"Big Brother" or Allies? In Defense of IRBs and RCR Jim Thomas / Sociology / Northern Illinois University (9 June, 2001) (Forthcoming in SSSI Notes, Fall, 2001). We rarely pay attention to ethical issues in research until something goes horribly wrong. Then, we are challenged for a methodological accounting. In the belief that researchers need pre-crisis education in how to conduct responsible research, the U.S. Public Health service recently enacted a policy that public and private sector research institutions implement training on research ethics (NIH, 2000). How the education occurs and who should receive the education will be left to individual institutions. However, the intent of the RCR policy is clear: All researchers, even those whose work is not federally funded, should receive at least some RCR education (NIH, 2001). Failure to comply with RCR guidelines could jeopardize an institution's federal funding. Although federal implementation of this "Responsible Conduct of Research" (RCR) initiative has been delayed for a year because of a jurisdictional dispute with Congress (Tauzin and Greenwood, 2001), many universities have begun exploring ways to assure compliance with RCR guidelines in anticipation of the policies taking effect in October, 2001. Combined with increased scrutiny by Institutional Review Boards (IRBs), critics of the new federal "responsibility initiative" have increasingly expressed concerns that compliance with the new policies may jeopardize academic freedom, First Amendment rights, and the free flow of empirically-based ideas. WHO CARES? Why should symbolic interactionists take an aggressive stand in supporting recent federal guidelines for educating researchers on responsible research? One reason is that, as of this writing, it isn't clear whether the SSSI has a statement or a set of ethical guidelines. Another is that, as methodologists, teachers, journal editors, reviewers, and commentators, we continue to confront ethical dilemmas in our own field. Consider a few dramatic examples from qualitative research. When Humphries (1970) published Tea Room Trade over two decades ago, he drew unprecedented criticism from social scientists for perceived ethical flaws in his study of gay culture and lifestyles. He lingered in truckstop restrooms and watched for gay sexual activity, on occasion even serving as "lookout" for the participants, and then surreptitiously recorded their automobile license numbers. Joe Kotarba's (1979) study of intimacy in a public jail visiting room drew shrilly misguided and somewhat paralogical criticism for questionable ethics (Deegan, 1980). When allegations of plagiarism arose in two nationally-prominent sociology journals in the 1990s, executive boards of the relevant societies were confronted with allegations of their potential complicity in malfeasance. The dramatic Carnegie Mellon cyber-culture study of online pornography (Rimm, 1995), later featured as a cover story in Time magazine (Elmer-Dewitt, 1995), came under fire for gross ethical and methodological violations when it was revealed that ten different levels of gatekeepers--professionals who should have spotted the lapses--ignored them (Thomas, 1996a). Mario Brajuha refused to give his fieldnotes to police when subpoened following a suspicious fire in the restaurant where he collected his data (Brajuha and Hallowell, 1986). His experience challenged other ethnographers to examine their commitment to protect their subjects. It is in this spirit that I defend IRB/RCR initiatives. PROTECTION OF HUMAN SUBJECTS In the examples above, the heart of responsible research procedures, and certainly the concern of IRB oversight, is the protection of human subjects. RCR/IRB policies originally grew out of concern for human subjects and data-use issues primarily in the medical and experimental sciences. The most egregious and dramatic recent violations of human subjects research have come from the medical sciences, typified by the University of Minnesota paying the U.S. $32 million in the late 1990s to settle a lawsuit alleging over two decades of illegal drug profiteering and mishandling of grant funds; allegations of violations of informed consent policies in the Virginia Twin Study in 1998 that shut down all federally-funded biomedical research at Virginal Commonwealth University; the mid-1990s allegations of research fraud against AIDS scholar Robert Gallo; the suspension of medical research in 1999 at the University of Illinois/Chicago for alleged improprieties of human subjects protection; and the brouhaha at Northwestern University over whether a postdoctoral reseacher has the right to publish research without permission