When Did You Expose Your Professor’s Dark Secret? [FULL STORY]
Bureaucracy and Tenure
I made copies of the timeline I’d created and highlighted the worst incidents to show Shaw. My roommate helped me practice what I was going to say so I wouldn’t get nervous and mess up.
The meeting was scheduled for the next afternoon and I barely slept thinking about it. The next day Dr. Copeland asked our whole group to meet with her in the conference room.
She looked tired and frustrated as she explained that tenure protections and union rules made it almost impossible to remove Professor Mahoney quickly. She said investigations could take months and required multiple levels of review before any action could happen.
She seemed genuinely upset that she couldn’t do more to help us right away. I could tell she believed us but her hands were tied by all the bureaucracy.
Legal and Emotional Strain
Privacy and Policy
After the meeting I went back to the legal aid office to ask Corbett about something i’d been thinking about. I wondered if Professor Mahoney using his home security footage in a university discipline case might raise privacy issues.
Corbett’s eyes lit up and she started pulling out law books and making notes about expectations of privacy and admissible evidence. She said this angle might actually help Freddy’s case since the footage was used outside its intended purpose.
We spent an hour going through different legal precedents and she seemed excited about the possibilities. The stress was eating me alive so I made an appointment at campus counseling for the next morning.
I walked into the health center and filled out forms about my anxiety levels and sleep problems. The counselor was this older woman with gray hair who listened while I explained everything that had happened with Professor Mahoney and our group.
She handed me tissues when I started crying about how we’d tried to help but made everything worse. She helped me see that wanting to fix someone’s drinking problem didn’t mean we had to break laws or risk our futures.
Freddy Self-Reports
After the session I felt lighter and texted Freddy that he needed to meet with Corbett right away about self-reporting. He was scared but agreed to go that afternoon.
I met him outside the legal aid office and we walked in together. Corbett had already prepared paperwork for him to sign acknowledging what he’d done at Professor Mahoney’s house.
She explained that showing cooperation now would look way better than waiting for the police to come find him. Freddy’s hands shook as he signed the forms but Corbett stayed calm and professional.
She called Shaw from student conduct while we were sitting there and scheduled Freddy’s formal hearing for next week. Shaw actually sounded impressed on the phone that Freddy was taking responsibility without being forced to.
A Hostile Environment
A Private Threat
That night I noticed Janet hadn’t responded to any group messages for two days. She’d left our group chat without saying anything and Romeo said she wasn’t answering his texts either.
I wanted to check on her but figured she needed space to deal with her dad and everything that had come out in class. The next morning I had to go to Professor Mahoney’s class even though my stomach was in knots.
After everyone else left he walked over to my desk and stood there blocking my way out. He suggested that if I wrote him a private apology letter and admitted I was wrong maybe this whole mess could disappear.
His breath smelled like coffee and something else I couldn’t place. I politely said I needed to think about it and pushed past him to get out of the room.
Documenting Misconduct
My hands were shaking as I walked straight to Turner’s office and told her what had just happened. She took notes and said she’d add it to the file about inappropriate conduct.
She reminded me to keep documenting everything and avoid being alone with him. Two days later we got an email from the department saying they’d assigned a senior faculty member to observe all of Professor Mahoney’s classes for the rest of the semester.
It wasn’t a real solution but at least someone would be watching him now. The observer was this older professor who sat in the back taking notes during our next class.
Professor Mahoney acted completely professional and taught a decent lesson about research methods. But when Romeo asked a question about citations Professor Mahoney made this comment about how important trust and loyalty were in academic work.
The observer just kept writing notes but everyone in our group knew that was a threat aimed at Romeo. After class the senior faculty member pulled me aside in the hallway.
She quietly told me to file grade appeals right after finals and hinted that the department would back us up. It was the first sign that other professors knew what was going on and were trying to help without getting directly involved.
The Investigation Deepens
Meetings with Conduct
That evening our group met at the library without Janet since she still wasn’t responding to anyone. We all agreed we wouldn’t blame her for anything even though Professor Mahoney kept pressuring us to say she started everything.
We were figuring out that taking responsibility didn’t mean throwing your friends under the bus when things got hard. The next day was my individual meeting with Shaw at student conduct.
He explained all the possible punishments we might face, everything from warnings to suspension or even expulsion. But the way he talked made it seem like he saw us as students who’d made bad choices trying to help, not criminals who deserved the worst punishment.
He asked lots of questions about why we didn’t keep going through proper channels and I explained how scared we were about our grades. He took notes but didn’t seem angry, just disappointed that we hadn’t trusted the system to work.
Police Involvement
That afternoon campus police called Freddy and scheduled an interview about the breaking and entering. Corbett would be there with him but hearing the words “campus police” made everything feel way more serious than before.
Freddy texted our group that the interview was set for tomorrow morning and he was terrified about what might happen. We all sent supportive messages but nobody really knew what to say.
The whole situation had gotten so far beyond what any of us expected when we first tried swapping Professor Mahoney’s beer. I couldn’t focus on any of my other classes because I kept thinking about criminal records and ruined futures.
My roommate kept asking if I was okay but I couldn’t explain the whole mess without sounding like an idiot who’d gotten involved in something illegal. The reality was hitting all of us that good intentions didn’t protect you from serious consequences when you broke actual laws.
The Insurance Claim
Three days later Freddy got a call from campus police saying Professor Mahoney had filed an insurance claim for the stolen alcohol worth over $2,000. The claim needed a police report which meant HR got pulled into the whole mess automatically.
Freddy’s face went white when he told us because now it wasn’t just about student conduct anymore. Romeo checked the faculty schedule that afternoon and noticed Professor Mahoney hadn’t shown up for his posted office hours.
Word spread fast through the department that HR had called him in for questioning about his drinking and the whole situation with us. Other professors started whispering in the halls and giving us these looks that were half pity and half warning.
The Turning Point
A Shift in Administration
The next morning Dr. Copeland sent an email to everyone in our class saying the department would let us retake our midterm with a different professor watching. She didn’t say why but we all knew it was because they finally admitted Professor Mahoney’s grading had been messed up by his drinking.
It felt like a small win even though we still had bigger problems to deal with. Janet showed up to class that Thursday looking like she hadn’t slept in days.
She sat down next to me and quietly mentioned she was moving out of her dad’s house that weekend. Her hands shook while she took notes and I could tell setting boundaries with her father was killing her inside even though she knew she had to do it.
That same afternoon we all got emails from HR asking for written statements about specific times Professor Mahoney had been drunk and how it affected our education. I spent 3 hours writing mine trying to stick to facts without sounding like i wanted revenge.
I listed dates when he’d slurred through lectures, times he’d graded the same paper twice with different scores, and the day he threw a student’s notebook across the room for no reason. My roommate asked why i was typing so much and i just said it was for a research project because explaining the truth would take too long.
