A Declaration of War

A Declaration of War: 17 years later

Wilmot Max Ramsay

(A Journal Excerpt, Wednesday, April 4, 2007)

A War Declaration: 17 years later


     Today, Wednesday, April 4, 2007, marks exactly seventeen years to the day and date that I was wrongfully charged with plagiarism at the University of Massachusetts at Boston.

     My Honors paper, the now famous, A LOOK AT DANTE AND PETRARCA'S STYLES, which was handed in to Professor Fiora A. Bassanese on Monday, April 2, 1990, would be in question.  Yes, I was very much cognizant that it was Lent but, to be honest, I never dreamed that  hazy times were on the horizon.  Somewhere between 1:30 pm and 2:20 pm, enters Puck and William Shakespeare's The Tempest, in the form of HONORS 238: IMAGES OF WOMEN IN ITALIAN CULTURE, and the peace has never been the same.  Personalities would undergo drastic changes; some for the worse, others for the better and still yet others with both characteristics.  Here, it was the manifestation of the Inferno with the hope of Dante Alighieri's Purgatory and Paradise.

     For the duration of the Class on Wednesday, April 4, 1990, there was much uneasiness especially after Fiora A. Bassanese's: "Max, I want to see you after Class with Professor [James F.] Brennan, [the Honors Program Director."]

     Class ends and true enough James F. Brennan is waiting outside the classroom, at the door, on the first floor of Phyllis Wheatley Hall.  My fellow classmates filed out and upon my exit there were no usual exchange of pleasantries which to me was very strange and odd.

     On our way to the Honors Program Office (where I served as Secretary), on the second floor of Wheatley Hall, there was complete silence and the silence was strained.  Once in my office we all three sat down with Fiora leading the charge.  James Brennan, for the most part, only listened and observed.  He is a psychologist.  It is nearing 3:15 pm and Fiora exclaims that I am to bring in the sources -- books -- from which I got my material as the ball is now in "your court" and she does "not care."  I calmly said that it is my honest work and that is what will stand the test of time.  Brennan makes a guttural sound.  We adjourn with Fiora, the Italian, Brennan, the Irish and me, the Jamaican (and later, a Jamaican American, to the surprise of many).  Robert H. Spaethling, the German, was not present at the meeting.  He already knew very well that as Deputy Provost he would be hearing all sides.  He further knew that being an acquaintance I would, naturally, be telling him about the dramatic development which I am now confident that he already knew about.

     As such, like Niccolo Machiavelli who was Secretary to the Ten on War, the disagreements became unbearable and with Fiora's challenge I responded to the academic War.  James Brennan later told me that he did not know that Fiora was like that!  A written "Apology" from Fiora was delivered to me, by Fiora, but, it was just too late.  And I, in turn, responded.  The depression had already started to set in.  The campus by now had been riled up and probably like the Kent State University unrest of May 1970, there was a lot of tension in the air.  The color question was once again at the center of American education.

     For it was none other than Chancellor Sherry H. Penney who told me and others, one Thursday evening in October 1989, on becoming a Chancellorian Scholar, thus: "You must test the facts for yourself, explore beyond your textbook, pull the matter apart to examine it analytically, put it together in different relationships, defend the theories and attack them, question, discuss and reflect. "  She would go on to say: "We celebrate you, your families and our University.  And we may also eagerly anticipate what lies ahead in your future.  The best of luck to all of you.  Work hard, drink the cup of education dry.  [And] be proud ambassadors of UMass/Boston. ...."(Chancellor Penney's address at the 9th Scholarship Dinner and Awards Ceremony at the University of Massachusetts at Boston, in 1989).

     After winning my case with the "Apology," therefore, and believing normalcy would settle in, like the Tuskegee Airmen in World War II, now after the Honors Program War, at UMass/Boston, I had been met with continued discrimination on campus.  As a byproduct of war, I suffered a form of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) which left me broken as to the bold and daring advances others can undertake to your detriment.  It took gubernatorial intervention, in 2005, for me to receive my Diploma even after graduation.  My basic Human and Civil Rights were debased.

