Michael Phillip Wright
Norman, Oklahoma
Copyright 2001
All Rights Reserved
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January 26, 2002

A Sordid Tale

University of Oklahoma President David Boren (photo at right) likes to boast that the school is gaining a reputation for "excellence."

Some might say he's dreaming. Under his leadership, the school is becoming known as a place where students and faculty must threaten lawsuits in order to protect themselves from abuse by Boren's administration.

In the spring of 2000, geophysics professor David Deming was persecuted with a bogus sexual harassment" complaint because local male-bashers disagreed with a letter he wrote for publication in the campus newspaper. The ordeal ended only when Deming's attorney informed leaders of the Boren gang that he was about to file a lawsuit in federal court.

More recently, OU was forced to re-admit wrestler Chance Shipman after Shipman threatened a lawsuit over the fact that he was expelled during the fall 2001 semester after being falsely accused of a "hate crime" against Mohammad Yaseen Haider, the former President of the Pakistan Student Association.[1] The expulsion of Shipman took place not long after a friendly meeting between Boren and Haider.

During fall 2001 fall Boren and his legions of campus sycophants were trumpeting all over the place about the need for "sensitivity," "understanding," and "multiculturalism" while false accusations against Shipman were being circulated. Now Boren doesn't want to talk about it, and insisted upon a gag order ("confidentiality agreement") as part of the settlement. When contacted by the student newspaper, the OU Public Affairs Office, which gives loyal service as Boren's media spin doctors, refused to comment. Fortunately, The Oklahoma Daily had already done an earlier investigation, and greeted readers with this January 17 front-page headline:

OU Student Readmitted after Threat of Lawsuit

Student's accuser, Mohammad Yaseen Haider, is in jail
for an e-mailed anthrax threat the government says he made

Boren's peculiar desire to go to great lengths to please Haider deserves extreme critical scrutiny. It's a sordid tale, not just of political correctness gone wild, but of a very flawed politician masquerading as an academic leader.

Haider in Custody and Denied Bail

Haider currently sits in custody at the Oklahoma County Detention Center, where he has been since the Immigration and Naturalization Service arrested him November 8.[2] The Norman Transcript of December 21 reports that Haider has been indicted by a federal grand jury which has accused him of sending an anthrax threat by e-mail. [3] Earlier he was not allowed to post bond. [4] Haider is Pakistani, and two other Islamic former students who were his neighbors in an apartment complex have also been arrested because of their association with Zacarias Moussaoui, indicted on charges of terrorism.[5]

Favored Treatment from OU President Boren

Prior to Haider's arrest, during the fall 2001 semester OU President David Boren was providing him extremely favorable treatment following a misleading news story reporting that Haider had been attacked by two American OU students, wrestler Chance Shipman and Gary Don Frizzell. [6] The American pair were charged with assault and battery after a September 16 incident at the Conoco station and convenience store where Haider, 22, was working. Not of legal age, Shipman expressed anger after Haider refused to sell him beer.

Presuming Shipman and Frizzell to be guilty, Boren forced both of them to withdraw from OU. On December 10, The Oklahoma Daily ran a front-page news article which set the record straight and raised disturbing questions about Boren's behavior and motives. [2] The highlights, I suggest are these:

1. the city attorney has dismissed charges against Shipman and Frizzell, but Boren saw to their expulsion from school while presuming them to be guilty;

2. the charges were dismissed because the first physical contact in the altercation was Haider assaulting Shipman;

3. Boren, who has a law degree, abandoned the presumption of innocence for the two Americans and gave favored treatment to Haider;

4. Haider and his two roommates were later detained by the INS and appear to be under suspicion of association with terrorists;

5. at first OU allowed the Shipman's friend, Frizzell, to stay in school on probation, but expelled him after Haider expressed dissatisfaction with this;

6. Haider appears to be gay; he was reported to have harassed Chance Shipman with obscene gestures and blowing kisses; later an FBI agent inquired as to whether Haider ever dressed like a woman.

