Good Morning!
1 Yesterday’s ethics bombshell was the news that Fox News extended its contract with star bloviator Bill O’Reilly earlier this year, knowing that he had agreed to a $32 million settlement with a woman who accused him of repeated harassment, a non-consensual sexual relationship, and other offenses. Nonetheless, it decided it decided to sign him a four-year, $25 million a year, contract extension. The New York Times scoop reported that Rupert Murdoch and his sons, decided that it was worth it to keep O’Reilly even as Fox News was trying to recover after having to fire Roger Ailes for multiple sexual harassment claims. Fox added to the O’Reilly’s extension a clause that allowed for his dismissal if new allegations of harassment or other relevant information came out regarding the previous accusations.
Boy, am I glad that I didn’t lift my personal Fox New boycott after O’Reilly left.
This is unconscionable conduct by Fox, equal in its slimy ethics void to what the Weinstein Group did when it acknowledged its founders sexual predator proclivities in his contract. Fox News, by keeping O’Reilly knowing that he had harassed its employees (and worse),
- demonstrated to its staff that it cared more about ratings and profits than principles and the safety of its female employees and guests
- sent the message that if you were a big enough cheese at Fox you can get away with abusing women
- proved that the sick and sexist culture nurtured by Roger Ailes from the beginning was still flourishing.
Ugh. But I can’t say I’m surprised. [Mr Kimble (Alvy Moore) on Green Acres: ” I can’t say I’m surprised. Actually, I can say I’m surprised. I’m surprised! But I’m not surprised.”]
How many other companies tolerate sexual harassers in their executive offices outside of Hollywood? A lot.
O’Reilly, demonstrating again that he is a liar as well as as a sexual predator, absolutely denies that he ever harassed anyone. He needs better lawyers, then. Harvey Weinstein paid off an actress he raped for just $100,000, and poor Bill had to fork over 32 million bucks for something he didn’t do!
2. This morning’s “Wait—WHAT?” ethics headline is this one, from the ABA News: “Lawyer who blamed ethics case on mother can’t discharge $500K in student debt, federal judge rules.”
Illinois lawyer Donald Rosen argued that his three-year license suspension for misappropriating over $85,000 in client funds made it impossible to find appropriate work and so should be allowed to discharge his $500,000 student debt. (How did he end up with a $500,000 student debt?). ‘Uh, no,’ ruled U.S. District Judge Rebecca Pallmeyer, perhaps because Rosen had paid only about $11,000 in student debt over the previous 37 years.
Why did Rosen blame Mom? He claims his 82-year-old mother, who worked at his firm, inadvertently used client funds to pay business expenses. Rosen said his mother was embarrassed by her actions and falsified bank statements to cover it up. Then, Rosen says, he innocently provided those fake bank statements to police and the hearing board considering the ethics case against him.
3. How can this happen? Why is it happening? Who defends this? How long will it continue?
Stephanie McKellop, a graduate student teaching assistant at the University of Pennsylvania, shameless confirmed that she follows a practice of calling on white men last, and only if she has to, during class discussions. “I will always call on Black women students first. Other POC get second tier priority. WW [white women] come next. And, if I have to, white men,” she tweeted, prompting an investigation from the university. She’s still employed, however.
Why is she still employed? Her statement translates into “I discriminate by race and gender.” What is there to investigate? Fire her.
“I will always call on Black women students first. Other POC get second tier priority,” she explained. McKellop, who is white, explained that she was taught this practice by an “amazing” professor. I suppose a professor who is a bigot and a fool qualifies as “amazing.” At least the fact that there are professors who think like that at major universities could be called amazing.
Then again, how else do you end up with products of the American educational system who rationalize prejudice by arguing, “They deserve it.” “In normal life, who has the easiest time speaking, most opportunities? Flip it,” McKellop “explained.” She is completely self-righteous, and convinced that she is right, and those who feel that all students should be treated equally and with respect regardless of the skin color and chromosome distribution are not “woke.”
“I don’t know what you all can do. I don’t know what I’m supposed to do. I had the cute idea that Penn could defend me against Nazis haha. Isn’t that funny,” she has tweeted.
If the university doesn’t fire her, any white male who doesn’t sue to get his tuition back should have WEENIE stamped on his diploma and forehead, and any student of any type that doesn’t deem this worthy of a campus protest is a lost cause.
