Was virtue highlighted?
Oh, yes. It was well documented by the salivating liberal press at the time.
Was virtue highlighted?
I'll leave that to others to comment on. I will relate a little story to you, though. My brother, who is a liberal labor movement kind of guy and still lives near Hillsdale, tried to tweek me a bit at the time. When the scandal broke he was more than happy to say to me, "What do you think of those conservatives and their ilk now?" My response to him was something along the line of, "Dan, I don't need Hillsdale College, Rush Limbaugh, the Republican Party, or anything or anyone else to validate what I believe in or to determine what my values are." My brother didn't want to discuss the suicide and subsequent resignation of the college president anymore.