Fairfax County, just a short trip from my home in Alexandria, Virginia, is supposed to be one of the elite public school systems in America. Consider that, as you ponder this story.
Above is a photo taken of two Fairfax High School students during a meeting of the county’s Langley High School Muslim Students Association, in which they hold up a crude drawing in which the stars on the American flag are replaced with swastikas, and the message “Free Palestine!” is written in between the squiggly stripes. This took place on school property, in a sanctioned extra-curricular activity. [Supplementary questions I’d like to see answered: 1) Why are there religion-segregated activities in a high school? Isn’t allowing that inherently divisive? 2) Where is the faculty advisor?] An Asian American student leaked the photo to the public on social media, thus allowing the community to see what a bang-up job Langley was doing educating its young charges. The inflammatory image inspired pro-Palestine ( that is, pro-Hamas) students to stage a “walkout” on November 10, as students chanted, “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.”
Rep. Tlaib’s lie to the contrary, that slogan is a call for Israel to be wiped off the map.
[It turns out that Curmie and I were writing about the same issue more or less simultaneously. Shortly after I posted “The Great Stupid: Child Abuse Edition,” Curmie sent me this installment of his periodic column, expressing concern that it was redundant. It’s not, and I’m putting up Curmie’s take forseveral reasons: 1) I love his writing and style; 2) he approaches the incident from some different angles than I did; 3) I believe this incident is an important one that involves many critical ethics problems: the public school disaster; hypersensitivity to racial offense, real or imagined; the indoctrination and intimidation of children; and more. The plight of J.A. is not just the metaphorical canary dying in the mine, but strong evidence of just how badly our society’s air is poisoned. It is worth more than one post. Finally, I especially want this essay read after Curmie commented recently that he disagreed with my analysis on “countless” topics. In fact, I find that his values and ethical navigation equipment are closely aligned with mine. If they weren’t, he couldn’t have dissected this story so expertly.—JM.]
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A few days ago, I commented on Jack’s post on the high school principal in Sherman, Texas who declared that the musical Oklahoma! contains “mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content” “would come in third place in a battle of wits with a sack of hair and an anvil.”
I hereby retract that characterization. It appears that Sherman Principal Scott Johnson was merely a good soldier, enforcing the dictates of a superintendent and school board that can’t decide if the Victorian age was a little too permissive. So… Johnson appears capable of giving that anvil a run for its money.
The good news is that the international attention this case received resulted first in a decision to re-instate the original student cast but in a shortened “kids” version of the musical that would have cut the solo from Max Hightower, the trans student at the center of the controversy, and finally—when the students and parents wouldn’t accept that utterly stupid “compromise” or the notion that Oklahoma!, of all plays, ought to be bowdlerized—a return to the original version with the students the director cast.
More to the present point, when compared to Jeff Luna, the principal at Muirland Middle School in La Jolla, California, even the folks who did make the idiotic decisions that led to the kerfuffle would appear to embody all the best attributes of Solomon, Socrates, Confucius, Albert Einstein and Leonardo da Vinci rolled into one. We do sorta know what Ado Annie means when she laments her inability to “say no,” after all.
I was about to say that what Luna did surpasses credulity, but, alas, it does not. There are a lot of adjectives that do apply—”boneheaded,” “irrational,” and “unconstitutional” come to mind—but unfortunately “unbelievable” has no place on the list.
Last month, a Muirland 8th-grader identified as J.A. attended a high school football game, looking like he does in the photo above. That is, he wore eye black, just as he’s seen countless football players (and not a few baseball players) do; I won’t bother you with the literally dozens of photos of players of all races doing so. Now, whether eye black has any direct practicality is a matter for debate. It started as a means of keeping glare out of the eyes. I have no idea whether it actually does that, and even if it does, it doesn’t require the amount used by J.A. But that, of course, is irrelevant.
And ignore facts, history common sense and reality. Like so much of the Hamas-Israel Ethics Trian Wreck, this car has value unrelated to the war itself. Now we can understand why the Times op-eds are the way they are.
The Times just published a column by a recent edition to its stable of extreme woke pundits. Lydia Polgreen opines, in “This Photograph Demands an Answer,” that the news media should bombard the public with photographs that will flood readers’ minds with emotion, making rational, objective analysis difficult or impossible.
Many people may want to look away, to see the world as they prefer to see it. But what should we see when we see war? What should war demand all of us to see and understand? Given my experience in war zones, it is a rare thing for a violent image to stop me in my tracks. But I believe that this is an image that demands to be seen….And so I ask you to look at these children. They are not asleep. They are dead. They will not be part of the future. But know this: The children in the morgue photo could be any children. They could be Sudanese children caught in the crossfire between two feuding generals in Khartoum. They could be Syrian children crushed under Bashar al-Assad’s bombs. They could be Turkish children who died in their beds when a shoddily constructed apartment block collapsed upon them in an earthquake. They could be Ukrainian children slain by Russian shells. They could be Israeli children slaughtered in a kibbutz by Hamas. They could be American schoolchildren gunned down in a mass shooting. These children are ours.
