Gender and Sex

Apology Ethics 2: Is This A Legitimate Excuse? Does It Matter?

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Skydiving

Tom Angel was chief of staff for the Los Angeles County sheriff until emails he had sent to friends four years ago, prior to becoming the sheriff’s top aide, denigrating several different groups of minorities including Muslims, Catholics and Latinos surfaced in the media. Now Angel  has resigned.

His boss, Sheriff Jim McDonnell,  announced the departure  in a statement posted to Facebook that called the messages “inappropriate and unprofessional.”  That was fair.

Originally, the department defended Angel, saying in part,

“Although his judgment in this situation is of concern to members of the Sheriff’s Department, no one is more distressed about it than Chief Angel himself.  His apologies for this uncharacteristic act have been profuse and sincere. Chief Angel’s decision-making and actions in his long prior career with the Sheriff’s Department and since his return in 2015 reveal more about his actual character and typical good judgment than the instances from four years prior currently reported in the media.”

It didn’t work, especially after Angel’s apology, quoted in the LA Times, was this:

“Anybody in the workplace unfortunately forwards emails from time to time that they probably shouldn’t have forwarded. I apologize if I offended anybody, but the intent was not for the public to have seen these jokes.”

Should that have been sufficient? Continue reading →

KABOOM! ESPN Achieves A New Low In Unethical Journalism: Misinforming The Public Out Of Spite

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
If you told me ESPN COULD make my head explode, I wouldn't have believed you...

If you told me ESPN COULD make my head explode, I wouldn’t have believed you…

ESPN has been foundering in a sea of ethical ignorance for some time now, but this was shocking even for them.

In a petty exercise to express its disdain and and anger at dismissed baseball commentator Curt Schilling, the sports network excised an entire section of its documentary on the legendary 2004 American League Championship play-offs when it was shown last night prior to the scheduled Red Sox-Yankee game. I cannot think of a single example of unethical journalism by a major outlet so blatant and so offensive.

Let’s go back a bit. Schilling is an outspoken religious conservative, active on social media. He was suspended from his baseball game broadcasting duties last season after comparing Islamic radicals to Nazis in a Twitter post—not all that unreasonable, actually, but if ESPN has a policy against its employees making controversial political statements on social media, and apparently it does, Schilling was asking for trouble.

Indeed, Curt has nothing if not integrity when it comes to expressing himself, and he could not resist commenting on the transgender bathroom controversy, re-tweeting a particularly ugly meme on the issue:

transgender bathroom tweet

ESPN fired Curt. He had earlier in the year opined in a radio interview that “If I’m gonna believe, and I don’t have any reason not to believe, that she gave classified information on hundreds if not thousands of emails on a public server after what happened to General Petraeus, she should buried under a jail somewhere.” Allowing for hyperbole, that’s a perfectly legitimate position to take, but again, if ESPN doesn’t want Curt, who it was paying a million bucks or so, to take shots at someone it believed its audience members were fond of,  it can instruct its employees accordingly. It expressed its objections to Schilling, and he tweeted the meme anyway. Continue reading →

Yecchh! The Daily Caller And Its Commenters Cheer On Sexual Predator Teachers

/ Jack Marshall / 49 Comments
I'm really sorry you didn't get any in high school, Tucker (maybe it was the bow tie), but it's no excuse.

I’m really sorry you didn’t get any in high school, Tucker (maybe it was the bow tie), but it’s still no excuse.

I’ve called out the Tucker Carlson’s conservative news and commentary website The Daily Caller for this before. Apparently this is Carlson’s sick and unethical obsession: I guess he can’t stop his sophomoric fantasies and pain arising out of being a high school nerd gazing hopelessly at cheerleaders and the occasional attractive teacher from infecting his judgment and ethical values. Thus he—and his “education editor,” Eric Owens—think rape is ethically acceptable if the rapist is hot enough.

Once again, the site reports on an example of high school teachers exploiting their male students for their own sexual satisfaction with a slimy wink-wink-snort coded piece making it clear that the Daily Caller regards the episode is one big joke. This time the tongue in cheek headline, accompanied by the photographs of the two women involved, conveys Tucker’s attitude:

Male Teen’s Parents Sue Over Son’s 9-HOUR THREESOME SEX TRAUMA With English Teachers

Rapist teachers

Hahahahahahaha! That’s some trauma! Hey guys, you would have all been traumatized by an epic sex session with these two babes, right? Poor kid! Continue reading →

The Fraudulent Sperm Donor

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Sperm Bank

The British cartoon above give me the willies the first time I saw years ago it, and it does still. I tracked it down after reading legal commentary on a nightmarish incident in Canada.