Possible Connection to Moussaoui

Of extreme interest is the fact that Zacarias Moussaoui, who attended a pilot school in Norman, has been indicted and accused of planning to commit acts of terrorism. Two other OU Islamic students, Hussein Al-Attas and Mukkaram Ali, were arrested because of their association with Moussaoui. [7] They were neighbors of Haider in OU's Kraettli Apartments. Al-Attas drove Moussaoui to Minnesota in August. [4] Was Haider also in league with Moussaoui?

Chance's father, Steve Shipman, is a fireman in the town of Choctaw which is a neighbor to Oklahoma City. He was part of the rescue effort following the 1995 terrorist bombing attack. The Daily reported that his request for an apology from Boren has gone unanswered. [2] Normally, one would think that the President of the University of Oklahoma would show one of these heroes a little more respect.

On the contrary, throughout the episode arising from the gas station incident, Boren appeared very eager to please Haider, even at the expense of an OU athlete. OU athletes usually enjoy a high measure of respect around campus, but the Daily reported that Boren ordered the expulsion of the American student.[8]

Boren's desire to please Haider seemed to have no limits. Shortly after a meeting with Boren, Haider was given a job at OU's Parkview Apartments. [1] The Daily reported that Haider was working as a clerk there when he was arrested by INS. [2]

Chance Shipman Forced to Surrender Right to Hearing

Steve Shipman told the Daily that OU judicial coordinator Suzette Dyer issued a form for Chance to sign "voluntarily" withdrawing from school. Shipman also reported that his son was threatened with expulsion if he did not sign it. The document obliged Chance to surrender his right to a hearing before the Campus Judiciary Council and to promise never to wage a lawsuit against OU.

"President Boren wanted it swept under the rug as soon as possible," said Chance's father. The elder Shipman was also baffled that Haider's word would be taken in spite of its conflicts with the statements of several witnesses. [2]

How do we explain this? Why was Boren micro-managing this affair? Why was he going to such extremes to satisfy Haider?

In an unusually tough editorial for a student newspaper criticizing the college president, The Oklahoma Daily condemned Boren's unjustified treatment of Shipman and asked for some answers. [9] In a commentary approved by the editorial board, the Daily reminded readers that Haider is a suspect in stalking and indecent exposure cases, and he has confessed to sending an anthrax hoax and lying to the FBI about it. The Daily continued:

. . .OU's hasty disciplinary actions precluded a proper investigation. OU booted Shipman one day after the allegations came out.

The university should not use expulsion as a threat to coerce a student into foregoing his or her due process rights.

OU treated the incident as a violation of the student code, even though the police never recognized it as more than misdemeanor assault and battery. OU students are arrested every day on a variety of minor charges, but don?t face expulsion for student code infractions.

Perhaps as troubling is OU's attempt to get rid of the story as quickly as possible and then try to cover its tracks when it backfired with confidentiality agreements.

Why was Haider given an OU job just days after meeting with Boren? When OU faced the threat of a lawsuit, it let Shipman back in, but had him and his father sign confidentiality agreements. Why not let them tell their story?

Sexual Abuse in the Gay Closets of Power

To answer these questions, we have to take a thorough and critical look at David Boren's flawed character. One must begin with the question of why Boren, with two years remaining on his term, in 1994 stepped down from one of the most powerful seats in the US Senate, in order to take the much less important job of OU President. It is not in the nature of politicians to surrender power voluntarily.

His departure followed public accusations by Queer Nation activist Michael Petrelis that Boren was a closet homosexual who sexually abused his male staff members. Petrelis' accusation was reported in the gay publication The Texas Triangle . [10]

I undertook an independent investigation of Petrelis' charges. I began by consulting a book called The Price of Achievement , by Tufts University professor W. Scott Thompson, who is openly gay [11] Thompson was a Rhodes Scholar when Boren was at Oxford. In his book, he states without equivocation that Boren is gay. In a personal email to me, he described having witnessed Boren in a homosexual encounter. Thompson had also been a presidential appointee during the Reagan administration.

Thompson devotes two pages of his book to Boren. "I was aware that David [Boren] was gay before I was aware of my own homosexuality," he writes, "and our scout confirmed it...his homosexuality was never too far from the surface." Thompson also mentions "rumors of trouble with page boys at the Oklahoma capitol" (during Boren's term as a state legislator), and believes that Boren's surprise 1994 resignation from his US Senate seat was "almost surely prompted" by fears of "a deeper degree of outing." Thompson also mentions "reasonably well-attested stories of continued gay imbroglios on Capitol Hill."