This resurfaced video of the Senate Majority Leader gleefully tripping the light fantastic with the New York Democratic Attorney General, one of the party’s several prosecutors engaged in an effort to use the criminal justice system to hamstring Donald Trump before the 2024 election, raises several ethics questions, but I’ll focus on just one.
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…
Is participating in this public spectacle ethical conduct for a prosecutor?
Heck, how can anyone trust a political party that would install such a calculated liar (or, in the other Hanlon’s Razor alternative, an utter moron) who would issue such cynical, obvious, “it isn’t what it is” piece of unconscionable gaslighting?
Clyburn has one of the most damning Ethics Alarms dossiers of any member of Congress, which is impressive, considering what an awful collection of corrupt and destructive incompetents “low-information voters” have elected to govern us. He, or more likely a soulless aide—the best defense Clyburn could offer for this thing is that he allowed his name to be attached to it without reading what it said—gave the ludicrous primal scream against democracy to CNN, which dutifully published it instead of handing it back laughing and saying, “Good one. Now where’s the real op-ed?”
Let’s see: the last time I mentioned Semenya was at the end of last year, musing about what to do about another mutant in sports, Jeremiah Johnson, then a 12-year-old junior high school running back from Fort Worth, Texas who weighed 5-foot-11 and weighed 198 pounds, counting his facial hair. (I’m afraid to check on what size he is now.) The question is how schools and sports organizations should treat outliers who break all the rules naturally, and clobber the competition. Semenya, you will recall (we have discussed her a lot) is intersex, meaning that she has some of the primary and secondary characteristics of both sexes. It also gives her testosterone levels about 15 times higher than her female competitors. Though she has won many international competitions and set many women’s records (in the 400m, 800m, 1,000m and 1,500m races). A Swiss ruling in 2019 banned Semenya from international races between 400 meters, and Switzerland’s highest court backed the decision. To compete, she would be required to suppress her natural male hormones, which she refuses to do.
“We can’t have special leagues and categories for however many gender categories science identifies and activists fight to have recognized, and there is no justification for creating artificial standards to eliminate outlier performers. The “solution” imposed on Caster Semenya—force her to take drugs that eliminate her natural advantage—is horrifying. How is this different from banging brilliant kids on the head until they have brain damage and no longer dominate their less gifted fellow students in school? What right do the sports czars have to declare an unprecedented, unique competitor unfit to compete because her, or his, unique qualities are advantageous? Why are so many woman condemning Caster as a cheat, when they should be defending her as a human being with as much right to compete as she is as anyone? Because she’ll win? Because it’s unfair that God, or random chance, or her own dedication rendered her better at her sport than anyone else?”
The unique physical characteristics of many, many other elite athletes can be said to have bestowed the exact same kinds of “unfair” advantages that allow Semenya to excel. The only question should be: Are these her real, natural abilities? If so, it is unethical to punish her for being born superior. Meanwhile, biological men transitioning into womanhood are allowed to dominate women’s sports competitions in the U.S. This makes no sense at all.
In Sherman, Texas, the local high school declared that senior Max Hightower, who has been a member of the school’s theater group all four years, is ineligible to play the part of Curley, the male lead in Rodgers and Hammerstein’s musical “Oklahoma!” despite the fact that he won the part in auditions fairly and squarely. The part is being taken away from him, or her, or “them,” because, as he was told by the principal (evidently an idiot miscast as an educator) that a new school policy dictates that student “actors and actresses could only play a role that was the same gender they were assigned at birth.” Max is a young trans male, a girl who “identifies” as male, and presumably has taken no steps to acquire male genitalia.
All aspects of this debacle are so stupid it makes my teeth hurt.
1. There is nothing about casting a female in a male role, a male in a female role, a heterosexual in a gay role (or vice-versa), a black actor as a white character…and so on, ad infinitum, that is inherently wrong or right, for that matter. If a school is going to have a drama program, it should be competent enough regarding theater to know, practice and teach that. A production does what its artistic directors believe is necessary to make the show work as drama, comedy, or entertainment.
2. A penis is not necessary equipment for playing the male lead in “Oklahoma!” Curley thinks with his penis, but he never shows it. A policy requiring any actor to actually possess features the character he or she portrays demonstrates abject ignorance of what drama is. Needless to say, except perhaps to the morons who run this school, Curley is also a lot older than a high school senior, lives in the Oklahoma territory, and ideally can sing like Gordon MacRae above. No high school performer is strictly well-cast as Curley by those criteria, or as a character in any classic musical with the exception of shows like “Grease,’ “West Side Story” and “Bye-Bye Birdie.” Without some version of so-called “non-traditional casting,” high school musicals, which have been a rich and beneficial part of the school experience for more than a century, would be impossible.
