You're saying that a few boners in a gossipy email is somehow equivalent to research misconduct? You mean to say that a gossipy email is equivalent to scholarship? I don't think you've thought this through. If that's the worst example of research misconduct you can come up with, the academy is in good shape.

Erin, I am desperately hoping that this post is some kind of clever sarcasm that I missed. You can't possibly believe that a private offhand email to someone constitutes "scholarly misconduct" even if it might have contained factual errors. On the contrary, Lott's lawsuit is a perfect example of why libel law ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. It's fortunate that Levitt has made a lot of money for a rich publisher, since libel suits like this can bankrupt a publisher or a writer. We can't even assume that Levitt agrees with the letter he's forced to sign in order to dismiss this part of the libel suit.

I'd love to find out the truth about Lott's "special" issue of JLE. Was it real peer review, or the kind of superficial, highly selective peer review that's all too common? Just because Levitt was invited to the conference (and to be a reviewer) doesn't mean that it wasn't one-sided, since at the time Lott may not have realized that Levitt disliked him. Unfortunately, we may never find out the truth about this issue of JLE and Lott's fundraising for it, since anyone with information will be afraid to reveal it for fear of being sued by Lott.

The real condemnation should be directed at Lott, for attempting to silence criticism by suing an author who wrote a short, accurate line about him.

I'm admittedly not all that familiar with all the ins and outs of the case, but if Mr. Levitt and the attorneys paid for by HarperCollins capitulated as completely as they did, accepting terms that uphold the central point of Mr. Lott's suit, that's game set and match.

I'd argue that the agreement, negotiated by his attorney's with the interests of Mr. Levitt paramount (why else would he accept HarperCollins' attorney if he thought they wouldn't protect his reputation to the fullest extent?), supports the contention that Mr. Levitt engaged in academic misconduct.

Mr. Levitt evidently lied about Mr. Lott, by his own admission: "Mr. Levitt told Mr. McCall that "it was not a peer-refereed edition of the Journal." But in his letter of clarification, Mr. Levitt writes: 'I acknowledge that the articles that were published in the conference issue were reviewed by referees engaged by the editors of the JLE. In fact, I was one of the peer referees."'

I regard that as academic misconduct. Period.

In fact, it sounds to me like Mr. Levitt's "offhand comments" might have had more than an effect of defaming, but might also have been intended to defame. But that's just my opinion.

And the contents of the "private" email from Mr. Levitt to Mr. Carr somehow found their way to Mr. Lott, so one could hardly contend that they were private. Even if only three people knew, initially, of the contents, it would be important for Mr. Lott to receive from Mr. Levitt formal satisfaction that the comments were, in fact, false.

Why? To use as a defense against the possibility that Mr. Levitt had communicated the same false and potentially defamatory comments to other unknown individuals.

If Mr. Levitt were deliberately attempting to defame Mr. Lott, while maintaining some sense of below-the-radar deniability, what would he have done differently?

And if Mr. Carr, the email's recipient, or some possible recipient of one of Mr. Levitt's emails who is unknown to us, were in a position to influence Mr. Lott's future, by word of mouth, say, and were to do so against Mr. Lott's interests based on his incorrect belief that the false and defamatory information in the "private" letter(s) was (were) true, should Mr. Lott suffer silently, or should he seek a remedy?

And what remedy might there be, other than the regrettable use of the courts, if Mr. Levitt had been appraised that he made false and potentially defamatory comments, and refused to retract them publicly when asked? (In my experience, before court action is initiated against a person for having made false and potentially defamatory statements, he's informed of his error and given an opportunity to retract. It is only when a person refuses to do so that the legal formalities begin in ernest.)

If Mr. Levitt doesn't believe he was culpable, he ought not to have agreed to the terms of the letter, which in my opinion show his behavior to be mean-spirited, vindictive and potentially devastating to Mr. Lott's character and professional prospects.

In my opinion, that's academic misconduct.

Feel free to disagree.

Minerva

The real condemnation should be directed at Lott, for attempting to silence criticism by suing an author who wrote a short, accurate line about him

Prof. Wilson, Dr. Levitt has just admitted in writing that he made remarks that were false, and that he was conscious of their falsity. The remarks were defamatory. His status as a scholar does not give him carte blanche to libel people and Dr. Lott is within his rights to defend his reputation. It is a matter of honor, something of which academe could use more.

