Krug is an egregious case, but it raises interesting questions about the relationship between quality of research and performative aspects of professional success. There are many "bad actors" in academia who are good scholars. I've not read her work, but some I respect lauded it.

Does her scholarship depend on the fraud she perpetuated? If so, then Duke University Press needs to pull her recent book, which was shortlisted for the prestigious Frederick Douglass Prize in 2019. I'd be curious if anyone with knowledge about her work has any insights here.

Many people who assume she simply gamed the system probably don't realize the extent to which scholarly work is scrutinized and picked apart, especially in tenure-track hiring. Not saying the performance doesn't matter, but it is not decisive if there is no work to back it up.

That she could be a total fraud and a great scholar is almost as disquieting as the idea that her fraudulence lent an aura to the scholarship that bamboozled very serious people.

That people will use this to discredit entire fields of knowledge sucks. But with respect to this thread, the relevant comparison is not Rachael Dolezal, but Alice Goffman. https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/17/magazine/the-trials-of-alice-goffman.html