4. Commenter Other Bill suggested this for commentary: an NBC article condemning “legacy” admission policies at elite universities, specifically Harvard. I’m a good one to ask, since I was a legacy admittee. Oh, I had the grades, scores and other qualifications to justify my getting in without that thumb on the scale, but lots of other applicants had similar assets–minus the family connection— and were rejected. My Dad was a grad. It helped.
I agree with the article across the board, which concludes that legacy admissions are unfair, elitist, and that there is no excuse for it. The practice should be eliminated, along with other biased admissions, like affirmative action.
Ethics Alarms 
The practical problem that institutions of higher learning face with dropping legacy admissions is that when such institutions reject the applications of children of almuni and alumnae, said alumni and alumnae stop whatever donations they have been making; “If my money isn’t good enough for my own child, what makes you think it’s good enough for someone else’s?”
The article claims not.
Then the article is full of it. Ask my ex-wife abut UVA when it turned down both of our sons.
Read it. But even if you are right, that’s bribery, not a charitable contribution for education.
Or a tax deduction.
Neither of my sons went to my alma mater, but I still contribute to it, although if my alma mater was one of those whose students are so delicate and sensitive that everything offends them, I’d have to re-think things.
There’s just no guarantee anyone’s kids are going to be as smart, or smarter than they are. People just have to face that fact.
There’s also another problem in admissions offices. Kids get into elite schools because of who their parents are or how wealthy they are, regardless of whether they are legacies. Hollywood people, investment bankers’ kids, mega-firm lawyers’ kids. Admissions offices look for kids of prestigious and wealthy people to add deep pockets and prestige to the school.
I think there’s a great way to change an “elite” school into a non-elite one. Stop sending your smart kids there to ensure the schools are filled with basket cases and elitist dummies. Then mock those schools as places where morons go because their parents buy them a place. As it is, whenever I meet someone from the SJW universities, particularly Columbia and Harvard, (and they generally tell you about their alma mater within the first ten words they utter to you) I say, “Oh, I’m sorry. My condolences.”
When they sputter and tell me how vitally important and prestigious their university is, I say, “Oh, but that reputation is from eons ago. These days they’re only famous for the propaganda they spew at their poor students. It’s not really a place where you get an education.” If wealthy, narcissistic parents find that they’re spending hundreds of thousands of dollars for their kids to get receptions like that, the tide will soon turn. Then university professors and administrators will have to get jobs in the real world.
This is why the recent revelations of what is going on at West Point need to be investigated by a United States Army Board of Inquiry.
If not even a formal inquiry is taken, West Point is lost.
Shoehorning in a “Green Acres” quote; sweet!
I still find myself humming the permanently etched-in theme song lyrics 50 years hence.
2nd favorite character was Pat Buttram’s Mr. Haney.
The 1st? It starts-n-ends with Arnold.
Alvy was my favorite. The bit of constantly editing his own statements as he spoke makes me laugh just thinking about it.
“Demonstrated to its staff that it cared more about ratings and profits than principles and the safety of its female employees and guests.
Sent the message that if you were a big enough cheese at Fox you can get away with abusing women.
Proved that the sick and sexist culture nurtured by Roger Ailes from the beginning was still flourishing.”
Yep. As I have been saying for weeks here, telling women that they need to stand up to these assholes solves nothing. Even when we do, and even when there are large, public, shaming, settlements, it doesn’t matter. Businesses don’t care about their employees — they care about profits. And, an easy business case could be made that Fox is doing the right thing here. Even with these settlements, O’Reilly is still a money-maker. End of story.
This problem can’t be solved with placing higher burdens on victims — it can only be solved by changing the culture that produces these assholes in the first place. An ounce of prevention and all that…..
So what do you suggest to fix what’s broken?
I’m not sure. This isn’t my area. I also don’t have sons — but, if I did, I’d be concerned.
I think there might be a tendency (from mothers and fathers) to write off some worrying behavior as “boys will be boys.” Does it start from there maybe? Also, some boys learn from example — we know that kids from abusive situations also become abusers themselves. Certain frat houses don’t help, and as these young men start working, some companies have a more toxic culture than others.
I don’t think there is a single solution.
