Is the LSE Victim of a Witchhunt?

In a poorly placed op-ed, Jenni Russell has written a pretty compelling argument that says yes:

What has been happening to the London School of Economics over the last few days is scandalous. A university’s reputation is being trashed, a talented director has resigned, and now there are wild calls for the governing council to be forced out too. There is no sense of proportion, no careful consideration of which of the LSE’s judgments might have been wrong and which were defensible. In a matter of days, any connection with Libya or the Libyans has come to be seen as self-evidently and retrospectively wrong and shameful. This is the politics of the mob, or the stocks, and it is seriously mistaken.

I have to say I’m inclined to agree. The graduation of a plagiarist raises my eyebrows (as you might guess) but as recent discussions have suggested going easy on academic dishonesty is hardly a problem limited to LSE. And simply the choice to make good-faith engagements with authoritarian elites or their children should not be treated, in hind-sight, as evidence of collusion.

A bigger question emerging has to do with kickbacks for positive press by academics – an issue that also goes far beyond the halls of LSE. Russell would be pleased to see Dan Drezner has a pretty nuanced discussion of how we might parse differing degrees of responsibility here.