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My life has again become hectic because I was fired today. I will include below the text of a short letter I've just written to interested parties at Stanford. I'll post something more in a few days. I had written up an article for Liberty Magazine that summarizes my battle with the university through today (I did one last rewrite to add in this afternoon's results). I'll post it as a follow-up message to this one. Here is the info letter: Well, they actually did it. At a meeting this afternoon with Dean Gibbons and Associate Dean Ken Down I was informed that I will no longer be working here after May 15th. They gave me one month's severance pay. I guess they paid attention to all of the debate over the advocacy issue, or perhaps they just came to their senses. In the end, they did exactly what I predicted in my letter to The Daily of two weeks ago. They expressed concern over the advocacy issue, but they fired me for the backpack and the alcohol incident. They mentioned at the meeting that they could reconsider if I were to promise to abide by the policy in the future. I asked whether they would reconsider if I just promised to abide by the alcohol part of the policy (not providing alcohol to minors) and they said no. I had previously told them that I'd be willing to make such a promise, but it's clear from their response that they claim that the backpack issue is sufficient for my termination. Which raises an interesting question. Am I being fired over the backpack? If so, then why didn't they fire me back in November? Why didn't they at least contact me? The Campus Report describes Susan Hoerger as saying that "Reges' statements in the Stanford Daily, printed on Nov. 8 and 9, 1990, prompted discussion but no action at that time." The university claims that government pressure and my advocacy are not the reasons they are firing me, but then why wait until now to do so? How could I have more publicly expressed the backpack issue than I did last November? The university had a prepared press release (printed on color paper no less) that they started circulating as soon as I went public (to their credit, they waited until I went public to release it). It has two inaccuracies. I am not guilty of "encouraging others to violate Stanford's drug and alcohol policy." This is a subtle point, but I think it's important. When I advised the student to try MDA, I didn't tell him to do so on campus (and it's not a violation of the policy to do so off campus). What I have told others is that I consider this an unjust policy, and therefore they should ignore it. I have advised people to make whatever choices they would have made in the absence of the policy. That's not quite the same thing as encouraging them to violate it. The second inaccuracy was that they said that my contract was due to expire at the end of June. According to University Guide Memo 22.8 (section 2.b.2), "Senior lecturers and lecturers holding salaried appointments for a term of one year shall be notified not later than March 15 if the appointment is not to be renewed." So I could reasonably expect to be employed for another year. I will be working up another article for The Stanford Daily this weekend. As soon as it's done, I'll leave copies outside my door. I'll also be working up the grievance that I intend to file. I think that one of my key points will center on consistency (are they consistently applying the policy).