When the high school theater group in Arlington (Mass.) High School put on “Oliver!” in the early 1970s (my sister played Nancy, the tragic female lead), the part of the Artful Dodger, a male, pre-teen role, was taken by female senior. She was terrific. In Sherman, her casting would have violated policy.
3. There are potential copyright issues when a director actually tries to change the gender of a character as written by the author. That’s not what was being done here. By sheer coincidence, I saw a school production of “Romeo and Juliet” last week in which Romeo was played by a female. The show was not turned into a lesbian romance (though this has been done many times, and that works too): the part was played as male, and it worked just fine. The Rodgers and Hammerstein organization is appropriately flexible with casting variations: in recent Broadway revivals, the villain Judd, written as a white character, was played by a black man, and the comic female part of Ado Annie, the local flirt, was played by a woman in a wheelchair.
4. I could make an argument for a school policy requiring shows to be cast based on artistic considerations only, and not to make political points, but it would not be a good argument. It is impossible to separate art from politics and social commentary. High school actors need to learn that, too. Such a policy would also be impossible to enforce coherently—especially by fools like the Sherman high school principle, who can’t grok this theater thingy.
5. Also needless to say, except to people who run that high school and victims of closed head injuries, theater is not like athletic competitions. Being a female who identifies as a male or the other way around confers no unfair advantage on an actor. Presumably confusion on this rather basic point is what led to the ridiculous policy and the abuse of Max.
Oh, it gets worse. The Stupid is strong with this community. In a statement, the school district said the production is being postponed, writing,
….”It was brought to the District’s attention that the current production contained mature adult themes, profane language, and sexual content. Unfortunately, all aspects of the production need to be reviewed, including content, stage production/props, and casting to ensure that the production is appropriate for the high school stage.”because of “sexual content and profanity.”
Perfect. Some busy-body escapee from a Mennonite compound complained about the script to a bunch of illiterates who never have seen “Oklahoma!” Cultural illiterates should not be involved in educating children. “Oklahoma!” was judged G-rated fair when it premiered in 1943, and has been performed without controversy by high schools, colleges and community theaters ever since. The “sexual content” is called romance, like in “Romeo and Juliet”,” ” (which is a lot more sexually provocative than “Oklahoma!”) and if there’s profanity in the show, it consists of some cowboy saying “dang.” (All right, all right, Ado Annie’s song “I’m just a girl who can’t say no” is suggestive, but of nothing that a normal high school student isn’t very familiar with already.) Today, high schools have to worry about musicals containing words like “shit” and “fuck,” and these Neanderthals are investigating “Oklahoma!”?
Then the district makes things as clear as mud by adding, “There is no policy on how students are assigned to roles. As it relates to this particular production, the sex of the role as identified in the script will be used when casting. Because the nature and subject matter of productions vary, the District is not inclined to apply this criteria to all future productions.”
Oh.
WHAT???
Meanwhile, Max’s parents say they are going to fight to get Max back into the role. Good. But if this fiasco is sufficient to turn off Max and a lot of his fellow students to theater generally, I wouldn’t be surprised.
This day got derailed early and never got back on track, so this post is as scattered as I am.
1. I just voted. Though only two contests were on the ballot here in Alexandria, and I know nothing about any of the candidates, I voted for an Independent and a Republican solely because I am convinced that the Democratic Party is now completely untrustworthy, and that anyone running under its banner does so despite undeniable evidence that he or she is consorting with villains. That said, the spectacle of democracy in action always chokes me up a little. Does that make me a sap?
2. Reader Sarah was kind enough to inform me that I used the word “censorious” incorrectly in the previous post. Indeed I had: inspired by First Amendment blogger Ken White, who coined the phrase “censorious asshat” when discussing those who sued or otherwise bullied those who posted unpopular opinions on the web, I always assumed that the word described “someone with a fondness for censorship.” It doesn’t.
3. Life competence lesson: keep engaging, you may learn something. Charmed by a CNN headline that I’m certain will make this coming weekend’s compendium by Power Line, I posted “An Arizona golf course is under attack from a squadron of pig-like creatures” on Facebook. I found the use of “squadron” especially alarming, and even listed the collective nouns for pigs, swine, hogs, boars and feral pigs to show that “squadron” wasn’t among them. But Facebook Friend, old theater collaborator and occasional Ethics Alarms participant Greg Wiggins did his due diligence research, and informed me that the collective noun for this particular pig-like creature, the Javelina, is indeed “squadron.”
