Year: 2014

Ten Questions Regarding The U.N.C. Fake Courses Scandal

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

fake classes

Have you read about this astounding scandal at the University of North Carolina?

From the Times story:

Wednesday’s report, prepared by Kenneth L. Wainstein, a former general counsel at the F.B.I. and now a partner at the law firm Cadwalader, Wickersham & Taft, found that between 1993 and 2011, two employees in the university’s African and Afro-American studies department presided over what was essentially a “shadow curriculum” designed to help struggling students — many of them Tar Heels athletes — stay afloat…More than 3,100 students, 47.6 percent of them athletes, were enrolled in and received credit for the phantom classes, most of which were created and graded solely by a single employee, Deborah Crowder. Ms. Crowder was a nonacademic who worked as the African studies department’s administrator and who told Mr. Wainstein that she had been motivated by a desire to help struggling athletes.Some of the classes took the form of independent study courses in which the students never met the professor; others took the form of lecture courses in which the classes were supposed to meet at specific times and places but never did. Over time, Ms. Crowder was joined in the scheme by the chairman of the department, Julius Nyang’oro, who became the professor of record for many of the fake classes. Mr. Nyang’oro retired in 2012, after news of the scheme came to light.

From CBS: Continue reading →

American Journalism’s Integrity Death Spiral, PART I: Illegal Voters and “Stonewalled”

/ Jack Marshall / 27 Comments

Stonewalled

This week, the Washington Post published a story on the results of a  study by the Cooperative Congressional Election Study (CCES). The study appears to show that more than 14%  of non-citizens were registered to vote in both the 2008 and 2010 elections, that  6.4 % of non-citizens voted in 2008, and 2.2%  of non-citizens voted in 2010. This, the study reasonably concluded, would be enough to change the results of some close elections, both then and, if the same kinds of numbers hold true, in the coming one.

Since the partisan fight over voter ID’s and various measures that make it easier to register to vote still rages, I assumed that this would be a big story. Hope springs eternal, and I am an idiot. Even though the source of the report was the Washington Post, a reliable liberal/progressive/Democrat-promoting mainstream media engine, the story was buried, or at least has been so far. Perusing the list of links to it on the web, I found fewer than 20; in contrast there were more than 500 links on Google to reports of the death of Jack Bruce, the bassist for Cream.  Moreover, the 20-ish links contained nothing but right-leaning and conservative blogs, networks and publications: Fox (of course)…Brietbart…the National Review…The Daily Caller…The Washington Times…The Examiner, a few more. ABC? CBS? NBC? MSNBC? (“Illegal immigrants? That’s  immigrants, you racist!”) NPR? CNN? The New York Times? USA Today? No, no, no, no, no, no, and no. (The Wall Street Journal hasn’t covered the study either.)

This is just the most recent example illustrating how miserably the national media does its job, and how its choice of stories is unconscionably warped by the political and ideological agendas of publishers, editors and reporters who abuse their positions and discard the duties of their profession and their country. Continue reading →

Incompetent Unannouced Presidential Candidate of the Month: Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments

Monica Lewinsky fellow-cyber-bullying victim Hillary Clinton, who is widely-expected to be the Democratic Party’s nominee for President in 2016, proclaimed this week,  while speaking at a campaign event for Massachusetts gubernatorial candidate Martha Coakley:

“Don’t let anybody tell you that it’s corporations and businesses that create jobs. You know that old theory, trickle-down economics. That has been tried, that has failed. It has failed rather spectacularly. One of the things my husband says when people ask him what he brought to Washington, he says I brought arithmetic.”

This statement is at least as much signature significance regarding Clinton’s competence to hold elective office as Todd Akin’s career-ending claim that victims of “legitimate rape” don’t get pregnant, “The View’s” former co-host Sherri Shepard confession that she thought the world might be flat, and Sarah Palin’s falsely reported—but funny! So who cares if it’s true since we hate her?—statement that she can see Russia from her house in Alaska. Some sources explained this jaw-dropping denial of reality as Clinton “moving left.” Actually, even Stalin wouldn’t try to deny that businesses create jobs, though he would probably suggest ways to stop people from telling you that, like, say, killing them. This isn’t “moving left.” This is called “losing it.” (I think Clinton looks drunk, personally.)

