Education

The Cronkite School Of Journalism Decides That White Lives Are Too Risky To Be Deans

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Arizona State University rescinded its offer to Sonya Forte Duhé be its new dean of the Walter Cronkite School of Journalism and Mass Communication and CEO of Arizona PBS. Her un-appointment was based on less than two dozen past students’ complaints that she frequently encouraged them to, among other things, dress appropriately, wear conservative hair styles, use makeup while on the air, and use using standard broadcast speech. Duhé, a communications professor at Loyola University New Orleans who was set to take over as dean on July 1, also came under fire last week for tweeting a photo of black and white hands intertwined along with the message “For the family of George Floyd, the good police officers who keep us safe, my students, faculty and staff. Praying for peace on this #BlackOutTuesday.”

Oooh, “good police officers.” Can’t have that. She took down the tweet after it was attacked by a Twitter mob, but to no avail, and it was the catalyst for a petition to have her rejected as dean.

Another letter signed by about two dozen members of the school’s faculty relied on the  Loyola students’ (unverified) claims, saying that Cronkite students are “rightly questioning” their “safety” and whether they would “have a voice” if Duhé became dean. Her alleged behavior “flies in the face” of the school’s commitment to diversity and inclusion, they wrote, and would “cost the students, faculty and staff and reputational damage.”

The faculty letter claims “several key donors” have told faculty members they were “questioning their commitment to the school” because of the concerns raised by students and the publicity around them.

Sounds like “anonymous sources” to me. Are rumors and innuendo as important to journalism and verified facts?

I can’t believe I just wrote that…. Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On UCLA’s Endorsement Of Race-Based Grading

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

It would be tempting to label UCLA an Ethics Dunce after it suspended a lecturer at its Anderson School Of Management for mocking the idea of grading black students more leniently in light of the George Floyd protests. That, however, would understate the deceitful Orwellian reasoning going on now in several sectors of society, including higher education, journalism, and politics.

The UCLA Anderson School of Management has pulled accounting lecturer Gordon Klein from his classes because of his email response to a student who asked for “special treatment” for black students. Klein has been teaching at UCLA for almost 40 years.

The  email Klein sent read, Continue reading →

Unethical Tweet Of The Week: Prof. Carl Bergstrom

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

One could also call this an ethical tweet, as it neatly unmasks the hypocrisy of the scientific community as well as the self-serving myth that scientists are squeaky-clean objective and do not bend their pronouncements to partisan and political motives.

Bergstrom is a science star. Atheoretical and evolutionary biologist and a professor at the University of Washington in Seattle, he has been a vocal critic of low-quality or misleading scientific research. Now he is proving how we get it.

In another tweet, he writes, “We are having difficult but vital conversations about whether public health professionals can support the #BlackLivesMatter.protests during a pandemic. I’m unhappy to see these defaulting to utilitarian calculus rather than considering deontological or virtue ethics perspectives.”

That one’s pretty funny. The reason policy-makers are told that they must follow in lockstep the pronouncements of “experts” is that scientists et al. are not calibrating facts, recommendation and conclusions based on biases, personal preferences and non-factual considerations. In fact, that is the very reason policy makers must make the trade-offs scientists cannot, or should not. Now, struggling to find a way out of the obvious verdict of hypocrisy, Bergstrom is extolling “virtue ethics.” The problem is that virtue ethics also requires balancing and prioritizing among the virtues. Now we know that Bergstrom, among others, calibrates his recommendations according to his own political and ideological preferences. Go to work to continue earning income and care for one’s family? Not important enough to justify the risk. Gather in church to serve one’s spiritual needs? Nope. Attend a funeral of a loved one to express grief and respect? Not worth the risk. Protest being forced to accept an economic Armageddon and the suspension of civil rights to prevent virus-triggered fatalities that have been tolerated in the past without installing such draconian measures? Selfish and irresponsible.

Mass demonstrations in the streets out of anger and opportunistic political motivations, leading to millions of dollars of property destruction, human misery, deaths of bystanders and police, looting and riots in furtherance of vague objectives and generalities?

