Character

The Wholly Ethical “Cancellation” Of Ryna Workman

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Many NYU law students are indignant and outraged that Chicago-based super-firm Winston & Strawn has withdrawn its offer of employment to Ryna Workman. As president of NYU Law’s Student Bar Association, Workman issued a statement stating that “Israel bears full responsibility” for the long-planned terrorist attacks that left more than 1,300 Israeli citizens dead, including at least 30 Americans.

The law firm had every right and many valid reasons to reconsider its offer to Workman, who had worked at Winston & Strawn as a summer associate. In a statement, the firm said her comments “profoundly conflict” with the firm’s “values.” Yes, that, and there was also a substantial likelihood that having a terrorism-celebrating associate would cost the firm clients as well as risking tension among other firm lawyers. I would add that as a potential client, I would question the judgment of any law firm that would hire someone who showed such a reckless disregard for history, facts, and the impact of inflammatory rhetoric.

Like demented lemmings, other anti-Semites, race-baiters and critical thought-deprived NYU students issued a letter supporting Workman and condemning Winston & Strawn. The firm’s decision is an instance of the “systemic, concentrated violence” Workman has experienced since issuing her anti-Israel screed, the letter claims. That’s novel: deciding not to hire someone is “violence”! The letter’s signatories, including the Black Allied Law Students Association and the Women of Color Collective, declare that NYU is complicit “in the abuses of the Israeli government,” and condemns “the broader NYU administration for not protecting Ryna as a student and important member of our community.” How exactly can any school protect a loud-mouthed student from the consequences of her own foolishness? Oh never mind: people who reason like Ryna and her fans are always victims, and nothing is ever their fault. This is also a good reason not to hire her….or her defenders.

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Landscaper Ethics: Now THIS Is Contrived Ignorance…

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

I know this is a ridiculous story, but I need a break from the Israel-Hamas Ethics Train Wreck…

In China Grove, N.C., a landscaper encountering a dead body where he was supposed to be mowing, just mowed around the body. 34-year-old Robert Owen, deceased, was dumped on the grounds of an abandoned house, and police are now investigating.

The news media seems to be accepting the excuse given by the landscaper that he thought the body was a dummy left in the field as a Halloween gag. “Don’t know how you can do that,” Owens’ sister, Haley Shue, told reporters. “Mow right beside someone and assume that they’re Halloween decorations at a house no one lives at?” I concur, Haley, particularly since the body was spotted on October 11, almost three weeks before Halloween.

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I’m Shocked…SHOCKED!… To Learn That DEI Policies Harm Black And Hispanic Students!

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Back when the Great Stupid was really picking up steam in 2020, the San Diego Unified School District (SDUSD), the second largest school district in California with over 106,000 students, announced that it would be overhauling how students will be evaluated as part of a larger “a larger effort to combat racism.” The school board voted unanimously to eliminate yearly grade averages. Meeting deadlines for assignments and classroom behavior would not affect academic grades. The district decided to de-emphasize discipline and penalties for cheating.

This crack-brain approach to education, essentially rejecting everything that had been learned over centuries about how students learn, was justified as way to eliminate the accumulated deficits of “systemic racism.” Soon “Diversity Equity Inclusion” budgets exploded and almost every school system jumped on board the latest fad. This was reparations, not education; no respectable research supported the theory that holding minority kids to lesser standards would help them succeed, but never mind: Fact Don’t Matter to ideologues and race-hustlers.

Now come Jay P. Greene and Madison Marino of the Heritage Foundation’s Center on Education Policy with a study suggesting that black and Hispanic students had “significantly greater learning loss during the pandemic in the school guided by diversity officers than those schooled in districts without one.” Minority students lost more ground than their white classmates, especially in math, the researchers found. “Racial achievement gaps went from bad to worse in these districts.” Of course they did: having an official directing policy who insists that black and Hispanic students not be held to the same standards of behavior or academic achievement as other students—must combat that structural racism!—was guaranteed to undermine minority student success.

The news gets worse: nearly half of the school districts with at least 15,000 students employ a chief diversity or equity officer, and the number is 89% for districts with more than 100,000 students, the study found.