Canadian couple Angela Collins and Elizabeth Hanson chose a sperm donor for their planned child who claimed a 160 IQ, a neuroscience PhD, and a perfect medical history.  After their child was born, they learned the surrogate father’s name though an error by the sperm bank, and discovered that Dad had lied: he never graduated from college, was a convicted felon, and had a history of schizophrenia. His sperm bank profile picture was also a fake; I’m guessing he really looked like the guy in the cartoon.

Other than that, he was fine.
Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The University Of Washington Cheerleader Do’s and Don’ts

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

 

I have to admit that for me, one potential benefit of the viral political correctness malady that makes virtually any communication a potential threat to one’s career, reputation or physical well-being would be the obliteration of the embarrassment known as “cheerleading squads” from athletic events sidelines and the culture forever.

Nevertheless, this episode from earlier this week warrants examination.

The University of Washington cheerleading team posted an infographic on Facebook Monday night, giving out aspiring cheerleader audition tips.  The team said that it created the graphic “in response to a high volume of student questions about cheer and dance team tryouts.” Similar “do’s and don’ts”  had been posted by the squads at Washington State University and Louisiana State University  but this one caused a full social media freakout.

University of Washington cheerleader tryout advert.

“I can’t believe this is real,” exclaimed UW student Jazmine Perez, director of programming for student government. “One of the first things that comes mind is objectification and idealization of Western beauty, which are values I would like to believe the University doesn’t want to perpetuate,” she said. “As a student of color who looks nothing like the student in the poster, this feels very exclusive.” Another UW student complained, “I think it’s really upsetting and kind of disheartening the way it’s basically asking these women who want to try out to perform their femininity — but not too much. Such a message would never go out to men trying out for a sport.”

The graphic was taken down quickly, because university officials deemed that some might find it offensive….a standard that if followed routinely these days would preclude virtually any statement or graphic about anything. I am sure someone is at work on software right now that will devise within seconds a basis for outrage and offense for any form of expression.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz today:

Was this an unethical—as in hurtful, irresponsible, incompetent, insulting or unfair—graphic?

Continue reading →

Read ‘Em And Weep: The Jefferson Muzzle Awards

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

muzzle-banner

 Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression (TJC) hands out yearly “awards” to  government agencies that show themselves hostile to free speech.  This year, however, the Jefferson Muzzle Awards were reserved for various colleges, as the increasingly radical left institutions of higher learning, spurred by such groups as Black Lives Matters and the craven administrators who quiver in fear of them, have scarred freedom of expression over the past year in a multitude of ways.

Fifty schools got their ceremonial muzzles—the Muzzies?—in five categories:

1. Censorship of Students
2. Censorship by Students
3. Efforts to Limit Press Access
4. Threats to Academic Freedom, and
5. Censorship of Outside Speakers

Here they are.

And it’s not funny.

_______________________

Pointer: Instapundit

An Urgent And Probably Futile Call For Empathy And Compassion For The Victims Of Cultural Whiplash

/ Jack Marshall / 85 Comments

north-carolina-protest-transgenderIt is sobering to read  the hateful and contemptuous comments from so many of my Facebook friends about the legislators of Georgia, Indiana, North Carolina, Mississippi and other states that have either passed or have tried to pass laws allowing citizens to opt out of the cultural freight train that gives them the option of boarding or getting crushed. Whether these are “religious freedom” laws or “bathroom laws,” aimed at transgendered interlopers in the once orderly realm of public bathrooms, or whether they are designed to fight for the definition of marriage as “between a man and a woman,” these laws, every one of them unwise and unethical, and probably unconstitutional too, need to be regarded as the inevitable and predictable result when human beings are forced to absorb cultural shifts in a matter of years or less that properly would evolve over generations

Culture–what any society, country, region, religion, business, organization, club, family, secret society or tree house agrees over time as how they do things, think about things, what is right and what is wrong, what is remembered and what is forgotten–is a constantly evolving process. Efforts to freeze it inevitably fail, because human beings as a species can’t stop themselves from learning. Efforts to rush the installment of major changes, however, can be disastrous, even when there seems like no alternative but to rush.

Laws don’t automatically change culture. They are part of the process, both reflecting and facilitating cultural shifts, as well as institutionalizing them. They do not even mark the end of such shifts. Nobody should be surprised, angry or abusively critical when those who have been raised to believe in certain values and practices feel betrayed and mistreated, and see the need to resist when their sense of what is right is suddenly proclaimed as not only wrong but the sign of a character deficiency and a cause for denigration and disrespect. Continue reading →

Observations On Donald Trump’s Harriet Tubman Comments

/ Jack Marshall / 94 Comments

Harriet.Tubman 20

Don’t worry. Despite Donald Trump’s supposed “new leaf” that has him trying act and sound “presidential,” he’s going to continue to say ignorant, stupid and offensive things, because he really doesn’t know what is “presidential,” or ignorant, stupid and offensive, for that matter.

