Dear Editor:

I’d like to be the first to congratulate the 65 SIU professors who “failed” their state-required ethics test by filling it out too fast. It’s good to know there are 65 people out there whose spirit has not yet been entirely broken by the sheer lunacy of state bureaucracy. Special props should go to English professor Beth Lordan, who refused to sign the “non-compliance statement.”

We live in an age in which corruption and dishonesty at high levels of all large institutions seem to have reached a kind of critical mass. But when politicians and high-level bureaucrats in the state of Illinois presume to train and question the ethics of ordinary employees, a new level of hypocrisy has been reached.

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The hypocrisy, however, may have been exceeded by the sheer stupidity of presuming to measure ethics with a 10-item standardized test.

And, hey, how about that “spokesman” for the Office of the Inspector General? Apparently the actual Inspector General is too busy to speak for himself, so he has to spend tax dollars on a mouthpiece. No ethical question there. No ethical question, either, apparently, when you accuse someone of cheating because they answered the questions fast. (They had to have been “holding on to a cheat sheet.”)

Hey, Gonzales! Here’s a news flash: That test wasn’t exactly quantum physics. Most professors got where they are because they are pretty good at taking tests.

Anyway, speaking of ethics, I think we all have a new ethical (or maybe moral) imperative. It’s time to show a lot more disrespect for authority. Our so-called “leaders” have worked hard to earn it.

Jim Glover associate professor Recreation