In recent months, three tenured professors at the University of Wisconsin at Madison have been convicted of crimes and sentenced to jail: medical school professor Roberto Coronado (who makes $137,641 per year), medical school professor Steven Clark (who makes $67,761 per year), and Lewis Keith Cohen (who makes $72,856 per year). Coronado was found guilty of sexually assaulting three girls over the past ten years; he was sentenced to eight years in prison plus ten years of supervision. Cohen got 30 days plus two years' probation after pleading no contest to using the internet to send nude photos of himself to boys and to conducting sexually explicit chat room conversations with one boy in particular. Clark got a year for stalking. None of the professors has been fired, however. Unbelievably, the university is trying to decide whether there are grounds for firing Cohen and Clark (there appears to be some question in Clark's case about whether he violated faculty conduct policies, which in turn suggests that it could be within the realm of reasonable faculty conduct for him to have practised internet pedophilia and done jail time for it). The university has moved to fire Coronado, but Coronado is exercising his right, as a faculty member, to appeal.

As taxpayers continue to pay the salaries of three academic jailbirds, some people are becoming justifiably upset. State representative Scott Suder is unimpressed by a UW policy that protects professors from being fired simply because they have been found guilty of a crime in a court of law. His position is simple: Convicted criminals should be fired promptly. Suder finds the university's policy of independently investigating convicted employees so as to ensure that they have due process within the university system to be misguided and misplaced: "The constitution guarantees due process in the court system, not in the university system. I don't care if it's standard practice at other universities. Wisconsin taxpayers aren't going to stand for it, certainly not for university employees who have been convicted of a crime, especially when they're apparently able to tap into vacation time while in prison." That does sound right to me--while public colleges and universities are required by law to honor and protect the due process rights of students and faculty, it seems to me that a court conviction trumps the sorts of internal codes that govern in-house institutional judiciary procedures. But I'm not a lawyer, and I'd welcome the opinions of those more legally informed than I on this one.

I will say this: The AAUP's defense of figures such as Coronado, Cohen, and Clark rings hollow. When asked to comment on UW's present procedures, AAUP spokesman Robert Kreiser invoked the special expressive rights of tenured faculty, stating that "It's all part of the basic principle of protecting academic freedom." When the principle of academic freedom--which is really only a principle, and not, when you try to pin it down, a terribly coherent one at that--can be invoked to cover sexual assault and pedophilia, something is very wrong indeed. The last time I checked, those activities were not part of the scholarly endeavor.

UPDATE: More at InsideHigherEd.com.

One issue here is whether it's wise to have a single uniform standard that's a short-cut through faculty-driven decisions. Suppose, for example, that a university says anyone convicted of any crime is fired. We'd probably agree that a faculty member on a research trip who is jailed in another country on spurious grounds (say, to produce a bribe to a local official) shouldn't be fired summarily for that. Let's then narrow down the hypothetical summary-firing offenses to convictions in the United States. What about faculty who engage in civil disobedience? Or (hypothetically) someone who visits a relative dying from cancer or AIDS and discovers (after being arrested for being an accessory) that said relative had marijuana plants hidden on a balcony?

Unless you're prepared to list the hundreds of specific statute violations for whose convictions you think a faculty member should be summarily fired, you're inevitably going to have to make judgment calls, and then it makes sense to put that in the hands of faculty.

The other issue here—and I'm quite surprised you've fallen for this—is the demand for instant decision-making. Do you really want universities to make snap decisions in response to legislative pressures?

I'm more brassed off that these are crimes of "moral turpitude." But Sexual assault, pederasty and stalking (digging shows that it was male on female, but even if it were male on male...)?!? These are predatory offenses and you don't have to be a gender feminist to classify them into the spectrum of violent crime. What's worse, examples in this story include crimes that are known to have a solid rate of recidivism, and none of them have the veil of political correctness like explicitly threatening a un-PC politician or "direct action" against "The Man™". These people have nowhere to hide and nothing behind which to hide.

A disciplinary committee should see these cases as no-brainers. We're not talking about being a terrorist functionary or leader (even a politically correct terrorist) or an "accidental" drunk driver, both of which have been the case in recent matters.