I think it’s pretty safe parenting to assume kids learn by example. dd can give us the science. I never let my son be a boy as in boys will be. That’s a complete failure in parenting. Fortunately, now that my son and daughter are parents, they don’t let their sons get away with anything. But I came from families on both my parents’ sides that had a long tradition of strong, smart women and men who appreciated them for that, among other attributes. It doesn’t take a village, it takes good parents and families.
Doesn’t it take a village though? Or at the very least, does the village not get its say in the matter whether you like it or not? I mean surely you and your spouse weren’t the only influences? There were teachers, older children and trusted other adults and even children’s media around to set examples yes? Socialization doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
But if what happens at home is not right, all the rest of the village doesn’t mean a thing. I think our personalities are irrevocably formed by the time we’re six or so. Having nice role models at school and elsewhere is nice, but if you’re adrift at home, you’re screwed. The village stuff is just lefty claptrap. Part of the attack on the family.
As a matter of fact, I’d say more often than not it takes a family to counter all the toxic stuff a kid encounters IN the village. If you were a parent in the ’90s, were you supposed to have your kids learn about respect for women from the President and the First Lady? I’m glad my kids weren’t ten or twelve at the time and I had to explain Monica Lewinsky to them.
A village is a terrible paradigm. Village life is essentially static: it lives to reproduce itself. The village needs elders and it needs a shoemaker, but good luck to the shoemaker’s kid who aspires to be an elder, because ain’t no way an elder’s kid is going to spend his life making shoes.
”If you were a parent in the ’90s, were you supposed to have your kids learn about respect for women from the President and the First Lady?”
Oooooooh, right in the breadbasket; Lefty’ll feel that one tomorrow!
Yes, exactly. “It takes a village” is code for “Let us indoctrinate your kids.” Historically it has always been the parents’ responsibility to educate their children. Public education has made parents lazy. Too many parents have no idea what their kids are being taught. Education begins at home, not the classroom.
Right now the best thing for your kids is to keep them as far away from the “Village” as possible, until they make it illegal. I can already see states brewing up laws making it “child abuse” to teach kids any non left-approved information.
It takes a village AND good parenting. Kids do stupid things — even bright kids from solid families. My eldest daughter had a sleepover at our house last week. EIGHT girls. Ugh. While they were in my care, I was their parent. I praised them and corrected them as needed. When they talked back to me and told me that certain things weren’t their rules, I told them that I didn’t care. My house. My rules.
“My house. My rules.”
THAT’S parenting!
I love me some Eastwood…..
Curious, how did the sleepover attendees react to hearing the word no?
Truthfully, everything was great. I was firm, but kind.
I had three ten year old boys Saturday night. I swear to god one of them never heard no in his life.
My point is most likely that Hillary’s vaunted village is not substitute for good parenting.
not a substitute
NO is a word used in short supply by parental units more concerned with being ‘accepted’ as their children’s friend and, you know, cool.
It’s also verboten because it’s a major roadblock to achieving what ‘self-esteem’ has become, which is now hell-n-gone from what it should be.
Back before electricity when I was a kid, the only way we were supposed to get self esteem was by doing something estimable.
Being told no is very helpful for kids. Kids want and need boundaries. Otherwise they end up rattling around trying to find out where the boundaries are. Kind of like playing ice hockey without sideboards or tennis without fencing. You spend a lot of time chasing the puck or tennis ball all over hell and back rather than playing the game.
”Back before electricity when I was a kid, the only way we were supposed to get self esteem was by doing something estimable.”
“Being told no is very helpful for kids.”
My Dear 92 1/2 Year old Father was consistently very helpful to me at an earlier stage of development.
If Bill O’Reilly is on a short leash and never harasses a woman again because of this, then it’s hard to say that NOTHING was accomplished. The head-scratcher is Fox deciding that he’s still worth millions of dollars, and people tolerating still seeing him blather on their TV screens. He should be fetching coffee somewhere.
How can you say this? Ailes and O’Reilly were sunk when victims did stand up to them, and had they done so sooner, there would been fewer victims.
How was O’Reilly sunk? His contract just got renewed. With Ailes, they were looking to get rid of him anyway and decided that he was expendable. It’s always the same story.