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Comment Of The Day (1): “Perplexed Ethics Thoughts On This Video…”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Michael R authored the first of three Comments of the Day on this disturbing video, and I could easily add a few more: it was a terrific thread, and one that few other sites around the web could produce (if I do say so myself).

I must admit, as I have been featuring posts about my biases of late, that I have a massive bias against anyone who behaves like the woman above no matter what the provocation. It was suggested in the comments to the original post that this was staged. I considered that, and maybe it was, but in the end the ethics issues remain the same. Her conduct is still an accurate presentation of the reaction of the entire Woke World mob to one imagined offense after another, from Donald Trump’s election and Hillary’s defeat, to the replacement of swing vote Anthony Kennedy on the Supreme Court with Bret Kavanaugh, to the long-deserved reversal of Roe v. Wade and the rejection of affirmative action as the unconstitutional discrimination it always was. It is all hate, intolerance and emotional fury now, even from the office that is supposed to represent and serve us all….

That was as close to a Presidential primal scream as we are ever likely to hear. (Nope, I’m not letting that go. I will never let that go, and I will never forgive it.)

Here is Michael R’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Perplexed Ethics Thoughts On This Video…”

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This seems like the perfectly reasonable result of college campus culture from the last 30 years now demanding that society become a college campus. How many videos can you find of conservative speakers being shouted down by the dominant culture (the ‘tolerant people’) on college campuses? In how many cases was this tolerated by the administration, the police, the government?

After being trained by ‘higher education’ for decades that the way to deal with opinions that differ from the official orthodoxy is to shout them down, use bullhorns, and scream at them, why would you expect this not to happen?

This isn’t the only video of a woman doing this; it seems fairly common.

Here is how I see liberals dealing with heretical ideas in today’s society:

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Comment Of The Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Consequences For Endorsing Terrorism”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I am way, WAY behind in posting deserving Comments of the Day, and I apologize to all, both the authors of these excellent posts and EA readers who have not had the opportunity to read them. I’m going to try to post them in chronological order, oldest first, but don’t hold me to that: I have a sinking feeling that this COTD by Sarah B. came after one or more that I intended to post last week. Her comment (I hope I’m not misgendering her!) is actually one of many superb ones on this Ethics Quiz, including those by Michael R, Curmie, and Chris Marschner, among others. I highly recommend reading the entire exchange.

Now here is Sarah B.’s Comment of the Day on the post, “Ethics Quiz: The Consequences For Endorsing Terrorism”:

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Actions have consequences. Speech has consequences. We can talk all we like about the Freedom of Speech (or Religion or Right to Assemble, etc), but while the government cannot punish us for our speech, our fellow citizens can and will make judgements about us despite that.

There needs to be some determination of how to decide what to do with adults who proclaim stupid things in an institute of learning while respecting the value of free speech. I propose that for professors, lecturers, administrators, and those in positions of power,they required to give a two hour session on their position, open to all. The first 45 or so minutes would be reserved for what they have to say, with the remaining time being devoted to questions A moderator (or perhaps two of opposing positions) should be present to step in when the speaker does not answer a question. Ex. “Why do you believe that is is fair to intentionally target and behead young children and the elderly non-combatants?” “Well, Israel doesn’t belong there so it doesn’t matter.” Moderators can point out that this is not an answer and require a real answer to the tough questions before continuing. On the other hand, “Does this mean you deny the Moon Landing?” would be thrown out by the moderator as completely stupid. Of course, anyone, teacher or student, who tries the heckler’s veto or shouts down another person should be immediately escorted out. Professors who support the heckler’s veto should be immediately terminated.

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Baseball Ethics: Is It Time To Stop Booing The Houston Astros? Hell No…

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Tonight, the Texas Rangers and the Houston Astros, from the same American League Division and with the same regular season record (a modest 90-72), will begin playing the American League Championship Series to decide which team will represent the league in the World Series. If you’re a baseball fan or an ethics fan, you will root for the Rangers. The Astros are ethics villains, and among the worst ethics corrupting teams in all of professional sports history. They do not deserve to be forgiven, for the multiple blights they inflicted on the game are still causing tangible damage, and despite the exposure of the team’s rotten culture in 2019 ( exhaustively discussed on Ethics Alarms) they were never sufficiently punished, and the main perps in the team’s scheme have never adequately acknowledged that they did anything wrong.

