So often in university bureaucracies, personnel decisions are made by no one. In the collectivist space that is academe, decisions are made but nobody makes them; committees and boards are surrogates for responsibility, entities that somehow absolve the individuals who make them up from blame. So people are confidentially hired--and, more drastically--fired (denied tenure, "not renewed," or terminated for cause) without the possibility of really grasping who determined their fate or why.

University of Colorado president Hank Brown bucks that trend in today's Wall Street Journal with an op-ed entitled "Why I Fired Ward Churchill." Brown wants the world to know that he was an active agent in this decision--and in framing Churchill's firing as an autonomous act he dramatizes the broader point about accountability that he wants to make:

While no action was taken by the university with regard to his views on 9/11, many complaints surfaced at the time about his scholarship from faculty around the country. The university had an obligation to investigate. The complaints led to the formation of three separate investigative panels -- which included more than 20 of his faculty peers and which worked for over two years -- to unanimously find a pattern of serious, deliberate and repeated research misconduct that fell below minimum standards of professional integrity.

The panels found that Mr. Churchill rewrote history to fit his own theories. When confronted, he asserted he was not responsible. According to one report, "Professor Churchill has, on more than one occasion, claimed that certain acts that appear to have been his were instead the responsibility of some other actor: his editor or publisher, his assistant, or his former wife and collaborator." The report goes on to note that "we have come to see these claims as emblems of a recurrent refusal to take responsibility for errors . . . and a willingness to blame others for his troubles."

But his case is about far more than academic misconduct. It is about the accountability that public universities must demonstrate. Mr. Churchill's difficulties in facing up to his academic responsibilities are in many ways emblematic of higher education's trouble with accountability. Too often, colleges and universities tend to insulate themselves in ivy-covered buildings and have not been as diligent as necessary to ensure that the academic enterprise is conducted rigorously and honestly. This elitist attitude is simply outdated, and our university has made tenure reforms -- precipitated by the Churchill case -- that will ensure academic integrity.

Universities, particularly public research universities, are accountable to those who have a stake in their success and efficient operation. At the University of Colorado, this includes the people of Colorado who contribute $200 million in taxes annually, the federal agencies that provide some $640 million annually in research funding, the alumni who want to maintain the value of their degrees, the faculty who expect their colleagues to act with integrity and the students who trust that faculty who teach them meet high professional standards.

And just as the public has high expectations for us, we expect our faculty members to be accountable for maintaining high standards of scholarship. A public research university such as ours requires public faith that each faculty member's professional activities and search for truth are conducted according to the academic standards on which an institution's reputation rests.

Academic bloggers who write anonymously might want to consider the role they play in contributing to the culture of blame and irresponsibility Brown recognizes. They trot out every argument in the book for why they won't sign their names to their commentary. But in the end, what it all boils down to is an unwillingness to own their own words--to be accountable to others for the things they write.