Should Polanski be let back in to the Academy?

No.

Many artists have had deplorable morals. Begin removing them all from the lists of honorariums and academic bodies that award their work, and you'd have few names left. Tough though it can be sometimes, I still think the personal behavior should be separated from the professional output when it comes to considerations of pure aesthetics.

Too little, too late.

At this point, who the hell cares? Polanski has been living in Paris since 1977. I hope he's happy. Too much suffering got doled out to this poor soul.

This. And adding to your point, I wonder if these Polanski detractors are not only trying to convince others of their moral righteousness, but are also trying to convince themselves. Because these people do not give a damn about Samantha Geimer. I doubt if most of them even know her name. For whatever reason, they have this need to feel morally outraged. It makes them feel secure about themselves and they see fit to use Geimer as their pawn. The fact that Geimer herself has never viewed herself as a victim is for these silly people an annoying irrelevancy.

It reminds of the time my cousin was walking down the street with her husband, and a car was not looking and hit her and knocked her to the ground. The car took off, and husband - instead of taking the time to see if his wife had been badly injured - just took off running after the person in the car. It's really the exact same thing. These people don't care about the victim. They just want to see somebody get punished. It's something they enjoy (Of course, they would never admit this.) A bunch of bloody-thirsty creeps. I think it's just too obvious.

After reading these posts, I read an interview with Geimer called "Nobody's Victim". (Among other things, she does seem like a very intelligent person. Lots of self-awareness.) One thing Geimer said...

"The use of a victim or the accused as fodder for profit or prurience by those who have the nerve to pretend they are doing a public service is hypocritical and immoral."

I'm beginning to think that Samantha Geimer is not so much a victim of Roman Polanski as she is a victim of those who want to use her as a pawn in their morality games, e.g., "weenie17"

And that scenario with the saucy 4 year old was idiotic to the point of embarrassment.

Btw, my cousin was not badly hurt. And she divorced her jerk spouse a few months later.

We actually need a tiebreaker for this? Seriously?

Absolutely not.