It is fitting that the statement came in support of Martha Coakley, whose last campaign in Massachusetts collapsed after her almost equally ridiculous statement that Red Sox icon, Curt “Bloody Sock” Schilling, was a Yankee fan. We shall see if Clinton’s denial of basic economic realities matters to her true blue supporters as much as Coakley’s admission that she knew nothing about the culture of the state she was running to represent in the Senate (she’s also on the say to losing her campaign to be governor, thank God. Yankee fan???) mattered to Bay State residents. Continue reading →

Reader Alert: An Old Post That Lots Of People Are Suddenly Interested In Reading

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

-judy-lewis

All of a sudden, a post from 2011 is attracting more views in the last four days than it did in the previous four years. Odd are you missed it too, so so to avoid the anomaly of non-Ethics Alarms fans being more attuned to a post here than the loyal throng, I’m going to point the way to the link. The essay is titled “Clark Gable, Loretta Young, and the Betrayal of Judy Lewis,” and told the heart-breaking story of how Clark Gable denied his parenthood of his own daughter (that’s her to his left) to avoid a career-damaging scandal, while the child’s mother, Loretta Young, lied to her as well.  It was and is an interesting and disturbing chapter in Hollywood history, and my commentary  generated some furious defenses from fans of “The King,” who marshal every rationalization imaginable to try to justify a rich and famous father neglecting his only child, even after she became aware of who her father was. That phenomenon is as illuminating as the sad tale itself.  Here, for example, is “Seeker”—see how many rationalizations you can find. I see at least four: Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: The Gwinneth Football League (Lawrenceville, Georgia)

/ Jack Marshall / 29 Comments
"Us punish little boys playing football for scoring touchdowns!"

“Us punish little boys playing football for scoring touchdowns!”

Combine political correctness, the thoughts of Chairman Mao, incompetent administrators, kids and football, and this is the disgusting mess you get.

The Gwinnett Football League, a children’s sports program, allegedly fined one of its teams $500 and suspended its coach after an 8-year-old playing for the Lawrenceville Black Knights intercepted a pass and ran it back for a touchdown. In a normal sports league, run by sane people, where victory and achievement are appreciated, encouraged and celebrated rather than being stifled to allow losers to preserve their self-esteem when what they need is to be motivated to play better,  the child would have had a joyful, memorable childhood experience. Not in the Gwinnett Football League, however. The young player was to learn that his failure to realize that taking advantage of his opponent’s poor play was considered bad sportsmanship in this Bizarro World* league —cruel, unkind, psychically scarring—and would result in his team being fined and his coach being suspended. You see, the touchdown constituted an infraction of league rules, because the GFL has a so-called “mercy rule” that prohibits a team from throttling a weaker squad by more than 33 points.

The parents of the child protested that their son had no idea he should do. Miss the throw intentionally? Run it back the wrong way for an opposition touchdown? Beg the other team to forgive him? The parents of the rest of the team’s players insisted that the fine and suspension were far too severe….for, you know, playing football in a football game. Being fined and penalized for breaching an appallingly misconceived rule that nobody with the brains of an egret thought through? Yes, I think that’s a reasonable cause for complaint.

Hilariously, the president of the league, who must have risen to his place in life after his planned career as  pin setter didn’t pan out, told the media that news reports about the reason the team was fined were false.  Erik Richards said the team was fined because it made a “mockery of the game” in other respects besides running up the score: laying on the ground, running off the field and mocking the other players. He explained that the penalty for violating the mercy rule is “only” $100.

What the league needs is a fine for incompetent and irresponsible oversight of a kids football league: Continue reading →

Update On “The Hitching Post,” The For-Profit Chapel Being Required To Hold Same-Sex Weddings

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Emily Litella

“Never mind!”