You missed a story somewhere. He was fired. That contract was voided. He has no career at this point. He’s arguably not quite sunk, but his bow is in the air and Leonardo di Caprio and Kate Winslet are holding on for dear life…
O’Reilly was fired by Fox back in April. What contract are you talking about?
I’d say going from a $25 million+ cable news job to just having a sad little podcast is a pretty good definition of “sunk”.
I will never criticize someone for failing to follow the career turns of Fox talking heads.
Fair enough. I admit I had to look up what he was up to now. I knew he had been fired from Fox, but thought maybe she was referring to a new gig he got somewhere else. There may be a faint glimmer of hope for humanity yet, as he’s apparently still unemployable.
I doubt that many schools could do away with legacies, but for the Ivy Group and a few others with relatively massive endowments it would probably be a good idea to do away with them, to encourage equal admissions as a best practice to be striven for.
Maybe the schools need to set up different tracks and different degrees. You could have the affirmative action track and degree, the legacy track and degree and the really, really smart kid track and degree. That way, you could still get the John Kerrys and Al Gores and all the Bushes and Chelsea Clinton and the Obama girls their degrees from Harvard and Yale and Stanford, but they’d just have an asterisk, which the media could ignore, unless they were Republicans, of course.
There’s a town up the interstate from New Haven called Yalesville. I always wanted to start a junior college there (Bernie Sanders could have gone for free!). Everybody would have wanted a degree because when they were asked where they went to college, they could answer, “Yalesville, Daddy-O!”
Of course, this was back in the ’70s when ’50s and ’60s beatniks were still a distant memory.
That’s funny. There’s a Harford County, Maryland, and I always thought it would be a great place for a diploma mill. “Yes, I’m a Harford graduate.”
Hah. Works for me.
What a shame Fox and Ailes and O’Reilly are all so messed up. Grow up, boys. But any outfit that would hire ARod is creepy.
Bill O’Reilly has always been an obvious blowhard, passing judgment on the whole world while taking the incompatible philosophical position that “no one’s truth is more true than anyone else’s” (which is what one says who wants to sound deep without ever having done an ounce of soul-searching.) HIs popularity is as baffling as Bill Maher’s.
I am not sure the truth about Bill and Fox news but taking in consideration today’s culture of suing this sound more truthful to me, especially taking in consideration this is all coming from the New York Times.
https://www.billoreilly.com/g/October-21-Statement/881.html
Looks like it is solid that there was no 32 million settlement.
Jack if this is accurate couldn’t old Bill sue the Times? Or would it just make things worse?
Times v. Sullivan. Tough to sue the Times for a public figure.
One settlement of a harassment claim might be explainable. Six? The Times is biased, but it doesn’t lie. O’Reilly’s a liar.
Normally I would agree but we do know the Times lies and they do target conservatives. What do you call not trekking the truth admit a very damming 32 million dollar settlement that didn’t happen. I am holding judgment, I will go with my gut if the times retracts some of that story, the only way I can see them not turning ownership over to Bill, but of course everyone will only remember the original story.
That should be “not telling the truth about a”
What the hell is a non consenual sexual relationship. Relationship suggests an ongoing pattern of activity. The person he agreed to settle is an attorney and one of Fox’s legal analysts. Any non consensual sex is rape or lesser crime. She knows that and could have pressed charges on the first occurrence. She also appeared regularly on his program never showing any discomfort around the man she claims imposed himself sexually upon her without her consent. If I stipulate to O’Reillys acts should we not also condemn women who let the activity continue when they are fully capable of using the legal system to punish such behavior.
It seems to me that if we all rush to assume O’Reilly is a predator and she, who is an attorney, is unable to protect herself from the evil man then we are all telling the world that no matter how well schooled or capable they are in their own right woment will always need to be protected as fragile creatures.
Chris check the link I posted, granted it is from Bills site but it has an affidavit from her.
Harassment law holds that a sexual relationship based on a superior’s power over a subordinate’s career and livelihood isn’t truly consensual. It’s not rape. It’s more like extortion.
Jack, I assume you also mean that the superior initiates the activity. The problem I can envision is that we always presume the male is dominant in the relationship and the female is subordinate.
Given the lure of multi-million dollar settlements a subordinate could proactively engage in a sexual relationship for the purpose of extorting the superior. Both may enter the relationship consensually but for different reasons.