     On this the 17th Anniversary of the Honors Program War at UMass Boston, let me take time out to recognize a few persons.  Councillor Hon. Bruce C. Bolling who in 1982 had the foresight that there could have been rocky roads ahead, and on his recommendation, the Boston City Council conferred and endowed me with my own honorary Week -- Wilmot Max Ramsay Week -- September 27 through October 3, thanks.  To Mayor Walter J. Sullivan and the Cambridge City Council who invested me with "The-Key-To-The-City," thanks.  Thanks to Dr. Frank L. Morris, formerly of the USAID mission to Jamaica, who, along with Mrs. Morris, gave me a glimpse of true American hospitality.  Thanks also to my native land, Jamaica, and her people.  Also, recognition is due to the many, many persons, some through their kind words and some of whom are recipients of Global Youth Trust's CANTABRIGIA.  And, to my alma mater, the University of Massachusetts, let us hope you will find it in your heart to settle for the emotional, psychological and physical sufferings I have endured over these past seventeen years.

     In closing, I quote from John Winthrop, Massachusetts' first governor, from his A Model Of Christian Charity, in 1630:

     "Thus stands the cause between God and us.  We are entered in covenant with Him for this work.  We have taken out a commission.  The Lord hath given us leave to draw our own articles.  We have professed to enterprise these actions upon these.  And these ends we have hereupon besought Him of favor and blessing.  Now if the Lord shall please to hear us and bring us in peace to the place we desire, then hath He ratified this covenant and sealed our commission, and will expect a strict performance of the articles contained in it.  But if we shall neglect the observation of these articles which  are the ends we have propounded and, dissembling with our God, shall fall to embrace this present world and prosecute our carnal intentions, seeking great things for our selves and our posterity, the Lord will surely break out in wrath against us to be revenged of such a covenant.

     "Now the only way to avoid this shipwreck and to provide for our posterity is to follow the counsel of Micah: to do justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly with our God.  For this end, we must be knit together in this work as one man.  We must entertain each other in brotherly [and sisterly] affection.  We must be willing to abridge our selves of our superfluities, for the supply of others' necessities.  We must uphold a familiar commerce together in all meekness, gentleness, patience, and liabilities.  We must delight in each other, make others' conditions our own -- rejoice together, mourn together, labor and suffer together, always having before our eyes our commission and community in the work, our community as members of the same body.  So shall we keep the unity of the spirit in the bond of peace.  The Lord will be our God and delight to dwell among us, as His own people and will command a blessing upon us in all our ways, so that we shall see much more of His wisdom, power, goodness, and truth than formerly we have been acquainted with.  We shall find that the God of Israel is among us, when ten of us shall be able to resist a thousand of our enemies, when He shall make us a praise and glory, that  [people] shall say of succeeding [Universities and campuses]: 'The Lord makes it like that of NEW ENGLAND.'  For we must consider that we shall be a City upon a Hill.  The eyes of the people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall be made a story and byword through the world.  We shall open the mouths of enemies to speak evil of the ways of God and all professors for God's sake.  We shall shame the faces of many of God's worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses upon us till we be consumed out of the good land wither we are going ....

     "Therefore let us choose life,
      that we and our seed
      may live; by obeying His
      voice, and cleaving to Him,
      for He is our life, and
      our prosperity."[1]

     I, too, want to "[b]e [a] proud ambassador of UMass Boston."

     I wish my audience a Happy Easter 2007!



[1] Kennedy, Caroline.  A Patriot's Handbook: Songs, Poems, Stories, and Speeches Celebrating the Land We Love, pp. 32-33, Hyperion, New York, 2003.

(Copyright @ HERITAGE RESERVES, Wednesday, April 4, 2007)