The false framing of sexual harassment vs. artistic excellence in an ad hominem media culture

Comment published on New York Times online blog in reply to "What happens to #MeToo when a feminist is accused?" (discussing the Avitall Ronell affair), 8/14/18:

Two recurring issues here. Both have a common root in our ad hominem culture. And most of our identity politics is implicated in them.

1) If an artist or scholar whose work is remarkable is found to have engaged in personal misconduct, is their art or writing "guilty"? How are person and work identical and different?

2) Are wrongs like sexual harassment something a member of one demographic does to another and unjust for that reason? Or is the wrong act wrong not because of who ("kind" of person) does what to whom, but because of what is done?  

Question (1) comes up repeatedly. It troubles people because they assume that person and work are inseparable. (And so people puzzle endlessly about whether Heidegger can really be a philosopher worth reading, or Roman Polanski or Woody Allen an artist whose films are worth seeing.)  

By many accounts, Prof. Ronnell appears to have fallen into a trap partly of her making by merging her professional and personal lives to a high degree, which can be productive but poses ethical risks. Like the art world, academia lends itself to this because of the passion people have for their work.

Re (2): Crimes are defined by what is done, not who does them. Crime is not expression of a criminality; rather, one is criminal because of a crime. Members of historically oppressed demographics are no more free of the possible taint of "sin" than the morally unfortunate presumptively privileged.  

The hero's heroism survives the guilt it cannot undo.