Triangle writer Bob Roehr reported Petrelis' claim that Boren was the individual described only as "the Legislator" in Michelangelo Signorile's book Queer In America. [10,12] Male staff members employed by the Legislator, a U.S. Senator, had been promised confidence by Signorile after describing episodes of sexual harassment. Roehr informed readers that Signorile would neither confirm nor deny that Boren was the Legislator guilty of the misconduct.

Based on accounts from victims, Signorile reported that the Legislator invited male staff members to his home when his wife was away, served them alcohol, and made aggressive sexual advances. One staff member, given the pseudonym "Keith" by Signorile, was harassed on twelve different occasions before he finally resigned. Although this victim was gay, he was not sexually attracted to the Legislator.

More definite was W. Scott Thompson. With no ambiguity, he wrote that Boren was referred to "implicitly" in Queer In America. With these words, Thompson was hinting strongly that Boren is guilty of sexually harassing male Senate staff members.

Results of More Detailed Investigation

A more detailed account of my investigation into these matters is available here. I was able to determine that David Boren was the only U.S. Senator or former Senator whose biography matched the information given by Signorile for "the Legislator." Of the Legislator, Signorile writes:

"Almost all the men who work for the Legislator are handsome and appealing, and Keith feels that the Legislator hires them on that basis, perhaps for the possibility of having sex with them."

In the respect the Legislator was following the example of another homosexual who enjoyed political power centuries earlier. According to the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review , King James I of England was also gay. [13] Writer Michael Hattersley reports that James was not criticized for being gay, but because he promoted his favored men "beyond their abilities and showered them with money and titles." It was this behavior, writes Hattersley, which gave his Court a reputation as dissolute.

Another infamous homosexual known for giving preferential treatment to males willing to satisfy his sexual longings was Ernst Rohm, boss of Hitler's Storm Troopers. In a 2001 book which outs the Fuhrer himself as gay, German historian Lothar Machtan writes: [14]

But Rohm owed his success not only to his reputation as an efficient officer, but also to his arbitrary personnel policy. He assigned key positions within the SA mainly to men of homosexual bent, and they, in turn, installed their friends in certain posts. One example was Edumnd Raines, Rohm's lover of the 1920s, with whom Hitler is also reputed to have been on close terms. . . .

The result of such wirepulling was that the SA gradually acquired the reputation of a fraternity devoted to homosexual excesses.

I am not drawing a definite conclusion about Boren's specific motive behind his obvious desire to form a friendship with Haider. Nonetheless one may ask questions. Was Boren being favorable to INS detainee Haider in pursuit of "the possibility of having sex" with him? Is OU being dominated by a president who treats the campus as his personal hunting ground for boy-toys while being prepared to compromise anything along the way?

Creating a Vice-Presidency Post for a Graduate Student in his Twenties

Boren's relationship with his close associate Nick Hathaway deserves critical scrutiny. I met Hathaway in the Spring of 1999. He bore the title of OU's Vice-President for Executive Affairs. I was surprised at how young he was. According to his voter registration record at the Cleveland County Election Board, he was born April 24, 1970. He did not have a doctor's degree. I looked in the OU directory and discovered that he was a graduate student.

Later I consulted older directories, and learned that when Hathaway came here in 1995 he had the title of Special Assistant to the President. The next year it was Executive Assistant to the President. Some strange shuffling was conducted in the creation of his current post.

In academic year 1995-96, Joseph Harroz enjoyed the title Vice-President for Executive Affairs & Associate Legal Counsel. In the following year he was listed only as General Counsel. Then in 1997-98 the title Vice President for Executive Affairs was resurrected, without the additional role of legal counsel. The newly reconstructed title was bestowed upon Hathaway, when he was in his late 20s.

In 1970 I knew Maggie Gover, who was the OU President's personal secretary. She bore the title of Administrative Assistant. In his first two years, Hathaway's titles were similar. The third year he was promoted to Vice-President title. At this time he is not listed as a graduate student any more. In contrast with some of the other vice-presidents, the current campus directory does not list his name with the title of doctor.

