The Attorney General Wants Me December 22
The Attorney General of Trinidad and Tobago requests an urgent meeting with me on Friday, and he is not happy. I caught his daughter cheating on an AP Chemistry Exam. I would prefer not to get deported, but Oli notes positively that a diplomatic incident would make for a good story. And, if the US government shuts down tomorrow, as is tentatively planned, then my embassy will be closed to me, leaving me in the hands of Trinidad justice, which everyone tells me does not exist.
Below is his latest missive, by email, December 20. Dear Mr. Shaw
This is a very serious allegation.
To be guilty of cheating there must be clear and unequivocal evidence of rules and regulations that can be applied together with a deliberate and dishonest act on the part of the student. It is an axiomatic element of both administrative fairness and natural justice that rules and regulations must be clearly established and communicated to the student and that they are applied after the establishment that the student has notice of same and understands the parameters.
I must immediately caution that one is incapable of stating that as a teacher one takes ‘partial’ responsibility “by having a take-home, open-book exam portion, without supervision”. You have failed to indicate the rules and regulations stated, provided and communicated to the students in respect of this “take-home, open-book exam portion” which was “unsupervised”. In fact I am informed by Jinan after my own interrogation, that no rules, regulations, prohibitions whatsoever were communicated, provided or explained by you or anyone else to Jinan and her class mates in this regard. I am further informed and verily believe that upon first questioning by you, Jinan and her fellow class mates immediately informed you, (as you yourself have already admitted in your first email to me), that they did collaborate on a question as they properly believed they could and were entitled to do.
As you are aware Jinan is dependent on maintaining her good grades in the subject that you teach so as to be admitted to University. This is her final semester at ISPS. Any loss of opportunity for Jinan as a result of an unfair, capricious, arbitrary and unlawful process of regulation and disqualification will not be tolerated and I properly put you upon notice as to same.
Before any decision is made let alone applied in this matter I hereby request an immediate meeting to address this issue and I ask that you take no step to record any decision whatsoever to dock Jinan’s grades as this will further entrench the obvious wrong doing in this matter. Your immediate written undertaking in this regard is hereby requested.
I must insist that you provide the Principal with this email and alert him to my concern and caution.
I await your immediate reply and remain
Yours sincerely,
Farris Al-Rawi
Attorney General of the Republic of Trinidad and Tobago
I place this report from Our Man in Trinidad in your safe keeping. My son has photographed the emails and sent them up into a cloud, far away and everywhere. This may be the end of the story I am looking for—jailed for an “unlawful process“ called academic honesty, or disappeared entirely.