Should Academic Honors Have Clawbacks?

Last week, Arizona State University and the University of Kansas rescinded honors bestowed upon the television newsman Charlie Rose, following multiple allegations of sexual harassment. The two universities, once eager to embrace Rose — a broadcasting figure seen to embody class and intellect — were now equally quick to distance themselves from him. Almost overnight, Rose went from role model to pariah.

Given pedagogical objectives (not to mention social and political pressures), both the courtship of Rose and the subsequent distancing make perfectly good sense and follow a pattern that has become all too familiar. Not long ago we saw it in the case of the comedian and social activist Bill Cosby, accused of sexual assault. At least 60 colleges and universities had bestowed honors on him, followed in many cases by abandonment. The celebrity status or professional stature of a host of other prominent individuals made them obvious candidates for public honors and private admiration, only to have those honors stripped away.

Fundamental problems underlie this phenomenon of bestowing and then withdrawing honorary titles, including visiting professorships and distinguished lectureships. The practice is reflective of a kind of institutional hero worship that is fraught with peril. If Charlie Rose was once the model of professionalism, he is today a poster child for the hidden life, and an object lesson in why we should not confuse professional achievement with personal integrity.

How many great men and women — or, rather, men and women of great work — have proven to be less that their own creations? A generation ago the poet Derek Walcott, a future Nobel laureate, was embroiled in sexual-harassment allegations while he was teaching a course at Harvard University. It was reported that the scandal cost him the post of professor of poetry at Oxford University. At Yale, a celebrated scholar of humanities was the recipient of innumerable honors and accolades. But on campus, he was notorious for sexual harassment. Female students dreaded invitations to his office.

Academic leaders can be forgiven for wanting to bring to campus individuals of high achievement. Their accomplishments may inspire both students and faculty members, and yes, sometimes the institution also hopes to court potential donors and share the limelight. (The line between playing host to a thought leader and sheer sycophancy is often blurred.) But there is danger in imagining that because individuals have excelled in some field, because their names are familiar to us, that we somehow know them, have insights into their character and conduct, or that they are worthy of emulation.

Fame and character, success and integrity, celebrity and morality, have little to do with each other. The illusion of familiarity that attends prominence invites nothing so much as disillusionment and disappointment. The naïveté of imagining that professional success and personal integrity are linked has created countless institutional headaches.

Bestowing honors is dangerous if the presumption is that the recipient is being recognized not merely for his or her achievements but for character as well. No institution of higher learning knows how the recipient of its attentions behaves at home or in the workplace, behind closed doors. And few institutions would embrace individuals or lend an imprimatur to their accomplishments and celebrate them if those institutions suspected that the individuals had violated accepted social norms of behavior.

The real issue is: Can universities show their respect for the work and segregate it from the person? It is not dissimilar from the question that afflicts sports: Should halls of fame be closed to scoundrels even though their on-field attainments are stellar? Should the standard be exclusively the batting average or yards run (or, in academia, the scholarship published, the influence exerted) while ignoring years of boorish behavior, sexual harassment, racism, or bigotry? Are these beyond the proper scope of inquiry?

And what responsibility, much less competence, does a college have to investigate such matters? It is one thing to ignore known concerns and quite another to be caught flat-footed and ignorant. When, if ever, must we allow ourselves to degrade the work we so admired not because it is inferior but because we misjudged the man or woman behind it? Is Charlie Rose any less the intellectual, any less the inspired interviewer, because of his actions off-camera? Is Bill Cosby less the comedian, his advice to the black community less sagacious, because of his personal behavior? It is a question that arises in art, politics, and history. Is Philip Johnson’s architecture less grand for his pro-Nazi sympathies? Do we imagine that John Locke’s words appearing in the Declaration of Independence — “life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” — are any less compelling because Locke invested in slavery? As W.B. Yeats wrote, “How can we know the dancer from the dance?”

Withdrawing honors from such individuals has an element of self-admonition to it. Institutions feel duped and betrayed, as does the wider public. Those who once relished the association, and the consequent attention, are left to feel like fools. The lesson of the Charlie Rose case is neither simple nor clear. It is no sin to believe in public figures, to extol excellence. Cynicism is rampant enough. But caution and wariness are in order where reputations are involved — not merely those of the recipients, but also those of the institution.

We are left with a nettlesome question of a sort that Charlie Rose might have posed: Is it possible for academic honors to recognize the work and not embrace the person behind it? Should such honors be tailored to express admiration for achievement without endorsing the stranger we only imagine we know?

Colleges have limited options: Dispense altogether with the awarding of honors, the safest but least satisfying path; expressly recognize the work, not the individual — a difficult, if not impossible, task; or recognize both the work and the individual, but only after conducting due diligence into the candidate’s background, a formidable challenge but one that might avert embarrassment and provide a measure of institutional cover. One thing we may hope for: That the days of simply fawning over the celebrated are at an end.

Ted Gup is a Boston-based author and a professor of journalism at Emerson College.