Given that finacial gain is often proffered as a motive for killing another why is it hard to believe that engaging in a sexual relationship with a powerful superior with a profit motive is not considered as even possible.
In another post I used the term “presumed virtue”. This concept underlies all harrassment laws and can easily be exploted for financial gain.
Nope. A superior’s job and ethical duty includes rejecting any subordinate who “initiates” the activity. What is called initiation may be and often is responding to cultural signals that such conduct is expected, will be rewarded, or is going to be beneficial.
A business or organization is like a family. Superiors are Dad/Mom; subordinates are like the kids. Is it a defense if Dad/Mom says that Junior instigated a sexual affair?
I agree that superiors should rebuff any subordinate behavior that suggests that the subordinate is trying to establish any type personal relationship for whatever the reason, true attraction or exploiting the weakness of superior.
Simply being in a higher position does not alway mean that person is immune to advances by another.
Unfortunately, it does happen. And, when it does simply giving a pass to a subordinate because the superior should know better fails in the fairness test because it fails to examine the totality of citcumstances.
If she is any different than the Nazis, I fail to see how.
After all, according to the Nazis, the Judenvolk “deserved it.
I wonder if the defense of Bill Clinton in 1999 had anything to do with it.
https://ethicsalarms.com/2016/01/03/the-late-senator-dale-bumpers-was-an-ethics-corrupter-of-historic-significance-thats-his-legacy/
Remember that Clinton left office with a 60+% approval rating.
White supremacists march carrying sticks shields and torches chanting blood and soil and you decide to go Godwin on teacher who won’t call on white dudes? Really?
One is speech, the other is conduct that inhibits speech.
“White dudes.” Great term vk. Let’s start calling women chicks or broads or, what the hell, cunts. Brilliant.
What language do you speak where those terms are equivalent?
Hah! Californian?
And besides, isn’t “white dudes” used by this woman a micro aggression, if not a macro aggression? Who are you to tell me what I’m supposed to be offended by? Clearly in this woman’s class room, if not in all of Lefty’s world, white men are an aggrieved group. This is interest group warfare. You really expect one group to simply stand down?
The professor’s discriminatory actions toward her white male students are clear-cut racism and sexism, above mere microaggression. Valky’s use of the term “white dude” is none of these; it is a simple description. Neither the term “white” nor “dude” has historically been used to oppress white men, so yes, getting offended over it is nonsensical.
Context matters. It’s clear from val’s comment that “white dudes” is intended to be a minimizing term. Nobody uses the term “dudes” interchangeably with “men” – there’s a connotation conveyed by the word choice. Is it equivalent to “nigger” or “kike”? Of course not. But let’s not pretend that Val didn’t choose those words intentionally.
If complimenting a person of a different ethnicity than you on their hairstyle is a “microaggression”, then “white dudes” probably is, too. That particular knife is sharpened on both edges.
No, if you want a microagression try triggered broflake. *smirk*
“Broflake” is a new one to me. That’s actually pretty funny, and I’ll probably end up using that myself.
For the record, I personally think the whole “microaggression” scam is pure bullshit, and that there’s an escalating arms race of fake offense-taking and manufactured outrage going on that’s deeply corrosive to American society.
Remember “sticks and stones may break my bones, but words can never hurt me?” Do they even teach kids that little rhyme anymore?
“Valky’s use of the term “white dude” is none of these; it is a simple description. Neither the term “white” nor “dude” has historically been used to oppress white men”
Yeah… But slurs start somewhere, right? I mean, at the time it was coined, “nigger” was a mere shortening of “negroid”, it was descriptive. Damn near scientific. It was also, even then, a racial slur. One that got traction and was used during a particularly dark time in history. If, all those years ago, they had called black people “niggers” not as a slur, but merely as a descriptor, I doubt we’d have much hangup about the word now.
Valky means “white dude” and “bro” as slurs. I don’t think that it’ll ever reach the eminence or damage that “nigger” reached, but it’s still in the same vaguely related family. There’s been a real push by identitarians to pathologize whiteness and manhood. And when there’s pushback to their ideas or plans… Heck, not even pushback, but when white men do something that those identitarians prefer they not, it’s not uncommon for them to sink to gendered slurs. Because if there’s something that I’ve learned in the last 5 years watching the culture wars flame up, it’s that these identitarians have the self awareness of a rock, and about as much shame.
