Should We Cite Scholars Who Act Badly?

Imagine that you have just completed a book—an intensive project spanning over two years—including chapter contributions from other authors. The news breaks in the media that one of the key drivers of the ideas in the volume has been suspended from his university pending the institution’s investigations of alleged sexual misconduct toward students.

What would you do?

I recently confronted this situation. Initial feelings of nausea about the abuse of power by this academic, along with admiration for the courage of those who initially came forward, gave way to a real dilemma about what, if anything, I should do about it. Should the fear of potentially contaminating the project prompt me to pull the book altogether? Would going ahead demonstrate a complete lack of solidarity with the women who had come forward? Or would I just make myself another—albeit very remote—victim of this academic by sabotaging my own and other contributors’ work?

To clarify, what this academic was accused of is not an illegal activity, but it was a deeply unethical and a devastating abuse of power against the student accusers. Sexual misconduct in academe is widely recognized as a problem—indeed, it is “normalized and generalized as part of academic culture,” according to Sara Ahmed. Can’t we just freeze out the perpetrators—not give them the light of day in our teaching and scholarly writing? Or would that be a form of censorship of ideas, which perhaps are illuminating and valuable within their field?

We must also ask ourselves whether we can trust the outcome of any investigation. At present the allegations against this academic are just that: allegations. Aren’t we all innocent until proved guilty? The allegations may not be upheld, and the accusations may be judged unfounded. However, in this case, a “breaking dam” effect has seemed to be happening, where the first allegations were followed by others, in a way that has become familiar following the Me Too movement.

But will justice be served if a university investigates itself and its own star professor? Can we have confidence in the outcome? With its own reputation at stake, isn’t it effectively marking its own homework? It seems to be a recipe for a fudge or, more typically, a “softly, softly” nondisclosure agreement, by which the issue is disappeared and the institution not held publicly accountable for its culture.

Universities can deploy procedures to silence or discredit the accusers rather than work toward a zero-tolerance approach to predatory behavior by academics, who hold significant power in their interactions with students. Bigger pictures of systemic misconduct cannot be drawn because of a lack of information. In the case I refer to, the allegations have generated wide publicity in the national press in the country in which the university is located and on Wikipedia, so brushing things under the carpet and continuing business as usual may be more difficult.

But what should influence our decisions to continue to use an accused academic’s work in teaching or scholarship? Is it relevant whether they are still living? What if allegations emerged against Karl Marx or Aristotle?

And does it matter whether the nature of the charges relates to the subject of their academic outputs? Would using their work be different if they had achieved an important medical breakthrough and had engaged in sexual misconduct than, say, a professor of ethics charged with the same offense? Would it make a difference if the person were an artist, as in the case of Woody Allen, who was accused of sexual abuse toward a young relative and whose films are “saturated with his personality,” in the words of A. O. Scott in The New York Times?

Citation as a Political Act

Choosing to cite an academic is a political act, be it conscious or unconscious. It is a decision about whose ideas to include and engage with and whose not to. My book deals with issues of academic power, knowledge and justice. The academic in question deals with those themes in relation to global issues. If upheld, do the allegations of abuse of power in his own professional life disqualify his ideas from scholarly activity? Is it reasonable, or not, to expect that those whom we choose to cite in our work and whom we allow to inspire us will be role models in their personal and professional lives?

Also, is the author separate from the text they write? Foucault argued that an author can be. In the same way, an academic can be much more than the ideas they espouse. In exceptional cases, Foucault argues, they become separate from the ideas, because their publication launches a tradition or discipline in which new thinking and new authors can proliferate. Indeed, allegations about unethical behavior in Foucault’s own private life are well documented, but his ideas have taken on a life of their own. Perhaps his name does not really signify a person now, but rather a set of ideas that have been deeply influential in our understandings of how power operates in the social world. One could decide not to engage further with his ideas, but how can we unread the ones we’ve read or forget their influence on our thinking once we’ve engaged with his game-changing insights?

So what did I do?

After grappling with these questions, I contacted the publisher with a view to putting a footnote in the text about the suspension when the academic and his affiliation to the university were first presented. The publisher advised against that because they were only allegations at this stage. If not upheld, they would continue to be circulated in my footnote in a defamatory way.

On reflection, I recognized that the footnote would have been a half-baked idea, perhaps like offering the reader a bitter pill with their book. The publisher’s legal department suggested continuing as intended or rewriting. Rewriting, however, was not an option for me. The work of the academic in question formed part of the architecture of many of the chapters—not only my own but those of others.

In my own mind, I had decided to continue with the publication. It was important to consult in turn with each of the contributing authors who had cited the work of the academic. Each told me they wanted to continue with the project as it stood. I felt we could proceed with our heads held high and not feel personally compromised by the activities of this academic. The book had been written in good faith and the ideas in it were still important, independently of the alleged misconduct of the person who inspired some of those ideas.

All that said, I am still grappling with the questions I’ve raised in this article. Whether I will use the scholar’s work again in the future is something I haven’t fully worked through, although my emotional response at this point is not to do so. Each academic faced with this dilemma needs to carefully consider the issues and come to their own conclusion. There are many legitimate responses, and being judgmental toward faculty navigating these dilemmas would be the least helpful approach. But one thing is clear to me: universities must develop better procedures for accountability in how they deal with allegations of sexual misconduct. That will involve a cultural change in which such behavior is seen as a flagrant abuse of power and simply not tolerated.