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Ethics Hero: ADL CEO Jonathan Goldblatt

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

I have some reservations about designating anyone an ethics hero when they declare that they “love” MSNBC. Loving MSNBC is a mark of partisan bias and corruption, as well as making someone who regularly appears on the network’s propaganda-spewing shows complicit in the damage being done to civic discourse and democracy by this truly unethical, racist, divisive and destructive network.

But…

After MSNBC’s hosts and guests had been, predictably, mouthing the Palestinian, Democratic Socialist (including “The Squad”) cant about how the massive terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas was somehow justified, and periodically calling for “context,” which is like the Left’s “root causes” narrative after the attacks of 9/11, reliable knee-jerk progressive (he was one of Obama’s aides) and ADL head Goldblatt directly and unequivocally condemned the MSNBC coverage, looking straight into the camera to do it.

MSNBC deserves some praise too: it allowed Goldblatt to finish his long and very articulate spontaneous speech without any attempt to interrupt or cut away. Such instances where the news media is confronted honestly about its disgusting conduct are too rare, and we should pat our respects when they do occur.

Brava Brianna Coppage, The Sort-Of Ethical Naked Teacher

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

That’s Brianna in all three photos.

As stated right above in the Ethics Alarms Glossary, The Naked Teacher Principle: states that “a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.” The NTP, as we call it for short, has been a staple of Ethics Alarms from the beginning…well, a little after the beginning, since the first installment of the series goes back to the old Ethics Scoreboard, which is still up for your edification and entertainment, here. The first Naked Teacher was Tamara Hoover, whom I discussed in 2005. On Ethics Alarms, the NTP, in addition to its classic versions, has many sundry variations, all of which can be found here. An unexpected variation just surfaced last month, with the “The Naked Porn-Performing Political Candidate Principle.”

But Brianna Coppage, the soon to be ex-English at St. Clair High School in St. Clair, Mo., is in one respect the perfect Naked Teacher by Ethics Alarms standards. After all, she understands how the NTP works and why.

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Now THIS Is Gaslighting…Or Outright Lying…Or Senility…

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

President Biden said yesterday, as he boasted about a misleading jobs report, “The American people are smart as hell and know what their interests are. I think they know they’re better off financially than they were before. It’s a fact.”

It’s not a fact. There were a number of counter factual assertions there. First, the American people are NOT “smart as hell” or they would not have elected a dementia victim who was never too sharp to begin with as President of the United States, Second, Biden and his party routinely act as if the public does not know “what their interests are,” presuming that Big Brother knows best. Moreover, even the substantially dim-witted members of the pubic are smart enough to know they are not “better off financially than they were before,” before meaning, as it should, before the pandemic and the progressive-led lockdown created an artificial crater which any administration would be able to crawl out of and show a relative improvement. The only question is whether Joe Biden believes that “Bidenomics” is working.

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The Amazing Trevor Bauer Ethics Train Wreck, Part 2: Villains, Victims, Heroes And Confusion

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

There has already been an addition to what is known about this horrible ethics story. That’s the main (but far from only) villain of the tale above, Lindsey Hill, who plotted to extort Major League pitching star Trevor Bauer, as described in Part 1. I had never seen a photo of her before: she looks exactly as I would have expected her to look. Hill is already hard at work trying to squeeze every last drop of celebrity out of her scheme, and, of course, the popular culture being the scummy place it is, there are plenty of disgusting people out there ready to accommodate her. Now that Howard Stern is old and woke, she moved on to Alex Stein, who had her as a guest on his show “Prime Time With Alex Stein” on Glenn Beck‘s Blaze Media network. Stein is a professional asshole whose idea of comedy is to disrupt public meetings and confront politicians in public. Having Hill on his show gave this creep a chance to get into graphic descriptions of sexual activities, a la Stern.

