Academics have the potential for engaging in a wide range of immoral or illegal activities. The pressures of competition for government or foundation funding may prompt researchers to falsify their findings. Competition for academic positions may prompt applicants to falsify their credentials. The publish or perish syndrome may encourage scholars to take short cuts by plagiarizing the work of others. Plagiarism may be either intentional or the result of sloppiness. The teaching and counseling functions of academics may also give rise to illegal or immoral behavior. Sexual harassment of colleagues or students may be at the top of the list, but teachers can also continually miss class, not teach according to the syllabus, force their own political or social views on students, or generally be abusive to students, colleagues, or staff.

Students are also not immune from immoral or illegal conduct. Among the more obvious forms of misconduct are cheating, lying, and stealing. Recent outbursts of racism, sexism, and anti-semitism among students is also cause for concern.

The responsibility of academics to report to the appropriate authorities misconduct of colleagues or students they have observed is a matter that should be the subject of serious study. Do faculty have a legal, moral, or professional duty to report serious misconduct or do they simply have a privilege to do so? Is the person who reports the misconduct a hero or a snitch, busy-body, spy, or informant (in the worst sense of that word)?

The legal profession, hit by a number of scandals in recent years, has now been jolted by a decision of the Illinois Supreme Court, In re Himmel 125 I11.2d 531 (1989). Attorney disciplinary rules require an attorney to report to appropriate authorities unprivileged knowledge of another attorney's misconduct. A client informed her attorney, James Himmel, that her previous attorney, John Casey, had misappropriated funds belonging to her. She told Himmel that she had reported the matter to the attorney disciplinary commission. All she wanted was to get her money back. She did not want Himmel to pursue the matter with the disciplinary commission. Himmel negotiated an agreement with Casey to pay the client double the amount Casey owed her. The agreement came unraveled, however, when Casey failed to pay as agreed.

The Illinois Supreme Court suspended Himmel from the practice of law for one year for failing to report Casey's misconduct. The Court held that the information communicated to Himmel by his client was not privileged as a confidential communication because the client's mother and fiance were present when she discussed the matter with him. The Court also held that Himmel had an independent duty to report the misconduct and that the client's instructions could not relieve him of that duty. Casey's conversion of a client's funds was illegal, involved moral turpitude, and should therefore have been reported by Himmel even though Himmel himself had no dishonest motive and had represented the client without financial gain to himself.

The Himmel case is legally binding only upon those academics who are also lawyers. Lawyer-academics now have an articulated duty enforceable at law to report misconduct involving moral turpitude by their fellow lawyer-academics to state licensing authorites. But the Himmel decision raises moral concerns common to all professionals, including the professoriate. The absence of a legally enforceable rule that requires the reporting of misconduct does not excuse the professoriate from what may be at least a moral responsibility.

Academics may not be professionals in the same sense as are lawyers, medical doctors, or psychologists. These have grouped themselves together to regulate admission into their respective professions, to promulgate ethical standards, and to discipline their members. Academics are not members of a self regulating profession in that sense, but they do consider themselves to be members of a profession with a strong service ethic and special moral responsibilities.

I have no ultimate answer to the question whether academics have a duty to report the misconduct of their colleagues and students to the appropriate authorities. My objective now is simply to prompt my fellow academic professionals to think seriously about the question. Do we want to impose a professional or legal duty upon members of the professoriate to report misconduct or do we want to leave the decision to individual discretion? What is our real opinion of whistleblowers? Forced reporting often smacks of totalitarianism. One need only think of the McCarthy era for a parade of horribles in which one academic was asked to inform on another. Forced reporting may implicate important first amendment rights such as the right not to speak-rights that were secured only after years of painful litigation. On the other hand, we would not have had the disclosures of Watergate and the Iran-Contra scandal without whistleblowers. Recent examples of fraudulent research and plagiarism by academics were uncovered only because of the persistence of other academics. If we are going to encourage or require such reporting, are we prepared to protect those persons who come forward from the job harassment or actions for defamation that may follow?

Assuming there is a duty to report, to whom must one make the report? Is it sufficient to alert one's department head or the university administration? Must one also inform law enforcement authorities, state licensing bodies, or prospective employers?

There is also the question of what must be reported. The Himmel court exempted privileged information. The law recognizes that lawyers, medical doctors, and the clergy have a privilege not to disclose information given to them in confidence. The AAUP "Statement on Professional Ethics" requires professors to respect the confidential nature of the relationship between professor and student. Yet the law generally does not recognize a professor-student privilege for confidential communications. Can we then speak realistically of confidentiality if the communication is given no legal protection? If legal protection is to be given, how much should be given? When should professor student communications be deemed confidential?

Finally, we need to consider what sort of information should trigger disclosure. Should disclosure to appropriate authorities be made whenever a colleague or a student has done something wrong or only when the conduct concerns illegal activities involving moral turpitude? Should one report misconduct based upon mere suspicion or, at the other extreme, only when one is morally certain that a wrong has been committed?

The Himmel case raises such questions without answering them. They are questions that at one time or another we as academics all face, questions we need to think through together.