Green Hall is expressionless from morning to dusk, its charcoal windows accepting little of the day’s light and giving nothing back. At night, if there were trees around it, a passerby might miss its ordinary outline altogether. But as there are no trees at night it stands out, though without distinction, barely second place to the architecture of the School of Engineering that sits across the street to the north and is itself no threat for the Pritzker Prize.

 

Farieh’s classmates in her international law seminar had opted for a single night session that semester and they had just had it. As usual, she stayed behind to engage Professor Zaidi on his presentation. Tonight he had addressed the utility of economic sanctions as a means of changing nation-state behavior, concluding they were ineffective. But Professor Zaidi had opened his evening schedule for only the class, and it closed as soon as he had finished. He apologized to Farieh for not having time to talk with her, but he left. It was 9:30.

 

Farieh walked out of Green Hall through the lower doors, crossed Irving Hill Road, and continued east on the sidewalk in front of the Allen Fieldhouse Parking Facility. She would ordinarily take the other way back to her scholarship hall—to Slawson Hall, up the hill, then east down Jayhawk Boulevard. Tonight she decided to take the back way: through the neighborhood south of the chancellor’s residence, up the hill on the chancellor’s back drive, and around the corner to Miller.

 

What did I do to Steven? As soon as the question formed she was embarrassed by it, embarrassed at blaming herself for the terrifying behavior of the male in her life. But the question had simply appeared. She was alone; no one had challenged her with it.

 

And why would I do this to me?! Farieh recognized this was the better question.

 

She was walking in an April evening that had turned past indigo to black. Though the light spilling toward her from a dozen streetlamps held back the darkness, she felt no freedom in it. The thoughts of Steven would have been there in the dark as well as the light.

 

Maybe this is a tape I have been laying down for years as my friends and my sisters and my aunts talked about their own boyfriends and their own husbands. Now I have a boyfriend—or had one. And he treated me badly. And I am asking myself the same questions I heard over and over in Iran. How stupid!

 

She walked the length of Capitol Federal Hall and past the north end of the Ambler Rec Center. The lighting from the vast parking lot that joined the two made for a confident transition to University Place.

 

A residential enclave immediately south of the campus, University Place presented short blocks and mature trees and charming homes in a variety of traditional styles. Though there was much less light here, there was enough that Farieh could see the houses clearly and the occasional bicycle or scooter leaned up next to a side door. The miasma of the asphalt repair work in the Ambler Center parking lot was gone now, replaced by something familiar to northeast Kansas on an April evening. The night air in University Place smelled like sheets: pinned to a clothesline in late afternoon and left until morning, clean and crisp with a hint of moisture.

 

Why do women look like property to men? Especially rich men? Something they can pull down from a shelf to amuse themselves and then either put back for next time or pitch away? If we let them know they hurt our feelings, we’re clinging. If we get angry and, God forbid, express ourselves in that way, then we’re bitchy. If they acknowledge our feelings it is only to recoil from them. They want a pretty face, someone who looks great in a little black dress. But a real relationship?

 

Farieh had turned north, moving past the picture-book residences toward the university. Her anger was cooling, but not just cooling. New thoughts were pushing it out altogether. She had had other things to do this semester, important work. Not classwork, although she certainly had that. The work she was thinking of was personal.

 

Farieh had sensed from New Year’s Day that she and Steven would fail. The realization lay so deep in January that some would have called it unconscious. But it grew, winnowing through her thoughts, insistent. Her mind and her heart made less and less space for Steven and his indifference. In their place she found Mehri. Mehri had been there the entire time. Farieh’s personal work of the spring was for Mehri.

 

Farieh had been asked to organize a student response to the Kansas Legislature, which was once again mucking around with diversity on college campuses. The conservative-dominated House and Senate seemed evenhanded about it; any limiting legislation would apply to all the Regents’ schools. But the undergraduates in Lawrence knew KU was the real target.

 

Farieh had been monitoring the Kansas House of Representatives, whose leadership was zealously opposed to diversity, equity, and inclusion on Kansas campuses and who had sponsored several bills to limit it. Farieh and her group had worked with the Democratic caucus and with pro-diversity organizations in the state, such as the ACLU and the NAACP, to resist the legislation. One bill, a budget rider, was the front runner, and it was heading for a final hearing in a week.

 

Farieh helped the House Minority Leader find a speaker to attend that hearing and oppose the bill. Farieh was excited about him. He was clever and well-prepared and articulate. But he was more than that. He could identify with his audience, speak to their feelings. As a result, he had had real success stopping similar legislation in other states.

 

The speaker was critical. Still, the consensus within her group, and at the Capitol, was that the bill would likely pass. It was a numbers game; the conservatives had the votes.

 

If the bill passed the House and Senate, getting the governor to veto the bill was their last chance. KU’s opposition to the bill at that point would be important, maybe decisive. She would do everything she could to make it happen.

 

Farieh and her group would approach the university. They would ask KU to support a veto. If the school sat on the fence, which she expected, she would take things up a notch: she would lead a sit-in at the Chancellor’s Office.

 

No one in Farieh’s group believed a sit-in would work. But Farieh believed it was a necessary next step on the way to an all-out protest. Farieh was already working on the details of the protest. They would do the sit-in first.

 

Protests were disruptive. They could get out of hand. But in her heart, Farieh knew how the university would respond to the milder parts of their plan. KU would do nothing. There would have to be a protest.

 

She had climbed the south slope of Mount Oread and had just passed The Outlook, where the lower, public floor of the university’s official residence showed dark to the outside. On the north side of the second floor, where the chancellor lived, a single light shone in the window facing Miller Hall. Probably his office, she thought. Probably he’s working.

 

Farieh had met the chancellor early her freshman year. As a first-semester sophomore, she had attended his lively party for the honors program in December. Two months later, she had spent nearly an hour with him at the University Scholars event. He was handsome and thoughtful and she liked him. She hoped he would not be angry with her once the protests started. But that would be up to him.