Universities should be careful when it comes to removing professors from their positions. Just because an academic is convicted of violating a law does not mean that he or she should be fired.
For instance, if a professor participates in a peaceful protest and gets arrested as many have it would be wrong to suggest that removal is warranted. Similarly, there are minor violations of the law that, while troubling, ought not end an academic’s career so long as those violations are in areas other than the professor’s fields of instruction and research.
But when a faculty member engages in serious misconduct of the sort that University of Wisconsin Medical School Professor Roberto Coronado has been convicted of committing, the UW Regents have no choice but to act swiftly and decisively.