President Fallon Finally Fired in Laura Dickinson Murder Cover-Up

The President of Eastern Michigan University has been fired. Although former President Fallon says he doesn't know why he has lost his job and is unhappy about the process, maybe the dead student, Laura DIckinson, found in her dorm room last December has something to do with it. Originally the school's investigation concluded that there had been no foul play. Several months later another student was charged with rape and murder and is awaiting trial.

Bad things happen on college campuses. Laura Dickinson lost her life, perhaps brutally by the hands of another student. This ought to be tragedy enough. But it is not. Apparently, according to a CNN report, "Many in the university's administration were accused of covering up the truth and endangering students to protect the image of the school, which had been marred in recent years by tensions with faculty, students and the community." Well, this scandal certainly isn't going to help brand equity, is it? Of course the president should lose his job. What is amazing is that the status of Vice President of Student Affairs Jim Vick and Public Safety Director Cindy Hall are still on the job. University spokeswoman Pamela Young said she couldn't comment on Fallon until after a meeting this afternoon. Hasn't there been enough cover-up? And speaking of Pamela Young, what role did this Director of Communications play? Was she involved in the cover-up? Was she simply told that the death was accidental? It is possible. And equally possible that she is in up to her eyeballs. Howard Bunsis, president of th faculty union, wants "total focus on what happens in the classroom between students and faculty." I hope Bunsis was quoted out of context because it seems that a lot of conversation, healing, and administrative redirection overall is called for now and none of it is related to the classroom.

Apparently it doesn't go without saying wherever catastrophic events occur, candor and effective administration are the order of the day. An appropriate march to justice is always, by definition, the way toward greater brand equity. Cover-up never is. Rush to judgment—see Duke University—never is. While Eastern Michigan would have been loathe to discover, as Virginia Tech did, that one of their own may have been capable of a brutal crime, surely if the evidence was followed in the only way appropriate to honor Ms. Dickinson, that is, to its honest conclusion, then it is a truth with which the students, faculty, family, and community would have to deal. Indeed, they are dealing with it today. That, and a seemingly horrific act of commercial misjudgment. It is one thing to gather all the minority students and put them on the cover of your viewbook to sell your diversity; it is one thing to manipulate your statistics to improve your rankings. These are the "crimes" in the fight for brand equity. Eastern Michigan's administrators failed to grasp by an order of magnitude what their allegiances demanded. And so did any Board members if they were calling for extreme measures to improve brand equity beyond reason. They are part of the problem. Bunsis says everyone involved in covering up information about the slaying shouldn't be working for the University. I think he has it right. May Laura Dickinson rest in peace.