From NPR in Boise:

The city of Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, says the Hitching Post, a for-profit wedding chapel owned by two ministers, doesn’t have to perform same-sex marriages.The city has been embroiled in controversy ever since the owners of the Hitching Post sued the city. They say a city anti-discrimination law threatened to force them to marry same-sex couples now that gay marriage is legal in Idaho…Initially, the city said its anti-discrimination law did apply to the Hitching Post, since it is a commercial business. Earlier this week, Coeur d’Alene city attorney Mike Gridley sent a letter to the Knapps’ attorneys at the Alliance Defending Freedom saying the Hitching Post would have to become a not-for-profit to be exempt.

But Gridley said after further review, he determined the ordinance doesn’t specify non-profit or for-profit. “After we’ve looked at this some more, we have come to the conclusion they would be exempt from our ordinance because they are a religious corporation,” Gridley explained.

…Leo Morales of the ACLU of Idaho said the exemption makes sense as long as the Hitching Post primarily performs religious ceremonies. “However, if they do non-religious ceremonies as well, they would be violating the anti-discrimination ordinance,” Morales said. “It’s the religious activity that’s being protected.”

…The group that helped create Coeur d’Alene’s anti-discrimination ordinance says the Hitching Post shouldn’t have to perform same-sex marriages. The Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations says in a letter to the mayor and city council that the Knapps fall under the religious exemption in the law.

In other words, the result is as I said it would be, and as Professor Volokh opined that it should be.

The ethical thing, of course, would be for the Knapps to treat same sex couples as the loving human beings they are and marry them like they do any other loving couples. But when it comes to administering a religious ceremony, the State cannot force the Knapps to do what their beliefs don’t permit. Meanwhile, that’s some legal talent they are hiring in Idaho. “But Gridley said after further review, he determined the ordinance doesn’t specify non-profit or for-profit.” Upon further review? I’d think the city’s attorney would actually read the applicable statute before threatening a business and its owners without cause.

Oh, Mike? Upon further review, the Constitution doesn’t specify non-profit or for-profit either. But thanks for causing a thoroughly unnecessary controversy based on knee-jerk political correctness and sloppiness. Unless… you knew your theory was garbage all along, and were trying to bluff the Knapps into doing what you felt was the right thing, and their constitutionally guaranteed rights be damned. You wouldn’t do that, would you? I hope not. It would be unethical.

 

Is “F-Bomb Princesses For Feminism” The Most Unethical Ad Ever?

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

Pretty close, I’d say.

Here are my Top Ten ways it is unethical:

1. It’s full of lies. Women do NOT make only 77% of what men do in the same jobs. The fact that President Obama blithely quoted this infamous canard doesn’t make it any more respectable. This is the smoking gun of  feminist activist hackery.

2. A close second is the completely unreliable “1 in 5 women will be raped or sexually assaulted in their lifetimes.” Yes, what President Obama did to a stranger after voting can add to that stat…or not, depending on what the woman being polled chooses to call “sexual assault.”

3. The stat about women who were A students earning as much as men who were C students is similarly bogus. The study apparently being fucking referred to was about high school grades, not college grades. It was also widely distorted in the media, which claimed that the finding was that “high-achieving female students still won’t earn as much as male counterparts who didn’t work quite as hard” [TIME], which explains nothing about what jobs we are talking about, or career choices. More female attorneys, for example, go into family law; more male attorneys go into tort litigation.  Trial lawyers are famously non-academic–they are combative, aggressive and street smart, and the good ones become millionaires. What does this prove about gender discrimination? Not one thing.

The University of Miami study, published recently in the Eastern Economic Journal, show that a one-point increase in high school GPA raises annual earnings in adulthood by around 12 percent for men and 14 percent for women. It was not directed at gender bias issues at all, nor did it prove any.

