A series by November

Chapter 48: Lies, Damn Lies, and Statistics

An incident occurred in Pennsylvania where a young boy walked across the Monongahela river in the wee hours of the night. He was spotted by two hunters on the far shore and shot nineteen times. Anti-mutants were in an outrage at the murder trial proceedings. It was self-defense, they contended.

Meanwhile, near Seattle, an entire FoH cell was taken out when a half-million tons of structural steel for the construction site next door somehow became rammed through its walls. The entire chapter was wiped out, and so were twenty civilians working in the office complex below. Their families rioted, and the next day the streets were flooded with people demanding Mutant Registration, now. Xavier’s face was tight and drawn that day.

That semester things on campus were more charged, mirroring the unrest in the nation and world as a whole. The only place in which people didn’t seem to be fighting over mutant rights was the middle east. They were too busy tackling oil and religion.

The tension manifested, sometimes positively, among Rogue’s circle of friends. Rakim had become a fixture at the mansion, and started working on a project with Jean and Hank. A large number of bio majors, mutant and non-mutant alike, were becoming interested in mutation and the department saw an increase in bio majors.

Unfortunately this wasn’t the only change. Someone ransacked and trashed the MSO office. That was small potatoes, though. There was nothing of worth there, and the only information that could have been stolen was the home addresses and phone numbers of MSO members. Rogue handled the few prank calls with her usual amused aplomb. Logan was less calm, if he was the person to answer the phone. On more than one occasion, he covered Maggie’s ears and suggested creative ways for the caller to fuck themselves.

It got to be so that one time, when he answered the phone, she covered her ears automatically. It wasn’t a prank, though. It was Ray from the beach.

"Is Marie there?"

"Who’s this?"

"This is Ray, I met her at the beach. Logan, is that you?"

"Oh hey man, I’m sorry. Some assholes got ahold of our number and we’ve been getting prank calls twenty four seven."

"That sucks. Hey, I’m gonna be visiting your school soon."

"You are?"

"Yeah, I’m gonna be collaborating with Jean and Rakim on a project."

Logan liked Ray, he genuinely did, but having another man call for her made his hair stand on end and his nostrils flare and made him want to smash something.

"That’s cool. When are you coming?"

"Over winter break. I wanted to hang out with you guys if you’re gonna be around."

"Sure. Just you?"

"Probably. Cass wants to come see Marie but she doesn’t think she’ll be able to swing it."

"We might be able to pick you guys up."

"Shit, that would be great."

"Lemme get back to you on that."

Marie walked in, and saw Logan on the phone. She quickly looked to Maggie, whose ears were uncovered. "Oh, here comes Marie. Okay man. Take care."

He handed the phone to her. "It’s Ray. From the beach."

"Oh. Hi Ray! How are you? How is everybody? We’re good. You are? Yeah, Jean mentioned that you might be working together but I didn’t know you were visiting. That’s so cool! She might? Oh, that would be so cool. We might be able to pick you guys up. Yeah. He did? Great minds think alike. Sure. Sure you can ask me."

She laughed and Logan glanced up. "That’s what you wanted to ask me? No, it’s cute. Yes, he is gay, and I think you guys would be perfect together. He’s a good guy. Oh, god, now I’m excited. I want you to hook up. Well, he’s tall, black, with these startling green eyes, dreadlocks. Yeah, I think he likes white boys. He’s dated them before, I mean. Not now. No. Oh, this is so cool!"

When she got off the phone she was grinning. "You just have to be matchmaker to the world, don’t you?" Logan said affectionately.

"Oh come on, they’d be perfect together."

"I didn’t know he was gay."

"Ray? Me neither. Maybe he’s bi. Who knows? Now I’m in cupid mode. I’m so psyched. I hope Cassandra can come."

He nodded.

"Does the whole gay thing make you uncomfortable, love?"

"Well... just a bit. Even though I know there’s nothing wrong with it. Far be it for Mr. Adamantium Hands to get judgmental about other people."

"Logan, that sounds like a cartoon character."

"Well, if I get sick of painting..."

"Seriously, though, I’m glad you have nothing against it. Now I can tell you about-" she leaned in to whisper directly into his ear "the times I made out with Kitty in our old dorm room."

Logan’s eyes got big. "What, does that bother you, sugar?"

"Yeah," he said, with a grin, and held her hand to his hard on. She understood. "If you’re good I’ll give you details," she whispered, and sashayed away.

.

Rogue had never liked her abnormal psych professor. Her name was Dr. Kahn and she was a nasty, condescending woman. It was a small class, and Rogue knew she’d ace her first exam. She was shocked when she got a D back.

Apparently she wasn’t the only other student who was slighted. After class, she and a girl named Darnelle, and a guy named Rajesh talked about it.

