cataclysm again. In her notes, she’d underlined the word ‘cataclysm.’ He said that over the past several years, Congress had, one-by-one, repealed those protective laws, and that this happened with both Democrats and Republicans. She saw in her notes that he’d emphasized two points: first, that the Great Recession of 2008, like the Great Depression of the late 20s, had been possible because of a lack of regulatory protections; and second, the consistency of the corporatist ideology during both time periods.