Today’s example was his off-the-cuff commentary about Harriet Tubman replacing President Andrew Jackson on the twenty-dollar bill.Trump said:

“I think Harriet Tubman is fantastic. I would love to leave Andrew Jackson and see if we can come up with another denomination. Maybe we do the $2 bill or another bill. I don’t like seeing it. Yes, I think it’s pure political correctness. He’s been on the bill for many, many years and really represented somebody that was really very important to this country.”

Observations:

1. Ethics Alarms offers this competence and responsibility-based rule for public figures, especially those running for President of the United States.

If you can’t say something that is constructive, coherent and adds substance to the discussion, keep your opinion to yourself.

Of course, that would mean Trump would seldom get to say anything. Still, this statement was completely gratuitous, vapid, clumsy and wrong. Continue reading →

Observations On The ‘Ole Miss’ Sigma Chi Derby Days Controversy

/ Jack Marshall / 26 Comments

Derby DaysNews Item:

The University of Mississippi’s Title IX office has launched an investigation after allegations surfaced on social media that men of the Sigma Chi fraternity asked sorority members questions tainted with sexual innuendo on a loud speaker system in front of hundreds of students at the closing festivities of Derby Days, the fraternity’s annual philanthropic initiative.

Those “allegations” came in the form of an emotional Facebook post by student Abby Bruce, who began,

“Tonight, my eyes watered up as I watched women be humiliated in the name of “philanthropy.” After a week long process of all the sororities on campus competing to raise money for Sigma Chi’s philanthropy, the guys proceeded to ask the contestants for their Derby Days queen over the mic at the dance competition where hundreds of women were gathered “which sigma chi they would go down on,” “what type of sausage would they prefer: linked or sigma chi,” and other questions of the like.”

Observations:

1. I’m sure Ole Miss administrators are shocked, shocked (I know this “Casablanca” reference is an over-used cliché, but it perfectly fits this episode) that fraternity members would use sexual innuendo at an event like this. In truth, this is undoubtedly been going on for decades, but the combination of the sexual assault posse culture that the Education Department’s “Dear Colleague” letter inflicted on campuses combined with social media shaming prompted the college to act as if it had no idea such vulgarity was going on.

The University of Mississippi has allowed and by its passivity endorsed such piggish conduct in its fraternities, and it is now grandstanding.

2. A Title IX investigation, in this case to see if frat boys making sexual innuendos about sorority girls during an extra-curricular event, is an abuse of the law and free speech intimidation, and is unwarranted, except, I suppose, to make Old Miss  immune from government harassment. The test in Title IX is whether conduct with sexual content and intent rises to the level of non-consensual and unwelcome sexual harassment in which students are “deprived of equal and free access to an education.”  Being subjected to rude comments on Derby Day when in all likelihood the women participating knew what was coming isn’t going to deprive anyone of anything. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Week: NY1 Host Errol Louis

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

“Let me suggest, because some of her strategists have said this kind of quietly, it’s not really a big thing on this campaign trail: a lot of this is sexism. It’s buried so deep that people just say, ‘I don’t trust her, she doesn’t keep her word.’ And then you turn it around and say, ‘What politician does?’”

—-CNN political commentator and NY1 host Errol Louis in response to CNN’s Chris Cuomo’s question regarding Hillary Clinton’s a recent Wall Street Journal/NBC poll that indicated that Clinton had a 56% unfavorable rating even among Democrats.

The T-Rex in "Jurassic Park" was also a female, and I'm sure sexism had a lot to do with everyone not liking her, either...

The T-Rex in “Jurassic Park” was also a female, and I’m sure sexism had a lot to do with everyone not liking her, either…

It must be wonderful for a politician to have an automatic, guilt-inducing, candor-suppressing excuse for every botch, failure, example of misconduct and instance of terrible judgment. You have to pity Richard Nixon, Lyndon Johnson, Robert Dole, George W. Bush, John Kerry, and so many others–when people said they distrusted or disliked them, they had to accept responsibility for it, and conclude that they must be doing something wrong. After all, nobody is prejudiced against white males: when people think they screw up, it’s because they really are incompetent or corrupt. They have to be accountable. How brilliant of the Democrats to hit on this fool-proof—literally—formula: just find black or female standard bearers and all criticism can, and for a lot of journalists will, be attributed to prejudice and bigotry. One has to wonder if Democrats will ever dare to run a Presidential candidate again who doesn’t have this built-in armor.

Without this versatile reality-warping and truth-defying device, I am certain that right and left, including African Americans, would have been howling for Barack Obama’s head long ago, with the news media handing out the torches and pitch forks. The engine for this double-standard is presumed bigotry, unfair but apparently impossible to rebut. Continue reading →