Sherman is right to say that the university should carefully determine via due process what is a terminal offense that reflects on professional conduct (e.g., theft of grant dollars, violent crimes) and what is not (e.g., bribing a foreign magistrate, misdemeanor drug possession or even DWI). But as I recall, tenure can be revoked for a number of reasons far smaller than felony convictions (from gross incompetence to malfeasance). Academic freedom doesn't even enter into those cases, and asserting that academic freedom applies here crosses the line between dumb and dishonest. These guys should be terminated, after the proper hearings and paperwork. "Academic Integrity" demands it.

If these things had been taken care of when they came up, there would have been no legislative pressure and no need for "snap" decisions. The legislature has to act when stuff like this is allowed to go on - that's their function.

The protection of these gross reprobates, these criminals, shows a guild loyalty that rejects morality and even the sovereignty of the laws. A guild society is like a caste society; their echt enemy is someone who imagines that academic freedom might allow for there to be new ideas. Accordingly, since the professoriate wriggled out of the restraints on the guild ownership of their jobs, a medieval pace of important new theories gaining general acceptance in academic fields, has settled in. It is only a reduction in their public funding which can penetrate the mental stasis of today's professoriate.

"What about faculty who engage in civil disobedience?"

Well, what about them? Our hypothetical faculty member will no doubt feel very courageous as he violates laws to make a political point...and then expects to return to his guaranteed job as a government employee. Is there supposed to be something particularly noble about this?

I'm surprised that Sherman obviously believes that university administrators have no common sense (requiring a specific list of crimes). Obviously, any fool can see that if a professor is railroaded, framed, or "jailed on spurious grounds", then obviously, he doesn't warrant being fired. On the other hand, if he's convicted in an American court, of particularly reprehensible crimes (which I insist that anyone with an ounce of common sense would call those), then the university no longer owes him sanctuary.

Sanctuary - that seems to be exactly what's going on here.

Suder should start moving on having the University's state funding (if any) stopped

It would be great to read a substantive reply to Mr. Dorn's post; I only see drum-beating and logically fallacious responses above.

Is no one ever railroaded in an American court? Do private firms //always// or //rapidly// fire employees who are convicted of crimes, or who commit (uncharged) acts of moral turpitude? Why doesn't the legislature push for similar snap decisions when cops kill unarmed men, or politicians commit the crime of adultery?

Unfortunately, the answer to the first question is "No." One might read the papers or sit in on a course in American History to find out more. The answer to the second question is also "No," and American firms are arguably in a position to make faster decisions using a lower standard of evidence. There are many answers to the third question, but "each case is different" is a fair beginning to any complete answer. "Snap" legislative decisions may create greater clarity about how specific laws ought best to be interpreted, but JUSTICE itself does not logically follow.

Attacking the American university establishment is all too fashionable, and the current subject provides a nice opportunity to pull out the old soapbox; this blog's readers, however, ought not to let sloppy posting cloud what might otherwise be an interesting discussion.

[As a side note, my two posts above were meant to be only one post. The posting form did not permit me to post due to the alleged "questionable content" in my post. After many attempts, I found that the software was blocking the word "Tex*s" from the second sentence of my third paragraph (add an "a" where the "*" appears). The apparent sarcasm in the sentence will disappear when the reader sees that I am pointing him specifically to papers from the largest American state.]

Basil...I thought my reply was indeed a substantive one.

Take a professor at a state university who commits an act of "civil disobedience" which is in fact a felony: let's say he attempts to break into a Minuteman missile base and pour blood on the silo door.

Do you think that, after being convicted, he should retain his job? Isn't there something just a bit hypocritical about being a state employee and insisting on a no-risk guaranteed job, while at the same time considering oneself a bold revolutionary?

Just to be pedantic, Tex*s is only the second largest state, after California (in population) and Alaska (in square miles).

"Suppose, for example, that a university says anyone convicted of any crime is fired."

Since this a public university, that's not really ultimately the university's decision to make. The legislature has a legimate interest in not handing out the taxpayers' money to convicted criminals; as a fromer state employee myself, I know my ass would've (rightly) been out the door under such circumstances upon conviction (accompanied by my disbarment, should I have been foolish enough not to surrender my law license), not AFTER I got out, so I see ZERO reason why there should be a double standard. The university is not a law unto itself.