”Hah! Californian?”
HeyZeus Alou!! Yer on fire, dude.
Or should that be “Dude, yer on fire?”
The powers that are have not objected to use of those words against commentators here. As far as I know, you haven’t objected either but white dude triggers you? How very interesting.
Would calling someone a black dude or a Mexican dude be acceptable to you? Of course not. If the left is going to come up with all these arcane rules, it can’t say those same rules can’t be applied to the left. As Jeff says, the knife cuts both ways. If gals and chicks are unacceptable, so is dudes. And don’t say there isn’t a goodly amount of condescension in lefties calling white guys “white dudes.” Might as well use knuckledraggers.
Nor am I offended by the term. My forty two year old son often addresses me as “Duderino.” I take it as a sign of affection.
My Über-Lefty SIL throws an occasional “dude” my way, usually as a precursor to some amorphous Lefty societal faux pas she believes I’ve violated.
Heck, my plumber speaks fluent “dude,” to the extent that he’s even referred to my lovely & long suffering wife as such.
Which raises an important question: Should “Dude” be categorized as gender-specific, gender neutral, or (God forbid!) gender fluid?
Perhaps a…um…Dudess might weigh in?
1. Bill O’Reilly, like Roger Ailes and even President Trump, is another case of “Everybody knew.” It has been amazing watching FOX News hammer Democrats over the past two weeks for taking donations from a sexual predator given their record of propping up sexual predators.
Chris the only recent president you can really accuse of such activity is Clinton. Your inclusion of Trump shows your bias.
Wrong. There are as many credible allegations against Trump as there are against Clinton. And given Trump’s public mysoginy, it would not be biased to consider the allegations against Trump even more credible.
That’s not true; for example, Trump has not, to our knowledge, settled any sexual harassment claims, nor have any semen-stained dresses worn by low level subordinates been produced. Given his obvious sexism and misogyny, his choice of wives and his comments, I have no doubt at all that he has engaged in many acts of sexual harassment over the years. But that still doesn’t put him in Clinton’s league.
It just means that he has better lawyers.
THat’s one of many possible explanations.
And Clinton never bragged about barging into dressing rooms to watch teenagers undress, nor about grabbing women by the pussy. It’s at best a wash, Jack.
No, it’s not. “Locker room talk,” and boasting, that’s what it was, as Trump said, isn’t evidence. ESPECIALLY from Trump: amusingly, his critics harp on his exaggerations and misrepresentations, but if assuming that he is as accurate as an electron clock in an instance where what he says can be used against him, then the man is suddenly completely believable. In Clinton’s case, the news media and Democrats bent over backwards to avoid the obvious implications of facts; in Trump’s case, the same people bent over the other way to assume the worst without any facts at all.
It’s still evidence. You don’t know that he was full of shit, and I’m not claiming to know that he wasn’t. But I also don’t claim to know that the allegations against Clinton are true, and it seems like the conservatives here do.
No, Chris, accepting that Clinton is a satyr and a predator is not a partisan thing. many, many, many Democrats and progressives are disgusted with Clinton.
Refusing to accept the reality of it, however, is partisan and based on bias. Because there’s no rational justification for it.
According to more than one account I read Trump and his wife, together, went backstage at pageants. A quote from one contestant on CNN-
“As a 20-year-old attending a private Southern Baptist college, she said she was not prepared for what she experienced before and during the pageant. She recalled private parties where the contestants mingled with “old, rich drunk guys ogling all over us.”
At the time, she said, she told her mother what was going on. The final straw, she said, was when Trump and his wife, Melania, showed up backstage.”
Agreed. An example of how corruption in a news organization undermines credibility.
Similarly, any news organization that employs Brian Williams is in a weak position to slam Trump for his loose relationship with the truth.
Also on the topic of education:
Someone wrote about this idiot: this
Apparently, math is racist now.
OOPS! Not “Some idiot wrote this”, but “Someone wrote about this idiot”…
I fixed it. A material difference!
Thanks! My filters weren’t working and I did actually jump the gun and assume the author endorsed the viewpoint that C=2πr is racist. Then on second reading I realize the author was merely reporting.
Have you ever heard of the trope ThenLetMeBeEvil?
I wonder if ther trope ThenLetMeBeRacist will apply.