Padel V. Walcott

I’m a little late to the party with this news, but in case you haven’t heard, Ruth Padel, the first woman to become the Oxford Professor of Poetry, has resigned after word broke that she'd alerted a journalist to the past accusations of sexual harassment made against her main rival for the job, Derek Walcott, who had withdrawn from the contest after that news surfaced. Whew! You'd think this was a presidential election or something.

I feel a little mixed about this whole thing. If past sexual harassment claims against Walcott are in fact out there, then they should have been brought to someone’s attention—just probably not by Padel, who says she was “trying in a misguided way to address student concerns." Apparently Oxford University is planning to hold a new election at a later date, but Padel reports that she won’t be running in this second election. Whether Padel was part of some alleged “campaign” against Walcott or just had a moment of questionable judgment, we’ll never know, but it’s truly unfortunate that her historic appointment has been so completely tarnished by all this unsavory political maneuvering.