WHEN A DISSERTATION GETS “HEAVY EDITING.” “Thomas Sowell views the white professor writing a dissertation for a black student as engaging in a misguided act of sympathy. At some level, I wish that as deplorable as the act is, it was out of compassion. My own observations revealed anything but compassion.” It is not compassionate to allow your students to learn less than they should.

One might respond, of course, that the entire dissertation process has little value except as a form of hazing and as a barrier to entry. But such an argument might prove too much, as we lawyers say.