Yes, it’s come to this! In the town of Tangerhütte, about 2 hours east of Berlin, Germany, a daycare center that for decades has been named in honor of the most famous child murdered during the Holocaust in World War II, is removing Anne’s name.The Anne Frank Daycare Center will become the “World Explorers Daycare Center” because…wait for it!…the name makes some “migrant” parents feel “uncomfortable.” It isn’t welcoming enough, or something, now that Israel is at war with Gaza.
The daycare center’s director explains that the change from the center’s current name is now troubling “parents with migrant backgrounds” who complained that they found it “challenging” to explain Anne’s story to their children. Of course, the whole idea behind such honors is that succeeding generations remember important stories, like we remember the complex tragedy of the Civil War with statues of its many flawed participants…wait. Oops! Never mind.
City officials now insist the renaming is necessary “to celebrate the diversity” of the children attending the daycare center, as explained by Andreas Brohm, the mayor. Because of the large number of Hamas supporters in the town, Anne Frank no longer aligns with the “new focus on diversity,” Brohm said. Despite Germany’s strong support for Israel as part of its penance for launching the Holocaust under He Who Must Not Be Named, respecting diversity—Kill the Jews/ Don’t kill the Jews: Diversity! Equity! Inclusion!—elevates the feelings of many parents about the current name above “the global political situation.”
[I]f her name comes off the daycare, where does it stop? How many schools all over the world carry her name? A lot. And how quickly will that change if the local population decides that having a school named after Anne Frank sends the “wrong” message about “diversity, equity, and inclusion”? Where does this end? Given the amount of ugly anti-Semitism we have seen this weekend, and what is promised to come, I am not sure where it ends.And I’m not sure that the West has the backbone to stop it, either.
Oh, I’m absolutely sure it doesn’t! After all, a life-time petty hood died of a drug overdose under the knee of a Minnesota cop three years ago, so of course Anne Frank’s name has to go. Come on! It makes perfect sense!
The Great Stupid is all-powerful, and its reach is infinite…
November 4 is lively ethics date in addition to the aforementioned robbery of King Tut’s tomb. There have been two notable assassinations on this date that have current news resonance: Then-Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, in 1995, and in 1928, gambler Arnold Rothstein, who was instrumental in fixing the 1919 World Series. (If the Arizona Diamondbacks has won the World Series just completed, I would have suspected a fix, especially with baseball sullying itself with a full embrace of online gambling last season.) Just to show how fast cultural and ethical winds can shift, it was on this date in 2008 that Proposition 8 was passed in California, banning same-sex marriage. Today I wouldn’t be surprised to see Gavin Newsome sign a bill making it a felony to say anything negative about same-sex marriages. The Iran hostage crisis began in 1979: yes, it’s true, Democrats: once the Iranians were the bad guys. In 1956, the USSR under Khrushchev sent in the tanks and crushed the flickering of democracy in Hungary. The late Diane Feinstein was elected California Senator for the first time, highlighting the Democrats’ incredibly cynical “Year of the Woman,” during which misogynist and serial sexual harasser Bill Clinton was held up by the party as a paragon of virtue. And in 2008, of course, Barack Obama was elected, proving that the United States was not the racist nation his administration and its supporters helped convince black citizens that it was over the next eight years.
Boy, this really has been a terrible date for ethics.
Let’s hope today doesn’t add to the list…
1. Could this be it? Is this the tipping point? In Dighton, Mass, (This Massachusetts boy never heard of it!), a female high school field hockey player was badly injured and sent to the hospital after a fierce shot by “a male player” hit her in the face. Whether the player on the other team “identified” as female or was just a male playing a female sport because Massachusetts’ way to avoid controversies is to just eliminate gender separations in all sports is unclear so far. It shouldn’t make any difference.
In the ridiculously woke Bay State, the incident is being treated like a live hand-grenade, but it is still setting off ethics alarms. Dighton-Rehoboth Superintendent Bill Runey said in a letter to families that “[w]hile I understand that the MIAA has guidelines in place for co-ed participation under section 43 of their handbook, this incident dramatically magnifies the concerns of many about player safety,” Runey wrote. Gee, ya think?
2. See? Baseball makes you smart! (As opposed to football, which gives you dementia…) The latest issue of the Baseball Research Journal (the fruit of a generous gift from my friend Bob Kenney) had a feature article on the burning topic of why Ty Cobb was named “Tyrus.” My first reaction was, “Wow, they are really digging deep for topics at SABR,” but, as is often the case, research on a seemingly trivial topic yielded wide-ranging and valuable information. Cobb believed that his first name was original and the invention of his father, a history professor, whom the baseball great thought bestowed on his son the name to honor the city of Tyre’s courageous resistance to Alexander the Great, who eventually destroyed it. This, in turn, would indicate that all subsequent Tyruses were named after Ty Cobb. In the course of debunking that story, historian William H. Cobb discovered and reveals,
Ethics Alarms 