For most of us, terrorism is an abomination and a horror. For others it is a source of inspiration. As the sow is drawn to the wallow, so the American corporate terrorist – and this includes certain administrators in higher education – is drawn to that employee who is deemed weak, vulnerable, or otherwise problematic.

To come to the point: On Nov. 9, University College of Bangor – a campus of the University of Maine at Augusta – played host to a firing which, if one had been an onlooker, could only be described as an exercise in thuggery. The campus’ facilities manager was, without warning, beset by a claque of university officials and ordered to clear out. As part and parcel of the choreography, one of the officials burst into the office of a secretary and bellowed, “Get the hell out of this office! I have calls to make and I need privacy!”

There are witnesses to the rampage. It is interesting that if a faculty member, or any other so-called “protected” individual, had been the target, due process would have been observed, appropriate warning given, and the employee availed of sufficient time to mount a defense. But this is the rub: our facilities manager had no union representation, and so was deemed fair game. In other words, the University of Maine System requires a union contract to civilize and restrain it. Lacking this, it recognizes no moral or ethical need to treat unrepresented employees with respect, with dignity. If the facilities manager had been a janitor in the University of Maine System he would have been entitled to every consideration and opportunity to prepare his rebuttal – while retaining his job.

But the facilities manager wasn’t lucky enough to be a janitor. The facilities manager is a gifted person. Carpenter, plumber, electrician, architect, he had been with us for two years and had come to be well-loved for his generosity and his devotion to the needs of the University College community. In my eyes he had only two faults: he was both more highly educated and more talented than his supervisor. The living embodiment of the Dilbert cartoons of our daily papers, he spent a great deal of his time making his boss look good. This wasn’t enough to save him, and in a moment’s un-notice this family man’s livelihood was taken away. And there was no compunction, no delicacy, just the brute march through his office and the deliberate intimidation of a secretary.

The episode raises several questions: Is this any way to treat people? Is this how the University of Maine System honors the concept of community? What recourse does an “unrepresented” employee have after he has been humiliated and dehumanized in front of his co-workers? And last: What kind of a man – I write the noun only with difficulty – accosts an uninvolved secretary with an expletive and a directive to leave her own office? Does the university system have no control over such bloated poltroons, or does it instead seek to cultivate them? It may be a redundant question, for such martinets are useful: they are always willing to do the dirty work, always looking for that ear scratch of affirmation from higher ups, always a-drool with the loyalty of the beagle. They are, in a word, dangerous.

So much has been written about the abuse of power: “There’s no game so desperate, that the wisest of the wise will not take freely up for love of power” (Taylor); “Mad ambition’s gory hand” (Burns); “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” (Kissinger). But the one that stirs me deepest is Francis Bacon’s, “The desire of power in excess causes the angels to fall; but in charity there is no excess.”

Higher administrators of the university system often blather about caring: caring about the budget, about enrollment, about multiculturalism. These concerns pale in the face of our need to care about each other, without the cold hand of union representation forcing us to. But it was that long-ago University of Maine President Howard Neville who perhaps had the keenest insight: “An institution,” he said, “is incapable of showing gratitude.”

One can only hope that it has the civility, courage and maturity to mount an apology, and to mend its thuggish ways.

Robert Klose is an associate professor of biological sciences at University College of Bangor. He writes for The Christian Science Monitor and The Times Record. His work has also appeared in Newsweek, The Boston Globe and elsewhere.