The easiest bright line I can think of would be summary dismissal for felonies, case-by-case consideration for misdemeanors.

"the university should carefully determine via due process what is a terminal offense that reflects on professional conduct (e.g., theft of grant dollars, violent crimes) and what is not (e.g., bribing a foreign magistrate, misdemeanor drug possession or even DWI)."

Bribing a foreign magistrate should not be a terminal offense? I guess as an attorney I just tend to think of anything that smacks of official corruption as being extremely serious, but then I suppose academia doesn't concern itself with such minutiae.

As for DWI, perhaps not, but where do you draw the line? I had a colleague who was convicted of vehicular manslaughter and she lost her job, so should professors be treated differently, coddled and venerated like little gods above us mere mortals working for the same public salaries?

"Is no one ever railroaded in an American court?"

Is no one ever railroaded (or conversely, slapped on the wrist when they need the book thrown at them) in the unaccountable kangaroo courts internal to academia? Believe me, I'm the first to tell you the courts aren't perfect, but if you're trying to tell me the quasi-judicial processes of any university in the country are somehow better, there's no more tactful way to say it than that you've got to be out of your fucking mind.

"Why doesn't the legislature push for similar snap decisions when cops kill unarmed men, or politicians commit the crime of adultery?"

Go lobby for that, then, if you think those are good policies. Vote for people who support them. Run for office yourself. See, the legislature is accountable to the public and therefore its decisions legitimate in a way that academia's simply aren't.

""Snap" legislative decisions may create greater clarity about how specific laws ought best to be interpreted, but JUSTICE itself does not logically follow."

Having worked for a state legislature, there's no question about that. But it doesn't follow from that that justice will be produced by academics being above the law, either.

David Foster is entirely correct: you engage in civil disobedience, you willingly choose to suffer the consequences, recognizing that what you're doing is illegal. You don't whine to be let off. To look at another context, it's analogous to the very same problem I had with both Roy Moore and Gavin Newsom: instead of saying "this is a bad law," they said "I don't like this, so it ISN'T the law, and there should be no consequences for my violating it."

Let's leave the civil disobedience thing aside for the moment; it's a red herring.

I think an employer ought to be able to evaluate independently whether an employee provides useful service. So you'd hardly want any employer (including a public one) to be obligated by statute to can a really useful employee if that person was charged with a single DUI charge, or with shoplifting, or what have you. That's up to the employer: does that charge suggest the employee has problems likely to interfere with their productivity on the job? If not, and you're satisfied with the employee, then so what? It seems nutty to me, for example, that US military officers get canned for adultery, but the US military has a worked-out procedure both for a finding that adultery has occurred and a justification for why it's a concern regardless of whether it's a crime. Most institutions have a similar way of thinking about the relationship between models of workplace effectiveness and criminality: that they reserve to themselves the right to determine what is or is not an impediment to productivity. That seems fair enough to me.

These charges in Wisconsin, it's pretty clear, are sufficient evidence of a likely inability to do the job for which these people are hired. But you wouldn't want an automated trigger that made that determination, unless it was pretty specific about the nature of the crime that triggered it. I don't see any problem with saying, "Any faculty in a public university charged with a sexual offense should be suspended, and any convicted of a felony of that type should have their tenure revoked, no further discussion needed". Fine. But there's nothing wrong with an internal procedure to review cases of criminal charges as they occur: the question is not, "Is this person guilty or not" but "Is this person not capable of doing their job?" That's the issue about civil disobedience: I don't see that getting busted for blockading a military site is likely to indicate much of anything about a professor's ability to teach, though something more substantial (like ecotage) might raise tougher questions.

The thing that's proper to suggest is that first, a faculty member charged in a court of law with a felony offense of any kind should have their salary suspended automatically; and second, there should be a highly expedited review process once a conviction comes in. It shouldn't take more than a week or two to decide what the status of a particular employee is, because there's no additional fact-finding required beyond the actual conviction. At that point, it's just a basic discussion: is this a crime that impinges on the person's ability to do their work well, and have they been doing their work well to that point? In the Wisconsin case, the real problem is that it's taken them so long to come to a quick, obvious conclusion that these are very obviously convictions that impinge on the ability of these people to do their work, not that there's a review process in the first place.

"I think an employer ought to be able to evaluate independently whether an employee provides useful service."

