Gender and Sex

Further Reflections On The Cheerleading Prosecutor (and an Ethics Pop-Quiz!)

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments
"By the way, counselor, nice work last Sunday..."

“By the way, counselor, nice work last Sunday…”

I wrote the post about Ina Khasin, the Fulton County assistant district attorney in the morning yesterday as I prepared for a morning ethics session for new D.C. lawyers, and had not made up my mind about whether there was or was not a legitimate “Cheerleading Prosecutor Principle” by the time I posted it. I returned to my keyboard late in the day to read the comments on the post, and finally had a chance to consider the issue carefully, benefiting from the varying perspective of the commenters. My conclusion is that for a prosecutor to indulge herself by moonlighting in a high-profile, frivolous and cognitive dissonance-generating activity like NFL cheerleading is not only weird (Ick!) but also irresponsible, and yes, unprofessional.

I’m pretty sure I’m right, too. Continue reading →

Is There A “Cheerleading Prosecutor Principle”? Apparently Not.

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

irina-k-falcons

Fulton County (Atlanta) Assistant District Attorney during the week, sultry, pom-pom-waving Atlanta Falcons cheerleader on the weekend, attorney Ina Khasin (That’s her, above) has, at least so far, dispelled my suspicions that there would be “Cheerleading Prosecutor Principle” along the theory behind the “Naked Teacher Principle” and its relatives, which is that when one’s  sex-related internet images clash dramatically with the expectations and duties of one’s profession, one’s days in that profession are numbered. Apparently Khasin shares some of those suspicions, since she cheers under the (sort of) alias “Irina K.” If there’s nothing about the activity that anyone would find inappropriate, why hide the name?

Now I am assuming this is all in the open, approved by her superiors, and no longer an issue. I am also assuming that there might just be some kinds of cases that the DA’s office might not want prosecuted by a professional cheerleader. In any event, Khasin has dewn a bright line between being a lawyer-cheerleader and being a lawyer-dominatrix, which, as you will recall from this story, didn’t work out so well.

This is clearly not the “ick factor” for me, and perhaps more of a “Humunahumuna!” Factor, but I am not yet certain that professional cheerleading is in fact compatible with the ethical obligations of a prosecutor. I am very sure that it would not be consistent with the dignity and decorum requirements of a judge.

I think I’ll just have to look at the evidence for a while…

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Facts and Graphic: Above the Law

 

Now THAT’S Unethical…But Funny! And Weirdly Satisfying…

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
Attack of the Fridge

Danny the Fridge stalks his prey…

[UPDATE: This story was, it now turns up, just another hoax. Fred Phelps doesn’t even have a son. I hate web hoaxes, whether I’m sucked in by them or not. But I’m cutting this one a little dispensation, because I needed a good laugh, and this sure provided it. ]

I am awash in shame. Since early this morning I have been bursting into uncontrollable laughter at another human being’s pain, as he was subjected to an experience of unimaginable existential and surreal horror. It is schadenfreude beyond question, not unethical in itself—feelings are not unethical—but taking joy in the misfortune of others is not a sound foundation for ethical conduct.

I’m not going to rationalize this: I should feel sympathy for the victim. Nonetheless, and even though he was attacked without provocation, and for exercising his First Amendment rights, there are some unusual mitigating circumstances:

  • The victim was David Phelps, son of Fred Phelps of Westboro Baptist Church infamy.
  • He was ranting on during a radio interview in a mobile studio, and had just said, “God hates fags.”
  • Suddenly, a 500 pound naked man known as “Billy the Fridge” burst out of a bathroom roaring, “Leviathan! Leviathan!” (see, now I’m laughing again: I’m a horrible person…) and..
  • …proceeded to sit on Phelps, saying, “Who’s your Daddy now, Davey?”
  • An eye-witness later claimed that he saw Phelps being pursued down the street outside the mobile studio by a naked fat man.

That last part was the one that got me. There, see, I’m laughing again.

We have been puzzling about what to do about the Westboro Baptist Church and its disgusting ritual of shouting anti-gay epithets at the funerals of fallen U.S. soldiers, and I admit that having a 500 pound naked fat man sit on him never occurred to me. I can’t condone it; it is assault and battery, and both a crime and a tort. Nor is it ever ethical, if you are a 500 pound fat man, to chase someone down a street. Indeed, it is arguably not even ethical to be a 500 pound naked fat man, at least in public. It is certainly wrong for any of us to sanction such behavior by cheering it on, or doing anything to encourage other naked obese people to ambush, sit on and pursue members of the Westboro Baptist Church.

Just wrong.

And now I’m laughing again.

I’m so ashamed.

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Pointer: Fark

Facts andGraphic: The Daily Mail

Comment of The Day: The Same-Sex Marriage Wars

/ Jack Marshall / 465 Comments

supreme-court-gay-marriage-demonstration

The Inquiring Mind left a plaintive and provocative comment on an earlier post regarding the gay marriage controversy, now once again above the fold, and it was apparently swallowed by my spam file. I haven’t see much of an uptick in Ethics Alarms comments lately (and tgt is on semi-hiatus), but the spam has gotten out of control: apparently this post was deleted, even though I try to check the spam comments (about 500 a day now) to make sure legitimate ones don’t get thrown out with the bath water. I apologize to IM, and am posting the recovered comment partially in compensation, and also because he expresses a sentiment that I have heard and read from others.