of their professors (Curry, 2001). Yet, the definition of human subjects is broad. Consistent with guidelines of other professional organizations (Thomas, 1996b), the NIH definition from Title 45 CFR Part 46, "Protection Of Human Subjects," consistent with the explicit or implied definitions of social science professional organizations, defines a human subject as: ...a living individual about whom an investigator (whether professional or student) conducting research obtains (1) data through intervention or interaction with the individual, (2) identifiable private information." In the extreme, some pundits argue, this means that the Fox television network can air Temptation Island, a show about buff young heterosexual couples thrown together in an exotic location to see who can seduce whom, but--as scholars--we may not write about it without IRB approval, which might even require signed informed consent documents. In reality, however, this over-stated example typifies several misconceptions about IRB/RCR activity. First, neither federal guidelines nor the American Sociological Association's (ASA) code of ethics forbids research in public places (ASA, 1997). The ASA code explicitly accepts covert research that involves minimal risk for research participants and that could not practicably be carried out were informed consent to be required (ASA, 1997: 12.01(b)). ASA guidelines also recognize the acceptability of research in public places where no reasonable expectation of privacy exists (ASA, 1997: 12.01(c)). Generally, IRB guidelines would exempt such research, and RCR education would alert students and faculty to the kinds of ethical issues that could occur in, for example, conducting public breaching experiments, or other intrusive public data gathering. Second, neither current nor proposed federal guidelines would ban specific topics or methods a priori, and nothing in either the spirit or letter of RCR education or IRB policies represents "big brother" imposing censorship on scholars. The intent of the new federal guidelines is to sensitize people involved in the research process of things that can go wrong and to remind us of the diverse interests and responsibilities of the wide range of stake-holders. Third, despite the experiences of many of us with IRB challenges to our methodology, there is little hard evidence that IRB scrutiny contains an anti-qualitative bias. In fact, the protocols governing physical intervention in human subjects seem more rigorous, perhaps because of the recently publicized ethical malfeasance in medicine, genetic engineering, and related fields. Following the dictum that it is best to avoid attributing to malice that for which cluelessness will suffice, the appearance of an anti-qualitative IRB bias is mostly the result of two factors. First, medical and related professions tend to have more safeguards in place and a longer history of ethical oversight and compliance. Second, qualitative approaches are more nuanced, more variable, and the risks not always as obvious (or remediable), thus contributing to questioning by those unfamiliar with what we do. Fourth, concern with potential threats to academic freedom and scientific inquiry prompts some researchers to judge IRB/RCR activity as a threat to unfettered scholarship. However, a compelling argument can be made that implementing RCR training and encouraging, rather than resisting, stringent IRB oversight is in our individual and collective interests. It increases the integrity of our research by assuring that we are taking action to "do the right thing" in the field. It also encourages us, as individuals, to constantly reflect on the consequences of our research and the processes by which we conduct it. Finally, and most important, IRB/RCR issues are not simply about human subjects. They address the fundamental processes of inquiry. Human subjects may be the most heavily emphasized, especially with IRBs, but we should also recognize the importance of the other core issues. The Office of Research Integrity (ORI) identifies nine core areas for educational training (ORI, 2000): a) data acquisition, management, sharing, and ownership b) Mentor/trainee relationships c) Publication practices and responsible authorship d) Peer review e) Collaborative science f) Human Subjects g) Research involving animals h) Research misconduct i) Conflict of interest/commitment A tenth, cultural/ethnic diversity in the research environment has become an additional core issue. Education of staff, faculty, and students in these areas not only helps us recognize potential danger areas in our own research, but alerts others to their rights as subjects or