In Part One, we learned that, in early January, in an incident known as “Question Day,” a brawl took place in a U of T Law classroom after a group of students continued to ask the professor questions after he had said that class would finish an hour early. But what appeared to be a case of a bunch of nerds ruining things for everyone else may actually have been part of a broader conspiracy.
“Our plan worked perfectly.”
In the moments after I left Franklin Crewson’s apartment, those words kept flashing before my eyes. Had Franklin and Professor Feversham actually planned Question Day? Or was the email about something else? Franklin’s behaviour after I showed him the email certainly didn’t look good, but I couldn’t quite accept the idea that a student and professor would conspire to wreak such havoc on the law school. There was a time, however, when nobody believed that a sitting president would cover up a break-in at his opponents’ headquarters, but then Watergate happened.
So, I threw out all my preconceptions and started asking questions. In the past month, I’ve questioned every student, staff, and faculty member who would talk to me; I submitted FOI requests; I sat in on Professor Feversham’s classes; and I hired fellow students to follow Professor Feversham and Franklin Crewson. This investigation has led me to one incontrovertible conclusion: Feversham and Crewson are the masterminds of a vast conspiracy designed to destroy the Faculty of Law itself. This may sound paranoid, but after hearing the evidence, you’ll have no choice but to acknowledge the truth: we are under attack.
Beginnings: Crewson and Feversham Have Been Meeting for Months
Before I address their future plans, let’s take a look at how the two conspirators began. According to a Faculty source who has an office near Feversham’s, Crewson visited Feversham’s office almost every single day, beginning sometime in the summer The source told me that she just assumed that Crewson was an R.A. In the directory listing students’ jobs there is, in fact, a student listed as an R.A. for Prof. Feversham, but it’s not Crewson. It’s another name we’ve already seen in this story: none other than the alleged fight instigator, Kermit Steingart. But more on that later.
What’s even more interesting than when these meetings started is when they ended: right around the time of my interview with Crewson.
“I remember it well,” my source told me. “I was coming back from the Faculty kitchen and I saw Crewson knock at Feversham’s door and then I heard something that sounded like, ‘You shouldn’t be here.’ And then Crewson left. I never saw him at Feversham’s office again. Oh, and I have a photographic memory so I know it happened whatever day you said the interview was.”
Friends of Crewson told me that even in first year he seemed obsessed with Professor Feversham after the two met at Welcome Day.
“Franklin would say things like, ‘Benjamin Feversham is the only professor in the school that actually knows what’s going on,’” one of his friends told me. Another friend described Crewson as “disappointed with the level of discourse” at the law school. Was Question Day a ploy to target people who Feversham and Crewson considered unserious? Or was it something more sinister?
Feversham and Crewson Want to Bring Down U of T Law
There are a number of factors that lead me to believe that the ultimate goal of Feversham and Crewson’s actions is to bring down the Faculty of Law itself, figuratively and possibly literally:
- Professor Feversham’s tenure process is rumoured to be going poorly;
- Crewson was said to be furious when he was denied the role of Editor-in-Chief of the University of Toronto Faculty of Law Review;
- Professor Feversham once self-published a short story called “How to Bring Down a Law School, both Figuratively and Literally,” which I mysteriously received a copy of in my mailbox a week ago;
- Crewson recently approached me and, unprompted, said, “I hear you’re writing another article about me. Well, you can say anything you want about me, but one thing I definitely wouldn’t do is try to bring down the law school.” Which I found very strange and, perhaps, telling.
Kermit Steingart is Involved
I’m positive Steingart is mixed up in this. But how? Why? He works as a research assistant for Professor Feversham for a whole summer and then starts a fight in his class? That can’t be a coincidence. Moreover, Steingart has been accused of putting another student in a headlock but has faced no disciplinary consequences. How can that be? Could this go straight to the top? Is the whole administration implicated in this conspiracy? It’s too soon to say, but my journalistic instincts say yes.
What is Phase Two?
There is no reason to believe that Feversham and Crewson have abandoned their plan, whatever it is. The student who I had follow Feversham said he saw the professor visit a wrecking ball rental company and attend a do-it-yourself Faculty subversion course (something I didn’t know even existed). I myself followed Crewson one afternoon and saw him drop an envelope into a garbage can in Queen’s Park. I then furtively retrieved the envelope and found a piece of paper with the words “Kevin, U R Dumb” written on it. I replaced the envelope and waited hours in the cold hoping to witness Feversham pick it up, but to no avail. He must have spotted me. I have not yet figured out who this co-conspirator “Kevin” is—it’s probably a pseudonym—nor have I cracked the code used in the letter. My feeling is that when we crack the code, we crack the conspiracy.
I don’t know what’s coming, dear readers, but things might get bad. We cannot let this conspiracy destroy us.
Stay vigilant.
