Commentary
There is a school of jurisprudence, favored by dictators and the Queen of Hearts in “Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland,” according to which the sentence should be decided before the verdict. This seems to be the school of jurisprudence to which Princeton University has adhered in the case of professor Joshua Katz, whom it has sacked on what sounds like a pretext to justify what it had already decided to do.
An element of the pretext is reported to be that Katz, a very distinguished classicist, discouraged his 21-year-old student, with whom he had a consensual but otherwise impermissible sexual relationship, and for which he was duly punished by suspension for a year without pay, from seeking “mental health help” for her distress after he ended their affair. He denies that he ever discouraged her in the alleged fashion….