This editorial from the Wall Stret Journal raises the issue that a more wider 
 cultural breakdown is at the heart of the recent revelations of plagiarism. 

Post-Clinton Standards
Academics as well as accountants should be accountable.

BY ROBERT L. BARTLEY
Monday, March 18, 2002 12:01 a.m.

When the Enron story was breaking back in January, I wrote here that the 
ultimate explanation was "the societal collapse of standards and morality 
over the last three decades or so. As a society we seem increasingly 
incapable of sitting in judgment of each other." With the indictment and 
probable demise of Arthur Andersen LLP, perhaps it's a good time to check up 
on standards in the rest of society, in particular its supposedly high-minded 
quarters.

The Archdiocese of Boston, one example. Its pedophile coverup problems forced 
it to agree to a huge monetary settlement. An editorial in the official 
newspaper of the archdiocese, the Pilot, even discusses the possibility that 
celibacy accentuates the incidence of scandal, and also homosexuality, in the 
priesthood. The archdiocese is backing away from this challenge to church 
doctrine, but the issue has been broached. Back in the Protestant Reformation 
critics found celibacy unrealistic and unnatural.

Across town we have the matter of the Harvard Business Review, a scoop for 
James Bandler of our Boston bureau. Review Editor Suzy Wetlaufer resigned 
over being romantically involved with an interview subject, super-CEO Jack 
Welch. Mr. Welch and his wife are now negotiating for a divorce. This is bad 
news for all involved, plus female journalists everywhere, often unjustly 
accused of dalliance to ingratiate themselves with sources.

Doris Kearns Goodwin has been rather harshly punished, it seems to me, over 
some instances of plagiarism found in her books. She was exiled from PBS's 
"NewsHour With Jim Lehrer" and disinvited as a commencement speaker at the 
University of Delaware. She owned up to the misdeed, as did Stephen Ambrose, 
who escaped more lightly. Part of the reaction is surely moved by jealousy at 
their popular success; unlike cases below, there is no suspicion they 
invented their facts.

By contrast, seven federal and state wildlife biologists submitted forged 
samples to a survey to determine the range of the Canadian lynx, protected 
under the Endangered Species Act. They doctored samples with hair from 
captive lynx, and when discovered claimed that they were concocting a test of 
lab procedures. Western congressmen charge that they intended to create an 
excuse for further restrictions on use of and access to the forests. 
Similarly, a National Academy of Sciences panel found "no sound scientific 
basis" for the Bureau of Reclamation decision to cut off irrigation water to 
farmers in Oregon's Klamath basin to preserve water for suckerfish, which 
were designated for the endangered species list in 1988.

In the groves of academe, meanwhile, Mount Holyoke College suspended history 
professor Joseph J. Ellis over fictionalizing his personal biography. Mr. 
Ellis won both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his books 
on the founding fathers and Thomas Jefferson. But he repeatedly regaled 
students with his exploits in Vietnam, until the Boston Globe reported that 
in his military career he never left the East Coast.
Prof. Ellis was also point man in claiming that new DNA evidence proved 
rumors that President Jefferson was father of at least one child by his slave 
Sally Hemings. He took to the pages of U.S. News & World Report to tie 
alleged Jefferson misdeeds with the impeachment of President Clinton. But a 
later review by a dozen illustrious historians found the DNA evidence proves 
no such thing.

Instead it proves that the last Hemings child was likely fathered by "one of 
the two dozen Jefferson males in Virginia at the time," according to the head 
of the panel, Robert F. Turner of the University of Virginia. The most likely 
candidate is the president's younger brother Randolph, known to have spent 
nights with slaves and to have been invited to Monticello days before the 
likely conception date of the young child.

After serving a year of what Mount Holyoke's president described as 
"reflection and repair," Prof. Ellis will be back on campus in the fall. He 
has apparently already been fully vindicated in the eyes of the New York 
Times Book Review, where he recently was invited to appraise James S. Simon's 
new book on Jefferson and John Marshall.

Then there is Emory University's Michael Bellesiles, who won the prestigious 
Bancroft Prize for his "The Arming of America: The Origins of a National Gun 
Culture." Contrary to myth, he argues, guns were rare in colonial America; 
the "gun culture" did not arise until after the Civil War.

When others sought to use his references, Mr. Bellesiles came up with a 
series of explanations that would do Jeffrey Skilling proud. His records, for 
example, had been ruined in a flood. Material destroyed in the 1906 San 
Francisco earthquake were actually in the Contra Costa County Historical 
Society, he said, except that they weren't there either, and the staff said 
it couldn't confirm he'd ever been there.

In the current William and Mary Quarterly, Mr. Bellesiles continues to defend 
his hypothesis, which comes under withering fire from three other historians 
expert in probate records, military matters and the history of violence. But 
he only glancingly deals with the inability to replicate his evidence. Emory 
has launched an official investigation.





On whether we have experienced a general erosion of standards, I think I can 
rest my case. Human nature, of course, remains a constant over time and 
across fields of endeavor. What matters is accountability, that is, whether 
we as a society are willing to sit in judgment on each other. And perhaps the 
anecdotes above in fact suggest that in this post-Clinton era we're making 
some progress; at least the issues are coming to light and creating some 
agony in church, government and universities.
Businessmen, indeed, may be ahead of the rest in accountability. Aside from 
the draconian treatment of Andersen, last week's Business World by Holman 
Jenkins presented a rather amazing list of criminal charges for the likes of 
accounting abuse. Businessmen do not enjoy anything like civil-service status 
or academic tenure, privileges that carry an immunity from accountability.

Yet who knows, a mood may be stirring. If Catholic Church intellectuals can 
broach celibacy, perhaps it's even conceivable that academics will start to 
think about the downside of tenure. 
Mr. Bartley is editor of The Wall Street Journal. His column appears Mondays 
in the Journal and on OpinionJournal.com.


Copyright © 2002 Dow Jones & Company

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