"Fortunately," said Ms. Brown, "the question is not only stupid and offensive, it's also moot. Because whatever blood relationship I might or might not have with the famous Admiral Brown, the only thing that matters is my science and, if you happen to be suspicious, my religion."
"So what is your religion?" the student said.
"My religion," said Ms. Brown, "is to try to falsify all hypotheses. Including your hypothesis that teachers should be judged according to their parentage or their membership in a group. If you find me teaching something that cannot be adduced from the evidence, then you can make your complaint. And since it seems particularly important to you to avoid any possibility of an idea contaminated by Hinckley Brown's beliefs, I will drop you from the class...right...now."
By the end of the sentence she was jabbing instructions at her desk, which was sitting atop the podium. She looked up. "There. You can leave now and go to the department offices to arrange to be admitted to a different section of this class."
The student was flabbergasted. "I don't want to drop this class."
"I don't recall asking you what you wanted," said Ms. Brown. "You're a bigot and a troublemaker, and I don't have to keep you in my class. That goes for the rest of you. We will follow the evidence, we will challenge ideas, but we will not challenge the personal life of the teacher. Anyone else want to drop?"
In that moment, John Paul Wiggin fell in love.
Theresa let the exhilaration of Human Community carry her for several hours. The class hadn't started well--the Wiggin boy looked to be a troublemaker. But it turned out he was as smart as he was arrogant, and it sparked the brightest kids in the class, and all in all it was exactly the kind of thing Theresa had always loved about teaching: a group of people thinking the same thoughts, conceiving the same universe, becoming, for just a few moments, one.
The Wiggin "boy." She had to laugh at her own attitude. She was probably younger than he was. But she felt so old. She'd been in grad school for several years now, and it felt as if the weight of the world were on her shoulders. It wasn't enough to have her own career to worry about, there was the constant pressure of her father's crusade. Everything she did was interpreted by everyone as if her father were speaking through her, as if he somehow controlled her mind and heart.
Why shouldn't they think so? He did.
But she refused to think about him. She was a scientist, even if she was a bit on the theoretical side. She was not a child anymore. More to the point, she was not a soldier in his army, a fact that he had never recognized and never would--especially now that his "army" was so small and weak.
Then she got beeped for a meeting with the dean.
Grad students didn't get called in for meetings with the dean. And the fact that the secretary claimed to have no idea what the meeting was about or who else would be there filled her with foreboding.
The late summer weather was quite warm, even this far north, but since Theresa lived an indoor life she rarely noticed it. Certainly she hadn't dressed for the afternoon temperature. She was dripping with sweat by the time she got to the graduate school offices, and instead of having a few minutes in the air-conditioning to cool down, the secretary rushed her right into the dean's office.
Worse and worse.
There was the dean and her entire dissertation committee. And Dr. Howell, who had apparently returned from retirement just for this occasion. Whatever this occasion was.
They barely took time for the basic courtesies before they broke the news to her. "The foundation has decided to withdraw funding unless we remove you from the project."
"On what grounds?" she asked.
"Your age, mostly," said the dean. "You are extraordinarily young to be running a research project of this scope."
"But it's my project. It only exists because I thought of it."
"I know it seems unfair," said the dean. "But we won't let this interfere with your progress toward your doctorate."
"Won't let it interfere?" She laughed in consternation. "It took a year to get this grant, even though it's one with obvious value for the current world situation. Even if I had a new research project on the back burner, you can't pretend that this won't postpone my degree by years."
"We recognize the problem this is causing you, but we're prepared to grant you your degree with a project of...less...scope."
"Help me understand this," she said. "You trust me so much that you'd grant me a degree without caring about my dissertation. Yet you don't trust me enough to let me even take part in a vital project that I designed. Who's going to run it?"
She looked at her committee chairman. He blushed.
"This isn't even your area," she said to him. "It's nobody's area but mine."
"As you said," her chairman answered, "you designed the project. We'll follow your plan exactly. Whatever data emerges, it will have the same value regardless of who heads it up."
She stood up. "Of course I'm leaving," she said. "You can't do this to me."
"Theresa," said Dr. Howell.
"Oh," said Theresa, "is it your job to get me to go along with this?"