Sure! Now that’s worth it! Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms 2020 Election Update: Nearing A Tipping Point, Part 1

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Less than a month ago, I wrote this post, explaining why, despite the near complete ethical bankruptcy of and rejection of democratic values by the Democratic Party and its allies, I would nonetheless refuse to vote for President Donald J. Trump in November. I wrote,

Absent my professional and public assessments as a professional ethicist, I would have no difficulty at all in officially concluding that Donald Trump is the preferable, indeed essential, choice to lead the country in the next four years when the alternative is a party that has revealed the corruption and antagonism toward American ideals as has the Democratic Party. But President Trump, as I pointed out repeatedly in 2015 and 2016, is the antithesis of the kind of leader my knowledge and expertise  indicates should ever be placed in a leadership position of any kind, or in a position of power and trust.

For me to vote for such an individual would render my credibility in my profession, and what is more important, my personal and professional integrity, void.

An ethicist cannot, in my view, support or vote for Donald Trump as President, nor can an ethicist, at least this ethicist, have any position but the rejection of the current iteration of the Democratic party as antithetical to American values.

I have not reached the point of reversing myself on this crucial decision for me personally, professionally, and as an American. Not yet. I feel, however, that the time may be approaching where my case of ethics zugswang cannot be honestly addressed by refusing to take a side. This week, in particular, has forced me to consider that a tipping point may be at hand.

As I have written before, whatever cosmic script-writer came up with the harebrained idea that someone as personally repellent and ethically inert as Donald Trump should be thrust into the position of being this great nation’s crucial last defense against the rising totalitarianism and fascism of the left is a sadist with a sick sense of humor. It is increasingly difficult to deny, however, that this is the ethical conflict that America finds itself in. At the point, fast approaching, when I have to confront the conclusion that defeating the Democrat/”resistance”/ mainstream media collective is the only way to ensure that the United States and its values remain viable and intact, refraining from making a noxious choice will no longer be an option.

Three stories today accelerated the likelihood of my having to face that tipping point:

I. Writing at the Washington Post, staff cultural reporter Alyssa Rosenberg argued that the networks should cancel all the cop shows on television. You can read the thing here; if I have to explain what is frightening about her argument, then you are already too far gone to be cured. This, it is increasingly clear to me, is the agreed-upon modus operandi  of the American Left. Since they cannot advance their agenda by logic, arguments, civic debate and persuasion, they will accomplish it by intimidation, mind control, indoctrination, and censorship. We must like what they like, hate whom the hate, and believe what they believe, and every aspect of the culture, including entertainment, must advance that objective.

This is, of course, how Orwellian cultures operate, and we have witnessed a steady and barely opposed drift toward this as the preferred path to power by the Democratic Party.  Rosenberg believes that citizens should not be allowed to see TV programs that don’t comport with the Left’s now mandatory view that police must be regarded as racist villains and law enforcement be  seen as a malign force. The Post op-ed follows on the heels of the New York Times capitulating to its “woke” staff’s demand that non-conforming (to the Times’ world view) opinion pieces be rejected for publication. The news media’s activist agenda is out of the shadows and indisputable. Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms 2020 Election Update: Nearing A Tipping Point, Part 2

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

The first two stories pushing me to a tipping point are discussed in Part 1, here.

This is the third.

3. Brown University issued embarrassingly rote agitprop in support of the George Floyd protests, and Brown Professor of Social Sciences and Economics  Glen Loury, an African American, searingly called them on it.  The letter is a template for the indoctrination virtually all students now receive at elite institutions of higher learning; it could have issued from any one of a thousand schools. Like Twinkies or Lucky Charms cereal, the letter is devoid of nutrition, though of the intellectual variety. Loury published a rebuttal. He’s an ethics hero. Here is Loury’s letter: Continue reading →

TGIF Ethics Warm-Up, 6/5/2020, Although Now That I Think About It, There’s No Reason To Think Saturday Will Be An Improvement….

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

…Since everything is seemingly spinning out of control!

1. The party of Soviet-style historical airbrushing…Virginia Governor Northam, who you would think would now have to airbrush away himself, being a veteran black-face performer, has decreed that he will remove Richmond’s famous statue of Robert E. Lee from its pedestal and place it in storage, reports the Associated Press.

The monument was erected in 1890. Northam is expected to follow this cultural censorship with the virtual toppling of all Confederate monuments along Monument Avenue, including those of J.E.B. Stuart, Stonewall Jackson; Confederate naval commander Matthew Fontaine Maury, and Confederate President Jefferson Davis.