I'm sure Mary Rosh would agree that academia could use more honor.

Saying something snide and untrue in email isn't a good thing, but I really think scholarly misconduct is something that involves scholarship, e.g., what kinds of knowledge claims we make in our published research, or it involves institutional processes of major import (tenure, hiring, promotion).

Lott is not exactly an unblemished figure when it comes to shading things in published research findings--a lot of people have an animus towards him and his work that I don't share (his findings on guns strike me as at least being worth some attention) but his citation in the first edition of that work of "national surveys" quantifying his argument on the brandishing of guns when in fact he was referring to a survey he himself conducted (which he could not then produce when challenged) strikes me as uncomfortably close to one of the key charges against Churchill (that Churchill cited the work of others as evidence for some of his claims when in fact that work was his own).

Mr. Burke's reference to Mary Rosh is a neatly snide way to discredit the victim of Mr. Levitt's doings, the hoped-for effect being to shrink the difference between Mr. Lott's dumb error (of defending himself under a pseudonym as if he were a disinterested 3rd party) and Mr. Levitt's false and defamatory statements that in my opinion were designed to injure Mr. Lott's reputation and professional prospects.

It is also an implicit tu Quoque fallacy. Mr. Lott's Mary Rosh mistake -- which damaged only himself, the perpetrator -- doesn't justify Mr. Levitt's mistake, which appears intended to damage Mr. Lott.

Let's not forget that Mr. Levitt, for all intents and purposes, admitted he willfully lied in an email about matters of fact, and the potential victim of that lie was Mr. Lott, whose professional reputation was besmirched. When this came to his attention, he had no alternative but to demand a public recantation in one form or another in order to protect himself from similar defamatory letters Mr. Levitt might have sent to others, as yet unknown.

Apart from that, Mr. Lott claims he could not produce the data in question because his hard disc crashed and destroyed it all. If I remember correctly, he provided evidence that this had happened in the form of testimonials from collaborators.

It is worth mentioning that the conclusions Mr. Lott drew from those data were subsequently supported by other data.

AFAIK, there are no peer review studies that contradict the basic point Mr. Lott made in his 1999 book "More Guns, Less Crime", viz., that increased access to guns does not lead to increased incidents of violent crime. (Mr. Lott believes that violent crime goes down in venues where "shall issue" -- as opposed to "may issue" -- CCW laws have been enacted; others find no difference in the rates of violent crime between "shall issue" and "may issue" venues. Either way, the conclusion is the same: easy access to guns for law-abiding people does not increase rates of violent crime.)

Though I categorically do not, I could concede that Mr. Lott is as dishonorable a person as Mr. Burke evidently believes he is, or even worse.

But so what? How does that ameliorate the Mr. Levitt's concession that his statements about Mr. Lott were false, and known to be so when he made them, and that the consequences of his false statements would injure Mr. Lott?

If Mr. Burke believes that Mr. Lott should be deprived of legal recourse because of any past misdeeds, real or imagined, or what Mr. Burke may believe to be his dishonorable character, then logic demands that Mr. Burke must also believe that prostitutes cannot be victims of violent criminal rape because of their past misdeeds and their dishonorable character.

I consider to believe that Mr. Levitt's conduct was academic misconduct. Mr. Burke and others are free to believe as they wish.

Minerva

My main concern is with what the standard for academic misconduct or "honor in academia" might be, and once we establish that, with some consistent concern for those standards.

So, for example, if we want to establish that a standard for "academic misconduct" is "an academic making false or exaggerated assertions in an email to another academic", ok. What does it do to establish this standard? Is the standard actionable in some fashion? Is Minerva suggesting that Levitt should lose his academic post or be sanctioned in some fashion by his institution, if this is the standard of "academic misconduct"? If so, then I suggest that a significant majority of academics (indeed, professionals in most careers) may be at some point in their lives culpable of such misconduct and therefore liable to such sanctions. Is that a good outcome? Doesn't seem so to me. Suppose instead that Minerva would like this to be defined as "academic misconduct" but not subject to further sanction beyond being titled as such. That makes "academic misconduct" a meaningless phrase. It's hard to see what the point of calling it "academic misconduct" instead of "telling a lie or making an exaggeration in an email" would be. Academic misconduct is a term that is tied to professional standards in the academy, and to the maintenance of those standards through certification and sanction.

