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 ____________________________________________________________________ Richard E. Dixon 12106 Beaver Creek Road Clifton, VA 12104-2115 703-830-8177 fax 703-691-0978 ______________________________________________________________________ To subscribe, change options, or unsubscribe, please see the instructions at http://listlva.lib.va.us/archives/va-hist.html