I’ve written a lot about the ethical folly of Americans adopting this Soviet habit; most of the essays are collected here. The American Civil War was probably the most important and complex event in our history with continuing influence and impact today, yet progressives think the wisest approach is to make it as invisible as possible to future generations. This is as good a symbolic signal regarding what’s dangerously wrong with 21st Century progressivism as one could find. The ethics values being missed are competence, responsibility, respect, perspective, humility and citizenship.

Lee, especially, deserves to be remembered and studied. I am not a Lee admirer in most respects, but it is indisputable that he was an important historical figure, and that all of his significant moments in the spotlight were not negative ones. In particular, Lee probably deserves credit for ending the Civil War and stopping the Confederacy from becoming a long-term guerilla insurrection. That alone earns him a statue.

What Northam and the statue-topplers are doing is lobotomizing America. Continue reading →

From The “Res Ipsa Loquitur” Files: This Is What “Jezebel” Considers A Compelling Justification For The Riots.

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Feminist website Jezebel introduced a jaw-dropping interview with a New York protester, a black woman who said she was a social studies teacher, with this:

Despite escalating police violence, arrests, and city-mandated curfews, protesters are continuing the crucial work of speaking out against the murder of George Floyd by police officers and the continued violence against unarmed black people. For reasons that escape logic, protesters and activists are still being asked the same question by reporters and those who refuse to come to terms with America’s history of racism: Why are you here? How do you feel about the looting? It’s a series of questions too often forced upon black people who are expected to educate the masses while simultaneously being oppressed, murdered, ignored, and told to be quiet and “get over” hundreds of years of institutionalized racism.

How unreasonable to expect those engaged in mindless violence against their community and police to have a coherent explanation for what they think they are accomplishing!

The exchange that Jezebel thinks explains it all began with the unnamed black woman saying,“I mean, I’m a black mother and a Social Studies teacher and I’m raising a black son in America so I have no choice but to fight and walk. That’s all I can do.”

Asked about whether the looting and rioting had overshadowed the message of the protests, her response was to reference a  century-old race riot in Oklahoma in 1921. “I mean these white mobs came and rioted in Tulsa and did the same shit, excuse my language, but I’m just sayin’ like, what’s the difference?” she said. Continue reading →

Comment Of The Day: “Back To The 13th Question: Answer It, Stop Grandstanding, Or Shut Up”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Frequent  commenter of distinction Ryan Harkins doesn’t exactly try to answer the”13th Question” ( “What is the “systemic reform regarding race in America” that the George Floyd protests purport to be seeking?”), but at least he advances the discussion by trying to define the problem, which is a whole lot more than anything we have heard from media pundits and elected officials over the last week, and they have fallen all over themselves trying be seen as allying with the right “side.”

This seems like a propitious place to raise this article from Foreign Affairs that readers Wesley49 has proposed for discussion. “I would love to hear the opinions and insights from this thread’s contributors in trying to answer your 13th Question,” he wrote. I have a lot of problems with the piece, which typifies, I think, the academic/scholarly equivocation around this issue, but I won’t pre-bias the discussion more than that.

Here is Ryan Harkins’ Comment of the Day —which has the added pleasure of some great quotes—on the post, “Back To The 13th Question: Answer It, Stop Grandstanding, Or Shut Up”:

The problem with trying to end racism is that it runs aground the basic human impulse to “other” people who are different. It has been a practice of mankind from the beginning, and even our very best of societies will constantly struggle with the temptation to “other” the people who at the very least aren’t playing along.

“Othering” is to make someone an outcast from the group, and to place blame on them for the groups problems. Theologians have referred to it as scapegoating. If someone looks different, dresses different, acts different, talks different, there will be the temptation to mock that person, ostracize that person, and perhaps even blame that person for everything that is going wrong. Then, if you can destroy that person, then magically all the problems will go away.

“You want to know what’s wrong with this nation? It’s those damned Republicans trying to horde all the wealth.” “You want to know what’s wrong with this nation? It’s those damned Democrats who are trying socialize everything.” “You want to know what’s wrong with this nation? It’s all those hateful religious folk.” “… It’s all those LGBT people destroying family values.” “…It’s all those white supremacists trying to suppress minorities.” “…It’s all those anti-vaxers…” “…It’s those climate change deniers…” “…It’s those power hungry people who treat science like a religion…” Continue reading →

Ethics Observations On The University Archeologist’s Obelisk-Toppling Tweets

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

To topple, just read the diagram backwards!

