The woman—Dean Geller—spoke again.
—Lizet, this means you aren’t being asked to leave Rawlings.
As soon as she said this, my spine touched the back of the chair for the first time since sitting down. The tension in my body shifted to this new spot.
—I’m not?
—No, she said. She looked around at the others, as if daring them to jump in. We’re recommending that you be placed on a kind of probation. We think that makes the most sense based on the answers you gave at your hearing.
I kept nodding. At the hearing, they’d all asked me questions, saying Go on when my answers were short—for some reason, I thought they’d want short answers: Yes miss, No sir. Go on, they kept saying. Go on, it’s OK, we’re asking for a reason.
The balding man pushed closer to the table, his hands coming alive as he started to speak, so much so that I remembered—I didn’t during the hearing, where he’d been fairly reserved—that his great-grandmother was Cuban; he’d said so after scanning my file as I sat across from him during orientation, the one time we’d met before all this and where we’d discussed my fall schedule. I’d almost asked if that was why he’d been assigned to me, but I didn’t have to: the answer was yes—he told me so himself. This accident of heritage had trumped the fact that I’d applied to Rawlings as a biology major and he was a classics professor.
—In particular, he said, we were deeply concerned by what we learned about your high school. No counselor we spoke to there was able to provide us with a copy of a code of academic integrity. One went so far as to say that none existed.
The oldest man made a kind of snort—his version of a laugh. They’d called Hialeah Lakes: I tried to tamp down the shame I felt at someone there possibly knowing about this with the fact that there were almost a dozen counselors—most lasting a year or two before transferring somewhere better—and so maybe whoever they’d spoken to was new and hadn’t thought to connect the call to me. I had some sense that I could trust a place like Rawlings to respect my privacy while conducting their investigation—that they took their own rules as seriously as they took their honor code—but did they realize that even if they never uttered my name, just saying Rawlings to anyone at Hialeah Lakes led to no one but me? I looked up from my hands and caught Dean Geller glaring at the old man. I squeezed my palms together tighter when she turned back to me, to keep from showing any sign that I’d noticed.
—So our decision to place you on probation is based on things like that, she said, which taken all together means that we think your old school didn’t foster something that we’re calling a culture of success. And that isn’t your fault, but I wanted – we wanted to give you a chance to ask what this means, or anything else you want to ask. We want you to feel empowered by this information, not afraid of it.
I hadn’t said anything yet, but I was confused that they were talking about home instead of what I’d done. I stuttered a little, saying, I’m not sure –
The old man leaned sideways in his chair as if his back hurt and half barked, What she’s trying to say is we believe you sincerely didn’t know better. You haven’t been given, at any point in your academic career prior to coming here, the tools to know better. So yes, you are guilty, but you are also blameless, and so that requires a more nuanced penalty.
I didn’t remember saying at my hearing that I didn’t know better. I didn’t remember saying anything about tools at all. They’d asked me questions about my high school, about my teachers there, information I thought they already had on a sheet in front of them provided by the admissions office. They’d asked irrelevant questions about my parents and why they didn’t go to college, why they hadn’t finished high school (They were with child, I’d said, wincing inside at how my attempt at formality—knocked up and even pregnant had seemed too casual in my head—came out sounding overly biblical). They’d even asked about any siblings I might have, what they were doing with their lives (You mean my sister? I’d said). We’d gotten off track from my offense so fast that I’d thought I was doomed, and now it was happening again.
Dean Geller leaned my way, and this movement silenced the old man. She stuck her arm out across the table, although from where she sat there was no way she could reach me.
—Lizet, we feel strongly that, having admitted you, it is our responsibility to help you succeed. And we see no better place for you to do that –