Certainly any definition of those standards that made "writing an email with a false or exaggerated claim" an actionable violation of professional norms would then include not only what Professor Lott has done in past work, but the research and communicative output of most academics. That's not tu quoque: I'm asking, are you serious about the apparent standard you're trying to set? If you don't mean to set a standard, then stop yelling "academic misconduct! academic misconduct!" as if you understand what it means to say those words.

Same goes for "honor in academia". If Art Deco is serious about arguing that academics need more of it, then I really do think that sockpuppitry and deceptive citational inferences are dishonorable as well.

I'm all for trying to set standards, describe norms, work out institutional practices. I'm kind of tired of people importing the battlefield of a larger cultural war into a discussion of standards and thereby only yelling "violation" when it suits the terms of the culture war. If we're trying to figure out misconduct, honor, honesty, plagiarism, etc. as they apply to professional life in academia, then it's important to apply whatever standards exist with some kind of even-handedness.

My main concern is with what the standard for academic misconduct or "honor in academia" might be, and once we establish that, with some consistent concern for those standards.

So you say.

If so, then I suggest that a significant majority of academics (indeed, professionals in most careers) may be at some point in their lives culpable of such misconduct and therefore liable to such sanctions....Certainly any definition of those standards that made "writing an email with a false or exaggerated claim" an actionable violation of professional norms would then include not only what Professor Lott has done in past work, but the research and communicative output of most academics.

Dr. Burke, I will speak from personal experience. I have managed to get through decades in the workforce without telling lies about my co-workers intended to injure them, and that is what Dr. Levitt did. I have not in my life been exceptionally virtuous by the standards of any place I have been employed. If it is your contention a 'significant majority' of the professoriate do this, you are contending your colleagues are rather more self-consciously unscrupulous than I would have asserted on my own knowledge. (I am fascinated as to what you know of 'other professions').

To which false claim of Dr. Lott's are you referring? Did it injure anyone else's reputation?

Now, people do commonly make exaggerated claims about their accomplishements in job interviews and such, but it would be a strange argument to say that advocating tripwires that bring sanctions against violators is a red-herring exercise because small violations are common. (What happens at Penn State when the provost discovers Prof. X has claimed for fifteen years to possess a degree he never earned? What should happen?)

Same goes for "honor in academia". If Art Deco is serious about arguing that academics need more of it, then I really do think that sockpuppitry and deceptive citational inferences are dishonorable as well.

I am serious about it, which is why I would neither offer or attempt to defend the proposition that Dr. Lott's Mary Rosh pranks were dishonorable. (Silly, perhaps, but that is another matter).

then it's important to apply whatever standards exist with some kind of even-handedness.

I have a suggestion as a point of departure. If you do something that would have counted as a cause of civil action ca. 1963 (i.e. before the press corps persuaded the judiciary to allow it to defame politicians with impunity), you should expect a formal inquiry into your conduct.

Personally, I am not much concerned with internal-affairs inquiries into fraudulent research (bad though that is), but with mundane behavior which makes the world worse and should generate the sort of informal sanctions (supplemented and buttressed with formal sanctions when necessary) that exist in well-ordered social organisms. Are academic institutions doing a good job recruiting, retaining, and socializing people who have the necessary internal inhibitions and are capable of freely apologizing, and doing so for the right reasons? I would certainly hope so, but I would feel much better if Houston Baker were not such a hot property.

Timothy Burke:

"My main concern is with what the standard for academic misconduct or "honor in academia" might be, and once we establish that, with some consistent concern for those standards."

Be that as it may --

I must admit to being confused, perhaps because I don't understand the thrust of rest of your note as it might relate to the topic at hand, which is Mr. Levitt's false and defamatory statements about Mr. Lott.

Are you suggesting that we should not characterize Mr. Levitt's actions as "academic misconduct" until we've defined every possible action that might also be "academic misconduct?"

Surely not.

In light of Mr. Levitt's admission of his heinous actions, how could a laundry list of lesser offenses possibly get him off the hook?

Minerva