4. Apart from substance, the ad is one more coarse and cheap bit of sensationalism employing assaultive vulgarity to get attention.  This is cultural rot, nothing more. Gutter language doesn’t illuminate or explicate, and used as it is here, it doesn’t even convey genuine passion or emotion. This is the pseudo kiddie-porn equivalent of  TV ads for Go Daddy.com featuring a busty actress making sexual innuendos to attract attention to a product having nothing to do with busty actresses. An ad currently running for a cable show has the host talking about the time he “got crabs” but how he’s going to go to an “orgy” anyway. HA! A crab orgy, get it! See, he made you think he was talking about sex, isn’t that clever? In a 7 PM commercial? No, it’s not clever. Just cheap and tawdry, like having a lot of little girls yelling “fuck” at you.

5. This isn’t even a genuine ad promoting feminist objectives. This is an ad exploiting feminists themes to sell T-Shirts. Continue reading →

Unethical Website of the Month: Million Hoodies Movement for Justice

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments
Different hoodies, different races, same ethics...

Different hoodies, different races, same ethics…

Million Hoodies Movement for Justice is, in its own way, as racist as “Chimpmania,” and, I would argue, far more harmful.

The Chimpmania racists live on the margins of respectable civilization. They are the direct ideological descendants of those who wore hoods and lynched blacks in the South, but they operate in the shadows. Their hateful words and beliefs are almost universally recognized for what they are, the product of ignorance. The vast majority of Americans of any race or creed would be mortified to be associated with the site, or with anyone who read it.

In contrast, Million Hoodies Movement for Justice projects the sheen of respectability, and aims to advance legitimate, if debatable causes: the elimination of police militarization, and the banning of profiling. It is, however, as racist in its assumptions about whites as Chimpmania is regarding African-Americans, just more subtle. Continue reading →

When An Apology Isn’t Enough: Carol Costello’s Ugly Partisan Bias

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

cnn

For over a month now, the left-leaning media on cable and the web have been snickering over unsubstantiated reports of “a drunken brawl” involving the Palin family. Especially since no charges were filed and no accounts were verified, the amount of attention the story received was itself proof of the media’s irrational anti-Palin, and by extension, anti-conservative Republican animus. If there was any doubt, CNN’s Carol Costello obliterated it in a performance that any respectable news network would regard as mandating dismissal.

Yesterday, introducing a recording in which Bristol Palin described the events at the infamous party, Costello smirked, “This is quite possibly the best minute and a half of audio we’ve ever come across. Well, come across in a long time anyway…Enjoy!”

Palin’s oldest daughter was heard describing what happened to her after she confronted the party’s host, whom she accused of pushing her little sister:

“So we were in a limo. I walk back up. “Did you push my sister?” And some guy gets up, pushes me down on the grass, drags me across the grass. “You slut, you f—ing c—, you f—ing this.” I get back up, he pushes me down on the grass again And he pulls me by my f—ing feet. And he’s the one that’s leaving and I have my 5-year-old, they took my $300 sunglasses, they took my f—ing shoes, and I’m f—ing just left here?”

Costello made it clear that the image of Palin being pushed down and insulted delighted her beyond all measure, and said “the long bleep was my favorite part.”  That’s the part where Bristol described herself being called a “fucking cunt.”  Nice. Costello ended the segment saying, Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Encore: “Tom Yawkey’s Red Sox Racism, and How Not to Prove It”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Yawkey TributeEvery now and then a comment out of the blue reminds me of a post that I had forgotten. That was the case here. Reading it again for the first time in five years, I was struck by how the crux of the post is still relevant today (that crux has nothing to do with baseball), and indeed how the intervening five years have made what I thought was a bad trend a genuine political and cultural malady.

And the World Series is going on, and I feel badly about the Red Sox having such a miserable season. This post, which few read when it was first published as the blog was attracting (let’s see…) less than 200 views a day as opposed to nearly 4000 a day now, is a good one, and I enjoyed it.  That “self-professed ethicist” has his moments…. Continue reading →