I’ll be back at the end; in the meantime, here is Inquiring Mind’s Comment of the Day regarding the tactics of gay marriage advocates:

“Jack, since the aftermath of Prop 8, I have always wondered – is the thuggery/coercion and thought control a “bug” associated with the push for gay marriage, or is it a “feature” that comes with the enactment of gay marriage?

“I just want to review the conduct of gay-marriage supporters: Continue reading →

Ethics Poison From Nike and Tiger Woods

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Woods AdWoods Ad2

…and not for the first time, in either case.

But Woods’ new ad for Nike in the wake of his resurgence in his sport, is audaciously unethical, braying a dangerous, corrupting message into the cultural atmosphere, endorsing, in five simple-minded words, consequentialism, the Star Syndrome, the King’s Pass, non-ethical considerations over ethical ones, and “the ends justify the means.” That’s a pretty impressive load of ethics offal in so few words: congratulations to the soulless ignoramus who devised it.

The assorted miscreants, past and present, who would have gladly stood in for Tiger in his damning ad include dictators, despots, mass murderers, gangsters and corrupt politicians like Richard Daley, Marion Barry, Charley Rangel and Tom DeLay, corporate bandits, assassins, robber barons, Wall Street criminals, athletic cheaters like Lance Armstrong and Barry Bonds, serial fathers like the NBA’s priapic stars, arrogant social misfits like Charley Sheen, con artists and liars in all walks of life, and of course, our most popular politician, the man whose entire career is based on Nike’s new motto, William Jefferson Clinton.

I almost forgot the terrorists. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Alexandra Pelosi

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

“I don’t ask for permission. I think anytime you have to ask for permission your project is doomed.”

—-Alexandra Pelosi, political documentary film-maker (and daughter of you-know-who), speaking about her embrace of the unethical philosophy, “It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than to get permission,” or in her version, “It’s better to beg for forgiveness than to ask for permission.” Pelosi employed a bait-and switch ruse to made former New Jersey Governor Jim McGreavey the subject of her latest documentary.

Mother taught her well...

Mother taught her well…

If Pelosi is correct, then she is in an inherently unethical profession, and shameless about it. If Pelosi is correct, then all documentary film-makers are indistinguishable from other manipulative deceivers like Sasha Baron Cohen, James O’Keefe, Michael Moore, and her. She is not correct, however. There are many celebrated, honest, straightforward documentary makers who get proper permission from subjects before they put them on camera, respecting their autonomy and privacy and engaging with them fairly. The fact that Pelosi sees no need for this tells us all we need to know about her documentaries.  She believes that the ends justify the means, so she can’t be trusted. She will employ chicanery, deception, and lies in order to make a commercially viable film, which will be worth approximately as much, from a documentation standpoint, as her word: nothing.

The context of Pelosi’s smug endorsement of deception as her SOP was the description of how she filmed McGreavey in his new life since resigning as governor and announcing that he was gay. Pelosi persuaded McGreevey to let her follow him around, but not to make a documentary, which McGreevey’s partner, Mark O’Donnell, opposed. Pelosi told Politico, “I don’t think he thought I was making a movie. I think he thought I was just hanging around.” Then, after the documentary was completed, Pelosi says she told her unwitting and deceived star,  “You have a choice. You can support the bigger picture of what the movie is trying to say, which is about the theme of redemption and second acts, or you can not sign a release and this film will go to waste.” McGreevey should have said, of course, “Go to hell. You lied to me. You won’t have my release, and if you show it to anyone, I’ll sue you right back to living in your mother’s house.” Pelosi, however, as master con artist must, chose her victim well. Though “he was not happy,” McGreevey signed the release. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: National Journal Writer Matthew Cooper (And Boy, Am I Sick Of It!)

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments
Matt Cooper apparently thinks Clarence represented murderers because he LIKED murderers. That's not how it works, Matt.

Matt Cooper apparently thinks Clarence represented murderers because he LIKED murderers. That’s not how it works, Matt.

Matthew Cooper, like so many before him who should know otherwise, confounds the role of an attorney with the views of the individual serving as an attorney. This is a disturbing chunk of ignorance for a prominent journalist to pass on to the public, and as I have before, I am honor bound to point it out, and also to say: Understand what you’re writing about, journalists!  That’s one of your ethical duties.

In a National Journal piece about Ted Olson, who argued against Proposition 8 and for same-sex marriage before the U.S. Supreme Court, Cooper writes,

“While most folks were surprised by his support of gay marriage, I wasn’t. Yes, he was a conservative. But he had also defended the press as the longtime lawyer for the Los Angeles Times and in other First Amendment cases. He’d agreed to represent Tim Phelps, a Newsday reporter, in the Anita Hill case even if Phelps’s work was damaging to the conservative Clarence Thomas. He was conservative, but not reflexively so.”

