COLUMN: A legitimate, public apology

From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Flen Print," Fall '97 From Daniel Fienberg's, "The Flen Print," Fall '97Child's lesson No. 1: If you do something wrong to somebody, you need to apologize to them. After you do that, everything will be alright. Child's lesson No. 3: Just because you say you are sorry does not mean you really are. And the things you say in an apology don't have to mean the same thing to you as they do to the person you harmed. Everywhere you look, you see people apologizing. What was once a private thing you did to actually solve a problem has become the domain of the politico and the celebrity. Public apologies, complete with media adulation and a sympathetic populace do more than provide closure -- they create addition publicity. So every other Kennedy appears on television to apologize for something. Do the viewers believe they are really sorry? Joseph, Michael, Ted and crew certainly hope so. National Enquirer editor Steve Coz goes on TV to say he is sorry for the abuses of tabloid journalists. Does he hope this will make his publication legitimate? Only time will tell. And Bill Clinton -- our imminently fallible president -- appears publicly penitent almost weekly. In recent months, Clinton has apologized for a vast array of past wrongs. From the Tuskegee syphilis trials to U.S. government radiation tests, Clinton realizes it is never to late to make people happy. And nothing makes people happier than knowing someone is genuinely sorry. In fact, the president's biggest strength is the sincerity he oozes as he admits the wrong-doings of the Coolidge or Truman administrations. He has it both ways, as he gets the adoration of the American people for his humility, but none of the onus of the actual wrong-doing. When trouble comes a little closer to home, though, the man is mum. Talk show regular Paula Jones claims the president lewdly propositioned her, but suddenly, her case seems to be in jeopardy. Jones seems prepared to drop most of her claims. Naturally, what she really wants is an apology -- the apology which would legitimize her issues and would neutralize the "leader of the free world." An apology and money, of course, but an apology most importantly. Clinton, though, will not admit to any wrong-doing and he understands the importance of the illusive apology. I think what the University owes him is an apology," History Professor Alan Kors said. He was referring to Eden Jacobowitz, the Penn student who was at the forefront of the 1993 "Water Buffalo" saga. After Jacobowitz settled his recent lawsuit out of court last week, The Daily Pennsylvanian declared that the saga was "finally over." Hardly. While the case is so old that very few freshmen (much less juniors and seniors) are aware it happened, the University failed to close the door on it -- even though they seemingly won the final battle. Unable to continue the civil suit which he filed a year and a half ago, Jacobowitz received enough money to cover a portion of his legal fees. And the University admitted no wrong-doing. All things considered, Penn -- as a business entity -- couldn't have done much better. But somewhere, someone forgot how the game is really played. Someone in the general counsel's office must have been so busy doing a "we got rid of the bugger" jig, that they forgot to actually put an end the whole fiasco. The University has no legal requirement to apologize to Jacobowitz. In essence, it won, he lost and the story can end. It was his frivolous lawsuit and since nobody told them they did anything legally wrong (this time), that ought to be it. In addition, some people would say the University made their peace with Jacobowitz years ago. The problem is, no matter what General Counsel Shelley Green gets to say, the University did do something wrong back in 1993. There was a barrage of mistakes which made victims out of both the innocent and the victimized alike -- creating a mess which needed to be cleaned up. So the mess was cleaned up, the campus "speech code" that indicted Jacobowitz in the first place was dissolved, and it seems likely Penn students live in a very different school as a result. Which raises the question of why the University did not make a statement to that end immediately following last week's settlement. It all goes back to child's lesson No. 3, which suggest that with any kind of political spin, Penn could have "apologized" to Jacobowitz, emphasized the changes which resulted from the case and provided closure. All without any admission of guilt. It would have been so simple: "The University is happy to finally put an end to this ordeal, once and for all. Now, we hope history will be able to look at what came of this case to realize that things have changed for the better and to see that lessons were learned so the same mistakes will never be made again." See, that was simple. The University can still do that, quoting directly from this column if they see fit. As history and childhood lessons have taught us, an apology can only make things alright, it can only make things better and, heaven knows, you don't have to mean it.