An inquiry at the OU records office (December 18, 2001) ascertained that Hathaway was awarded an MBA degree in May 2000, with a business administration major. Although this does not demonstrate with certainty that he lacked an earlier graduate degree, it does suggest that when he was first appointed as Vice President he possessed only a bachelor's.

In FY 96 Hathaway's salary, while he was apparently just a secretary, was $38,250. Now it is $101,000. Lacking both a doctor's degree and an academic background, what kind of favors does a young fellow do in order to obtain such high office within the OU system? It's time someone besides me started asking questions.

For more on this problem, go here to read about OU's bloated bureaucracy stuffed with Boren loyalists.

Will Boren's Crony Cover for Haider?

There is reason for concern about whether federal prosecutors in Oklahoma City will conduct an appropriatedly vigorous effort against Haider. Haider's being found guilty of terrorist acts or association with terrorists would surely provoke serious questions about Boren. The problem is this: Boren's former press secretary Dan Webber is now the U.S. Attorney in Oklahoma City.[15] If this matter is to be receive proper consideration, it is absolutely necessary that the U.S. Department of Justice prevent Webber from having any influence over Haider's destiny.

April 2002 Update: Haider Pleads Guilty

On April 5, 2002, The Daily Oklahoman reported that Haider pled guilty the day before to sending an anthrax threat over the Internet and asked that his sentencing be expedited so he can be deported to Pakistan as soon as possible. The plea was entered before Oklahoma City federal judge Wayne Alley.

OU Newspaper Attacks Double Standard

On April 3, 2002, OU's Oklahoma Daily reminded readers of the university's "near instant expulsion" of Chance Shipman and Gary Frizzell after Boren chose to believe the false accusations by the admitted criminal Mohammad Haider. In contrast, a street fight involving 75 OU fraternity members, many of whom were cited by police, resulted only in the suspension of the Delta Tau Delta fraternity by the university but not in any actions against the perpetrators. "The university should either apologize for its treatment of Shipman and Frizzell or apply the same standards to fraternity fighting," wrote the Daily.

July 2002 Update: Hathaway Only Had a Bachelor's Degree

A July 2002 article in The Norman Transcript confirms that Nick Hathaway did not have a graduate degree when he was promoted to vice president. The article states that he has a bachelor's degree from Tulane and a Master of Business Administration from OU. The MBA was awarded in May 2000. [16]

See Part Two (Boren)

Go to OU Front Page

Go here for information about the author.

REFERENCES

1. Ryan Chittum, "OU Student Readmitted after Threat of Lawsuit," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma) January 17, 2002, p. 1
2. Ryan Chittum, "Parent Says OU Denied Son Due Process," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma) December 10, 2001, p. 1
3. "Former OU Student Indicted for Making Anthrax Threat," The Norman Transcript, December 21, 2001, p. 1
4. Ryan Chittum, "Pakistani Students Released on Bond," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma) December 5, 2001, p. 1
5. Go here to read the federal indictment against Moussaoui.
6. Michaela Marx, "Foreign Student Attacked," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma) September 19, 2001, p. 1
7. Ryan Chittum, "Three Pakistani Students Detained," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma) November 14, 2001, p. 1
8. Ryan Chittum, "Students Face Immmigration Charges," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma)November 19, 2001, p. 1
9. "University should apologize for actions in Haider incident," The Oklahoma Daily (University of Oklahoma) January 24, 2002.
10. Roehr, Bob, "Attempted Outing of Oklahoma Senator Provides Lesson", The Texas Triangle (July 14, 1993) pp 1,11
11. W. Scott Thompson, The Price of Achievement: Coming Out in Reagan Days (London: Cassel, 1995), pp. 222-223
12. Michelangelo Signorile, Queer In America (New York: Random House, 1993), pp. 170-182.
13. Michael Hattersley, "The Queere Kingship of James I," Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review," Fall 1999, p. 21.
14. Lothar Machtan, The Hidden Hitler (New York: Perseus, 2001), p.185
15. "Dan Webber would make fine U.S. Attorney," The Daily Ardmoreite October 28, 1999
16. "Hathaway Elevated to New OU Post," The Norman Transcript July 28, 2002, p. A3.