Query re: this case, however...who does one define as the employer? The university, sitting in isloation, receiving public money yet presuming itself above public scrutiny? Or the State of Wisconsin as a whole?

Would you agree that, regardless of whether it would actually be a good policy, the legislature does have the legal authority to enact as a blanket policy, "convicted felons shall not be employed at the public univeristies of this state"?

Clearly the legislature has the authority.

In functional, supervisory terms, I'd say the university is "the employer", unless the members of the legislature are willing to commit to being day-to-day micromanagerial administrators at every public university. But I see no problem with the legislature instructing the university administration to expedite the removal of convicted felons from faculty positions, to have a "rapid response" procedure for review of tenure that comes into play when a felony conviction occurs, where it takes some extraordinary claim or fact to avoid dismissal. I also see no problem with suspension of salary and benefits when someone is charged with a felony.

The Clark felony stalking case has been pending at least since July 8, when a note about it appeared in OpinionJournal (linked in my post here. The problem I see is that the AAUP and apologists for U of W are in effect claiming that a felony conviction in a jury trial, or a nolo plea, is in effect not "due process". As far as I can see, posters above and other defenders of the status quo are saying tenured faculty are more equal than others and need additional review of their legal proceedings to determine if they had a fair trial. This goes against the Enlightenment principle of equal justice, but as I've observed, universities are pre-Englightenment institutions.

Err Because he has unused vacation time, he is currently receiving his salary — $137,641 — and will continue to do so until he uses up his vacation time, at which point he will be on an unpaid leave, pending the outcome of his appeals of his dismissal.

Even if he had been fired immediately he would be receiving the money until the benefits he had accrued had been exhausted.

or a nolo plea, is in effect not "due process"

A nolo plea is, as a matter of law, not the same thing as a guilty plea.

Which is why the BYU professor suspended for pleading nolo to a collection of crimes had the faculty review come back in his favor. It is not as if BYU is a liberal institution ....

I think an employer ought to be able to evaluate independently whether an employee provides useful service. So you'd hardly want any employer (including a public one) to be obligated by statute to can a really useful employee if that person was charged with a single DUI charge, or with shoplifting, or what have you. That's up to the employer: does that charge suggest the employee has problems likely to interfere with their productivity on the job? If not, and you're satisfied with the employee, then so what?

No argument there… but it’s not just YOU that must be satisfied with him or her.

I keep recalling an "incident" when I was in undergrad where a "popular" A-list faculty member forged a threatening letter to the sitting republican president under the name of a cop who busted him for DUI (whom he also professionally libeled – talk about digging deeper). To make matters worse, we went "on the lam" for I think a month or so when the gig was up, thus abandoning his post (no doubt leaving it to another faculty member to pick up the slack). This was not civil disobedience that could fall under academic freedom, but malicious and grossly unethical behavior. This was the sort of thing we were told could jerk tenure. Obviously, he was not terminated or I would not let a long story go even longer. For that and other egregious tenured teenager action on their part, my opinion of that half of the campus and the faculty in that area has forever gone deep into the hole. It was also shared by many students at the time who could not understand why he was retained. Sure he *was* a good professor, but his credibility in real world affairs was shot to hell, as was the credibility of those who fought for his retention after the dust settled. What’s more, as some of my colleagues in the humanities programs here are aware, it has never completely dissipated even though I enjoy excellent relations with my local “Humanagonies” colleagues for whom I often go to bat when my jaded advisees whine about having to take a lit class (oh they are MUCH better and far more intellectually honest than most of the faculty *I* had, doesn’t seem to cut it).

Thus the damage caused by miscreant faculty members, compounded by the appearance of toleration by their colleagues, can be considerable. Rationalizing moral agnosticism in the face of screaming ethics violations as “Academic Freedom” is bunk. And you have to go to college (and stay there), not to realize that.

I agree with you, Bill. While I think that a university should have some kind of review procedure of its own about criminal accusations against its staff and faculty, I also think it should be highly intolerant of serious offenses that negatively affect that ability of a tenured faculty member to function effectively as a representative of the university. Academics, like many other professionals, are too reluctant in many cases to police their own ranks effectively. That doesn't mean someone else can do it better for them, but it doesn't excuse the weakness of their own performance.