Anthropologists Toughen Ethics Code

By an overwhelming margin of 87 to 13 percent, members of the American Anthropological Association have approved changes in its code of ethics that are designed to strengthen its protections of people who are studied, and to promote the values of free dissemination of scholarship.

But the degree of consensus among anthropologists may not be reflected by the lopsided outcome: At least some who backed the changes said that they did so because they view them as a step in the right direction, but nonetheless believe that the association ducked some important issues.

At a press briefing on the vote Thursday, association leaders in fact said that the language approved was intentionally ambiguous on the question of classified research, and that some scholars will read the code as barring such studies while others will not. The association has been in an intense debate about the ethics code for several years — a debate prompted in part by highly publicized programs in which some anthropologists have worked for the U.S. military in Afghanistan and Iraq, while far more quietly a growing number of scholars have started doing proprietary research for companies....