Hill played the cliche “I’m an alcoholic, pity me” card, then tried to stick to her lie using various strategies. She reminded her host that two more women came out as she was in the process of extorting Bauer to claim he had abused them too. Two words regarding that: Bret Kavanaugh. The me-too #MeToos provided even less convincing evidence than Hill did, and we now know she was lying. She also offered the risible explanation of the damning morning-after video revealed by Bauer that bad lighting was to blame for the apparent absence of the injuries she had claimed. Was bad lighting also responsible for her grinning like the Cheshire cat?

Since we’ve started on Hill, I might as well finish.

1. Lindsey Hill, Villain

As I said, she’s the Number #1 Ethics Villain, and she did far more harm than just derailing Trevor Bauer’s career and reputation. She kicked #MeToo in the metaphorical solar plexus when it already was reeling. “Believe all women” had already been discredited as a slogan, but thanks to Hill, “Don’t automatically believe any women” is about to take its place. And there was more damage, which I will discuss here later.

Several conservative commentators have already opined that the law needs to find some way to punish sociopathic predators like Hill. Writes Miranda Devine in the New York Post, “It will never end until there are penalties for making false allegations that ruin a man’s life. Hill needs to be charged, like Jussie Smollett was for faking a hate crime.  Without consequences, malignant behavior only proliferates.” That sounds good, but this will only happen when women’s rights activists and the eager-to-pander politicians who grovel to them reverse course after opposing any negative consequences for women who falsely claim rape, harassment or sexual abuse. The standard argument remains the same: women are already too reluctant to accuse powerful men of sexual misconduct, and if they face real penalties should their allegations not meet evidentiary standards, even fewer will brave the storm, so more evil men will have their way. This is, and has always been, a utilitarian balancing act, with no clear or ideal solution.

The best that can be done about people like Hill right now is cultural and societal shunning. We should make sure everyone knows that generically attractive blonde face and her name, and employers as well as potential friends and lovers should be well aware that she’s a grifter who cannot be trusted. Post her image and deeds widely. If she ends up alone and making a living in low rent peep shows or as a geek biting the heads off live chickens, good. That’s one kind of justice.

It is only fair to mention that there is an unintended benefit of Hill’s vile conduct. Providing an ugly, throbbing example of how the #MeToo ideology can be abused (and why the Obama/Biden directive to colleges and universities to stack sexual misconduct cases against male students) is useful to those fighting these excesses. Thanks, Lindsey! You’re a blight on society, but not a completely useless one.

2. Trevor Bauer, Ethics Hero

Bauer is the only hero in the train wreck. He did nothing wrong (how he and his consenting sex partners choose to enjoy themselves is not wrong) and consistently denied wrongdoing throughout his ordeal. He followed the system, worked through his labor union and kept his mouth shut other than to tersely insist on his innocence. He did not attack Major League Baseball, nor take to social media to tell the world about Hill. Although well-versed in that mode of pubic communications, Bauer did not seek pity, threaten, or post drawings of himself standing with Jesus. His conduct throughout has been exemplary.

Most admirable of all, Bauer did not pay off Hill. No weenie he. It would have been easy to do so, his career would have continued unblighted, and he would barely miss the money: even with his suspension without pay for more than a season, Bauer has made $111,654,099 so far in his career, and at 32, he may not be done yet. In this matter he is an exemplar and role model. He was determined to fight, and that’s what ethical people should do. True, because he was already rich, Bauer could afford to be principled, but so many others who also can afford it, don’t.

This is as good a place as any to note Hall of Fame Braves pitcher Tom Glavine’s comment on the Bauer fiasco. “I would not want to be playing any professional sport in today’s world,” he said. “Listen, the money’s great, it always gets better every generation, but the things that guys have to deal with today, it’s off the charts. I mean, you can’t go anywhere without somebody having a camera. You can’t go anywhere without somebody videotaping.” In short, they are marks for evil people like Lindsey Hill, and unscrupulous women empowered by society’s current groveling to feminists and #MeToo activists.

3. Ethics Villains, the sports media.

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