PIPER, Kan. -- High school teacher Christine Pelton wasted notime after discovering that nearly a fifth of her biology studentshad plagiarized their semester projects from the Internet.
She had received her rural Kansas district's backing before whenshe accused students of cheating, and she expected it again thistime after failing the 28 sophomores.
Her principal and superintendent agreed: It was plagiarism andthe students should get a zero for the assignment.
But after parents complained, the Piper School Board ordered herto go easier on the guilty.
Pelton resigned in protest in an episode that some say reflects anational decline in integrity.
"This kind of thing is happening every day around the country,where people with integrity are not being backed by theirorganization," said Michael Josephson, president of the JosephsonInstitute of Ethics in Marina del Rey, Calif.
Josephson pointed to the Enron bankruptcy scandal, in which anexecutive whistle-blower had warned superiors about the potentialconsequences of energy trader's off-the-books business deals.
Also in recent months, some of the nation's top historians,including Stephen Ambrose, have been accused of borrowing passagesfrom other authors without proper credit.
Pulitzer Prize-winning historian Joseph Ellis was suspendedwithout pay for a year from Mount Holyoke College after lying to hisstudents about serving in Vietnam.
"It's so hard to keep sending the message that character countswhen you have officials saying it doesn't count that much,"Josephson said.
In Piper, about 20 miles west of Kansas City, Mo., students gotthat message loud and clear, Pelton said.
"The students no longer listened to what I had to say," she said."They knew if they didn't like anything in my classroom from here onout, they can just go to the school board and complain."
