Nine days after Richard Perez-Pena published his original article on Patrick Witt, Arthur S. Brisbane, the New York Times’ public editor—the ombudsman, basically—concludes that Perez-Pena’s article shouldn’t have been published.

…reporting a claim of sexual assault based on anonymous sourcing, without Mr. Witt’s and the woman’s side of it, was unfair to Mr. Witt. The Times thought it was a necessary part in its exposé of the feel-good sports story. But the impact of the “sexual assault” label on Mr. Witt is substantial and out of proportion for a case that went uninvestigated and unadjudicated.

Maybe you just can’t publish this story, not with the facts known now….

This was a compelling story, and The Times was motivated to publish it. But when something as serious as a person’s reputation is at stake, it’s not enough to rely on anonymous sourcing, effectively saying “trust us.”

I’m not sure what it means that “the Times was motivated to publish [the story].” That the paper was in the grip of publishing bloodlust?

In a way rather more mild than I would have liked, Brisbane does come down on the side of right here. But let’s not give him too much credit for coming to a journalistic conclusion that’s about as difficult as proclaiming that 2 + 2 = 4. For anyone with a couple years of journalism experience, this shouldn’t have been a hard call: You can’t publish such a dynamite allegation—sexual assault—when you don’t know a single detail. And you can’t claim that that allegation affected an apparently unrelated decision when you don’t have any proof.

This piece should never have seen the light of day, and that’s not a hard call to make; I would have liked more from Brisbane on how and why it got published.

I also would have liked to see him spend more time considering some of the sleazy tactics used by Perez-Pena to bolster his story in the absence of actual proof. Perez-Pena used Witt’s history with the law and his residence in DKE to insinuate that he was violent and misogynistic—a likely rapist. And he implied that Witt was finishing his degree off campus as a result of the sexual assault allegation, something which was simply wrong. Perez-Pena built a fallacious case with his insinuations about Witt’s character, and then used that fallacious case to buttress an inaccurate conclusion.

All in all, this series of three articles by Richard Perez-Pena fell considerably below the journalistic standards of a good college newspaper, much less the New York Times. I do think the paper should be more forthcoming about how the decision was made to print it. But maybe that would cast the paper’s new executive editor in too unflattering a light.

So all this brings us to an awkward and unsatisfying coda.

Yale’s reputation has taken a hit, when no one has presented any evidence that the university has done anything wrong here. What should Yale have done differently?

And thanks to the Times, there will always be a cloud around Patrick Witt. Where does he go to get his reputation back?

It’s a case of the powerful versus the powerless—which, ultimately, is why I’ve felt so strongly about Perez-Pena’s articles. I know what it’s like to be the object of scurrilous reporting (in the Times itself, for that matter). I know what it’s like to try to get the Times to admit that it’s wrong about something, even when, by the standards of any cub reporter with a conscience, the paper has acted unethically. The New York Times has abused its power and its responsibility in the Patrick Witt matter, and we shouldn’t allow that to pass unacknowledged.

But what can Patrick Witt do about it? He can’t sue the Times, because Perez-Pena’s work, mistake-riddled though it may be, probably doesn’t meet the standard of actual malice required to win a libel suit.

The paper itself is done with the story and, like a hit-and-run driver, will quickly and cowardly dash away.

Witt can go on to live a good and productive life, but unlike its perpetrator, this shadow doesn’t go away—it rises from the pages of a Google search, never to disappear. Anyone out there think that this might be an impediment when Witt tries to get a job? Get into graduate school? Ask a girl on a date?

Democracy is messy and the exercise of free speech imperfect, but admitting that is to deny responsibility. Richard Perez-Pena still owes Patrick Witt an apology—one as lengthy and public as his original, lamentable accusation.