Ward Churchill, a University of Colorado professor infamous for having called the victims of 9/11 "little Eichmanns," and later fired for academic misconduct, has been vindicated by a jury, which found that he was fired for his 9/11 comments and not for the misconduct. Never mind that he actually did engage in misconduct – including plagiarism – what matters is that one symbolically support the First Amendment.

Others may be surprised at Churchill's court win, but I'm not. Nor will I be surprised if he is reinstated and, more, welcomed back with open arms. Not after the experiences I have had as an adjunct professor in North Texas – and certainly not when I think about the fact that an increasing number of school districts are considering minimum-grade policies.

In fact, with the direction things are going, I'm surprised Churchill's colleagues threw him out for plagiarism in the first place. Yes, plagiarism is theft, lying and cheating. Once upon a time, it was the worst thing you could do academically. Now, we have schools where, instead of students being thrown out of school, failing the course, or even failing the assignment, they are increasingly given the chance to merely do the assignment over. Plano ISD only this week backed off a plan to make that an official policy.

In my case, the issue was never plagiarism, but standards and expectations. At one school, I was told, "We don't expect you to dumb down your class, but ..." and then I was told to dumb down the class. Even after I received a letter thanking me for having such high expectations. At another school, the admonition to lower standards and expectations came in the form of the least ethical statement I ever heard uttered by an educator: "The best and brightest will just have to be bored." I resigned.

This way of thinking is what the ideology of equality of outcomes gets you. We cannot challenge – we cannot educate – the best and brightest because that would mean some might fail. And we can't have that, because we want everyone to go to and succeed in college.

Thus, standards decrease. The self-esteem movement in our schools is creating people who cannot take criticism without feeling crushed. Worse, they immediately complain about it to an administrator, who gives in because it's the easiest was to make the complaint go away.

For too long, our schools have been turning out students with low standards of excellence and ethics. Our answer has been to lower those standards more and more. We fail to recognize a simple truth: Raise expectations, and people will rise to them. Lower them, and people will aim ever lower. And, yes, these problems are at your schools, not just the schools of others. It is happening at your elementary, middle and high schools. It is happening in North Texas colleges and universities.

If I were to apply what I have learned as an adjunct professor and from the Churchill episode, I would make no effort to search out plagiarism, make no comments designed to improve students' thinking and writing, and never challenge my students on any level. It seems that excellence and virtue receive no reward in academia. Quite the contrary. And our students are learning the same thing.

Troy Camplin is an interdisciplinary scholar and poet in Richardson. His book "Diaphysics" will come out this summer. His e-mail address is zatavu1@aol.com.