University of Alabama at Birmingham archeologist Sarah Parcak tweeted detailed instructions on how to bring down an obelisk over the weekend, using 12 detailed tweets  as George Floyd rioters in the college town  tore down a statue of Charles Linn, a Confederate Navy captain and one of the founders of Birmingham . She then coyly suggested that “there might be’ an obelisk in downtown Birmingham,” and that the obelisks “might be masquerading as a racist monument.” There is, in fact, a Confederate monument in Birmingham, and it is an obelisk. Sure enough, it was targeted by rioters.

The esteemed professor began by saying her comments were a public service announcement.

“PSA For ANYONE who might be interested in how to pull down an obelisk* safely from an Egyptologist who never ever in a million years thought this advice might come in handy,” she wrote. “There might be one just like this in downtown Birmingham! What a coincidence. Can someone please show this thread to the folks there…Just keep pulling till there’s good rocking, there will be more and more and more tilting, you have to wait more for the obelisk to rock back and time it to pull when it’s coming to you. Don’t worry you’re close!… WATCH THAT SUMBITCH TOPPLE GET THE %^&* OUT OF THE WAY IT WILL SMASH RUN AWAY FROM DIRECTION. Then celebrate. Because #BlackLivesMatter and good riddance to any obelisks pretending to be ancient Egyptian obelisks when they are in fact celebrating racism and white nationalism.”

Observations: Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 6/1/2020: Gee, What A Nice, Ethical Beginning To June!

/ Jack Marshall / 33 Comments

Well, the George Floyd Ethics Train Wreck is a welcome change from the Wuhan Virus Ethics Train Wreck, right?

Right? No?

1. Perhaps the major positive development from the  rioting? The news media’s complete, undeniable unmasking as a failed, corrupt, anti-American, anti-democracy institution. If you didn’t see Don Lemon’s epic example of how not to be a professional journalist, let me point you to this EA post from the weekend. But there was much more…

  • The horrible Gina Bellefante, whose ethical deficits have been highlighted here previously, was given space in the New York Times to write this, pivoting from George Floyd to once again rehashing the Cooper vs Cooper Central Park fiasco:

Ms. Cooper didn’t understand the possible consequences of her actions — that calling the police to settle an argument between a white woman and a black man in 2020 could result in his injury or death. This would imply that the news of the recent past has managed to completely elude her — from the death of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., to Eric Garner’s in Staten Island, to Ahmaud Arbery’s in Georgia.

Michael Brown, who was shot by an officer he was charging after trying to grab the officer’s gun. Eric Garner, the 375 pound man resisting arrest who died after being gang-tacked by police. Ahmaud Arbery, whose death didn’t involve police at all. How do these episodes indicate that “that calling the police to settle an argument between a white woman and a black man in 2020 could result in his injury or death”? They don’t.

  • Competing with epic jerk Chris Palmer, Leigh Tauss, an editor for the progressive news outlet “Indy Week” in North Carolina, tweeted out her support for the protesters/ rioters, saying “the crowd is extremely peaceful and groups and many are wearing masks and trying to keep distance.” A few hours later, when the peaceful crowd attacked her office, she wrote, “I went into the hallway. I heard someone l enter the office and what sounded like smashing inside. We are a small newspaper with a handful of desktops. I’m now hiding in the basement.” The next day, she whined, “I’m devastated. We are a progressive newspaper. Last night I was inside when the first brick was thrown.”

“We are a progressive newspaper!” How can they attack us when we are the good people?

  • As the blog Victory Girls correctly observes, all the news media reports pressed the presumption of racism on the part of Officer Chauvin and the other three police. The evidence of this is that they are white, and Floyd was black. In fact, that proves nothing. What would have been the result if Floyd were white? What if Chauvin had been black? The episode presents a prima facie case of police brutality. The presumption of racism is included in news reports because that’s what the news media wants the public to believe. From the post:

But will the media at least consider that perhaps the problem is that the United States is a huge nation with more than 300 million people, leading to a larger number of interactions with police, not that police are disproportionately targeting African Americans? Probably not. The outrage mobs don’t want to hear that 45 percent shot by police are white men, 23 percent black men, and 16 percent Hispanic men, with 54 percent armed at the time of the encounter. The outrage mobs are more worried about exploiting the anger to foment unrest, which the media will then call on the very same government accused of abuses against its citizens to fix.

Continue reading →