subordinates. CONCLUSION Because federal IRB/RCR leave specific, practices, content, and audience for individual institutions, the level of awareness and understanding of unique issues related to interactionist research varies dramatically. As a consequence, the SSSI might adopt a few common-sense steps to assure that our methodological and paradigmatic concerns are adequately represented. First, because of inter-institutional policy variance, the SSSI should develop a common set of principles and issues that members can present to their IRB/RCR representatives. Second, the SSSI should take an aggressive proactive stance in identifying the types of ethical and related issues that we continue to face in our teaching, scholarship, and publishing. This can be done by more actively sharing experiences, by encouraging research ethics to be integrated into methodology courses, by commissioning an occasional ethics-related article for our journal and newsletter, and by including relevant sessions at the Stone-Couch symposium and the ASA meetings. Third, we should solicit problems that qualitative scholars are having with their own institution's IRBs and find ways to reduce them. Fourth, interactionists and other qualitative scholars should actively volunteer for IRB/RCR activity in order to educate others in the nuances of our methods. Finally, we should increase our dialog on ethical issues that most of us involved in teaching, research, and publishing continually confront, both in our own projects and in those of our colleagues. Issues of responsible research clearly affect us all, as scholars, as gatekeepers, as policy makers, as educators. The recent federal guidelines will dramatically increase the need for us to be sensitive to the complexity of the issues. Therefore, it's important to remember that IRBs are not designed to restrict research, to prohibit topics, or to impose "politically correct" attitudes on scholars. Nor are RCR committees designed to create rules for conduct. Instead, the former are intended to assure that we "do right" by our subjects, and the latter to help sensitize us to potential ethical issues that can occur at all phases of our enterprise. They are simply mechanisms that, if used properly, can assist us in "doing the right." Therefore, we should embrace, rather than resist, their tenets, and remember that education cuts both ways. BIBLIOGRAPHY American Sociological Association (ASA). 1997. ASA Code of Ethics. http://www.asanet.org/ecoderev.htm Brajuha, Mario and Lyle Hallowell. 1986. "Legal Intrusion and the Politics of Fieldwork: The Impact of the Brajua Case." Urban Life, 14:454-478. Curry, Dan. 2001. "Chemistry Journal Shelves Article After the Author's Former Mentor Raises Objections." Chronicle of Higher Education. June 4. Pp?? Deegan, May Jo. 1980. "On Responsibility in Ethnography: Comment on Kotarba." Qualitative Sociology. 3(Winter): 323-329. Elmer-Dewit, Philip. 1995. "On a Screen Near You: Cyberporn." Time Magazine, pp. 38-43. July 3. Federal Register. 1991. Part II: Federal Policy for the Protection of Human Subjects; Notices and Rules. Washington: U.S. Government Printing Office. Humphreys, Laud. 1970. Tearoom Trade; Impersonal Sex in Public Places. Chicago: Aldine. Kotarba, Joseph A. 1979. "The Accomplishment of Intimacy in the Jail Visiting Room." Qualitative Sociology, 2(September): 80-103. Marquart, James B. and Jim Thomas. 1988. "Dirty Knowledge and Clean Conscience: The Dilemmas of Ethnographic Research." Pp. 81-96 in D. Maines and C. Couch (Eds.), Information, Communication and Social Structure. Springfield, Ill.: Charles C. Thomas. National Institute of Health (NIH). 2000. "Required education in the Protection of Human Research Participants." http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-OD-00-039.html ____. 2001. "Frequently Asked Questions for the Requirements for Education on the Protection of Human Subjects. http://grants.nih.gov/grants/policy/hs_educ_faq.htm Office of Research Integrity (ORI). 2000. "PHS Policy on Instruction in t he Responsible Conduct of Research (RCR)." U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/programs/finalpolicy.asp Tauzin, W.J. and James Greenwood. 2001. Letter from Congressional Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations to Office of Research Integrity. February 5. http://ori.dhhs.gov/html/programs/congressionalconcernsinquiry.asp Thomas, Jim. 1996a. "When Cyber-Research Goes Awry: The Ethics of the Rimm 'Cyberporn' Study." The Information Society. 12(2): 189-197. _____. 1996b. "Introduction: A Debate about the Ethics of Fair Practices for Collecting Data in Cyberspace." The Information Society, 12(2): 107-117.