Why is this old, basic and simple principle so difficult to grasp: a lawyer does not adopt his or her client’s views by virtue of representing them or advocating for them in court or the public square! The lawyer’s views are presumed to be irrelevant to the position he or she takes for a client. As the ABA’s Model Rules of Professional Conduct state (and legal ethics has held for centuries),

“A lawyer’s representation of a client, including representation by appointment, does not constitute an endorsement of the client’s political, economic, social or moral views or activities.” Continue reading →

Wanetta Gibson Is Even Worse Than We Thought

/ Jack Marshall / 74 Comments
How do you treat a monster like Wanetta?

How do you treat a monster like Wanetta?

Of Wanetta Gibson, the woman who sent innocent high school football star Brian Banks to prison for five years for a rape he didn’t commit, collected $750,000 by continuing her lie in a lawsuit against the high school where she and Banks were both students, and then sought forgiveness from him in prison while refusing to exonerate him to prosecutors because she didn’t want to give back the money, I wrote:

“There are not sufficient laws, nor words in the dictionary, nor public shaming, shunning and condemnation to do justice to the likes of Wanetta Gibson. She ruined a young man’s life and stole $1.5 million in the process. She can recant, apologize, say that she found God, weep, express regret and anything else, and it should not insulate her from societal rejection. No one should hire her. No bank should give her a loan or a credit card. No taxpayer should have to contribute to her health insurance or food stamps. No one should befriend her. Absolutely no one should forgive her, consort with her or trust her. The kind of organized hatred that was manufactured against George Zimmerman is appropriate in her case. The Golden Rule? If I behaved like Wanetta Gibson, I would deserve everything I have described, and more.”

And you know what? I think I was too easy on her. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Case Of The Creepy Student

/ Jack Marshall / 50 Comments

Muse and Artist, Victim and Harasser, or Censor and Victim?

Muse and Artist, Victim and Harasser, or Censor and Victim?

Joseph Corlett’s essay, though I have not found the full text of it,  is undoubtedly creepy.

In fall 2011, the 56-year-old countertop refinisher was taking a writing course at the Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan. His teacher, Pamela Mitzelfeld, gave the class an open writing assignment for their journals, and, Corlett says, assured them that any topic was acceptable, with no-holds barred.  She said, Corlett’s lawsuit now asserts, that she wanted “the raw stuff.”

That’s just what she got. Corlett wrote an essay called “Hot for Teacher,’ inspired by a Van Halen song by the same name, describing how his sexual attraction to Mitzelfield was irresistible. “Tall, blonde, stacked, smart and articulate…” he described her in his daybook. “Are you kidding me? I should drop right now. There is no way I’ll concentrate in class especially with that sexy little mole on her upper lip beckoning with every accented word. And that smile.”

Mitzelfield alerted university officials, saying that Corlett’s essay frightened and upset her, and that she refused to teach him any further. Moreover, she insisted that either he be ejected from the campus, or she would quit herself. He was escorted out of Mitzelfeld’s class a few days later by the Oakland University Police. A sexual harassment charge was dropped, but a hearing by university officials found Corlett guilty of intimidation and he was expelled for the rest of the semester. University officials allegedly told him that he would be arrested if he returned to the campus. His suspension lasts for  three semesters, and he must go through sensitivity counseling before he can reapply.

Aided by The Fire, Corlett is now suing for over two million dollars in damages, maintaining that his First Amendment rights have been infringed. “The university has essentially issued a straightjacket to every writing student to protect the delicate sensibilities of faculty and staff,” says Greg Lukianoff, FIRE advocate. The legal issues look pretty clear: Oakland University has a terrible case. “Write anything” means write anything, and certainly cannot mean “write anything except something the instructor will freak out over, in which case we’ll fix you good.” If it is true, as Corlett alleges in his lawsuit, that Mitzelfield made no objection to other sexually themed compositions by him that referred to her, his treatment by the school is indefensible. That’s not the ethical question, however. That question is your Ethics Alarms Quiz for the day, and goes like this: Conceding that Oakland University mishandled the episode…

Was Corlett’s essay ethical and blameless?  Continue reading →

Bimbo Ethics in Spring Training

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

Stipulated: If you work for Hooters, and accept a job as an on-field ball girl for a Major League Baseball team, in this case, the Philadelphia Phillies, you may not object to the unflattering sobriquet “bimbo,” especially when you act like this:

Admittedly, the team is at fault, endangering its players and undermining the integrity of the game, by putting someone on the field who clearly 1) doesn’t know a foul ball from a nectarine 2) doesn’t have the sense God gave a muskrat and 3) hasn’t been told that her minimal duty is to pay sufficient attention to the game to avoid becoming part of it.

Still, this lovely blonde woman is allegedly an adult, and should be able to figure these things out for herself. She has a job that a seven year-old T-ball player could do with a minimum of thought, and still can’t do it right. It’s unethical to accept jobs you’re not qualified to do or not willing to learn to do, which in this case, apparently means any job that requires being more than vicarious visual sexual stimulation for middle-aged baseball fans.

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Pointer: Craig Calcaterra

Proofreading Kudos: David Elias, who was the first to flag “Sping Training”