"We need to go to the administration," Darnelle said. "I saw her give that Alex character an A and he doesn’t know shit about shit."

"Oh my god." Alex didn’t know bipolar disorder from borderline personality disorder.

"She’s right," Rajesh said in his thick Punjabi accent. "What’s her problem?"

"Well, you’re black, I’m a known mutant, and you’re foreign." Rogue said.

"I’m also a known mutant." Rajesh said. "Known to her at least."

"That bitch." Darnelle said.

"I have an idea, guys. A foolproof idea. Before we go running to the administration we need proof. I know exactly what to do."

Rogue went home and called everyone in her class. All but one agreed to show her their test. That person got a C, and was white with no visible signs of being a mutant, so she figured that it didn’t bias her sample of seventeen very much in one direction or the other.

Rogue copied everyone’s paper and gave a set to Hank to grade. Hank graded them in comparison with answers from the textbook and also with what he remembered from his long psych rotation. When Hank graded them, Rogue got an A. Darnelle got a B instead of an F, and Rajesh got an A instead of a D.

Then, they compared individual answers. Alex Rogers got full credit on a question that wasn’t fully answered, but on which Rogue had written eight times as much relevant data, much more eloquently, and only gotten half credit. There were similar findings for other questions, and other papers. In one case Darnelle and another student had written nearly the same thing, verbatim, but Darnelle only got a third of the credit the other one did.

The next Monday Rogue went to the office of the psych chairwoman and presented her findings. Darnelle had a class, but Rajesh accompanied her.

Rogue presented her findings scientifically, showing the scores of three different raters (Hank, Storm, and Leah), one of whom knew nothing about the situation. She actually had a graph showing that their scores should have been much higher, according to three independent raters, one of whom was blind to the situation. Then, after showing the hard data, she showed the examples where the grading was biased, with particular emphasis on the one case in which the answers had been exactly the same.

After that Rogue respectfully lodged the complaint that Dr. Kahn was biased, and requested that either the tests be independently graded by another faculty person, without names, or re-proctored.

When she was done, Dr. Pileggi stared at her. Finally she spoke. "If you suspected this, why didn’t you just come to me in the first place? Why all the statistical analysis?"

"First, because I wanted to be sure she wasn’t just grading everyone harshly. I wanted to do my homework. Second, I didn’t know where your sympathies would lie, if anywhere, and I didn’t want you to be able to shoot down my complaint as whining, so I knew I had to have proof. There was one student who didn’t participate, but I don’t think he biased the sample much."

Dr. Pileggi looked over the "visual aids" and laughed. "I take it you’ve taken Research Methodology and gotten an A?"

"That or a B. I don’t remember." She still had no clue where the chairwoman’s sympathies lay and it unnerved her. Was this how Jean felt at the senate hearings?

Dr. Pileggi looked over the graph and tapped her pen for a second.

"Okay. Here’s what we’re gonna do." Rogue and Rajesh shifted in their seats. "I am going to keep these and review your findings. I don’t know if we will adjust the grades, re-proctor the exams, or have another professor grade them. That will be up to Dean Jeffries. What I will tell you is this: that you won’t be penalized for this and that you will both probably get A’s in the class. So no worries about your own grades. Don’t say anything to the other students. I doubt they will be penalized either. Mr. Patel, you can go. Ms. D’Ancato, please stay for a moment."

Rogue’s heart started pounding. Fear overtook her.

"You’re not a very trusting soul, are you?"

"No ma’am."

"Here’s a picture of my children." It was the last thing she expected to hear. She handed Rogue a framed photograph that showed Dr. Pileggi with a black man and three cocoa children. One had webbed feet. "No one’s going to accuse me of racism, geneticism, or any other ism."

"Dr. Pileggi, I didn’t accuse you. My complaint was toward Dr. Kahn."

"I’ll tell you a secret, Marie. You’re not the first one to complain about Dr. Kahn. But you’re the first one to document it scientifically. And I feel like I could hug you for that. Because I hate that smarmy bitch."

This response was, once again, the very last thing Marie expected and she responded with a scandalized yelp of laughter. She quickly covered her mouth.

"Didn’t expect to hear that, did you?" Dr. Pileggi clearly liked to shock people.

"Actually, I’m not all that surprised. That woman has pissed me off from jump." Rogue relaxed.

"Well you’ve done a good thing here. And, a pretty impressive thing. If you ever need anything, a recommendation, a seat on your thesis committee, anything, you come to me."

Later that night she told Xavier about it and he smiled. She always brought these small victories home to him, like a cat would bring a mouse to its owner. She thought he needed to know his "children" were doing some good, however small. She thought it would give him strength. She was right.