Gender and Sex

This Story Leaves Me Speechless

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

All I can do is scream...

From The Daily Mail Online:

“A Catholic Church child safety co-ordinator who was in charge of investigating sexual abuse allegations was jailed for 12 months today for internet peadophile offences.

“Christopher Jarvis, 49, a married father-of-four, investigated historic claims of child abuse, interviewing the victims when they were adults. He was responsible for child protection at 120 churches and parish community groups for nine years. He also, as a member of the Devon and Cornwall Multi-Agency Safeguarding Team, had access to police and social services information about victims of child abuse.

“As a result of the conviction and sentencing, the Roman Catholic Church has ordered a review of child protection across the South West of England.”

I…I..this shows…it’s…when a….oh, to hell with it.

I have no idea how to react to this, besides screaming or jumping out the window.

Anyone?

Death Bed Extortion Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The new Mrs. DeVita holds a picture of her matchmaker, the old one.

There are few things more unfair, or that represent more of an inherent abuse of power and loyalty, than dying requests.

In 2007, Jackie DeVita , a 42-year-old mother terminally ill with brain cancer, removed her wedding ring and handed it to Colleen Leary, her unmarried sister, saying, “I want to know that this is the three of us,” referring to Colleen, Jackie and her husband, Richard. “Don’t ever leave my kids.”

A year later, in 2008, Jackie died, and three months after Jackie DeVita’s funeral, Colleen Leary became Mrs. Richard DeVita.

I hope it works out.  Jackie’s request, however, was a terrible thing to do, the equivalent of emotional extortion. Continue reading →

Penn State Primer: 15 Ethics Alarms on the Duty to Rescue and the Bystander Problem

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Tiring of the smug and remarkably vicious Paterno defenders who have designated Mike McQueary for infamy because he failed to stop the Penn State child rapist in action, and who have accused me of supporting such inaction in rescue situations when my position, record, writings, belief and life experience proves the opposite, I offer these previous Ethics Alarms posts on the topics of rescue and bystander inaction. It is a useful, if sometimes disturbing review of various aspects in a complex issue. I don’t really expect the commenters previously referenced to allow rational thought to interfere with their certitude and vendetta, but most visitors here are not so wired.

A new post, focusing especially on McQueary, will be along soon, but today is Veterans Day, and I have my own duty to attend to: honoring Maj. Jack Marshall, Sr., 1920-2009, WWII veteran, Silver Star, Bronze Star and Purple Heart veteran, a true hero his entire life, in every way imaginable.

I am quite confident that he would not only have stopped Jerry Sandusky from molesting the boy, he might well have shot him.

Here are the 15 selected essays: Continue reading →

Ethics Mystery: How Can Penn State Let McQueary Coach the Team For Saturday’s Game?

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

WHAT???

It is almost too weird to contemplate. Penn State has fired both its president and football coach Joe Paterno over their failure to take necessary measures to protect young boys who they knew were targets of what appears, and appeared to be, a serial child molester, Jerry Sandusky. Paterno was fired yesterday specifically to eliminate the pall that would be cast over all Penn State activities, including this Saturday’s game, if he were to continue as coach, and to make sure that the university didn’t project a “business as usual” attitude by allowing its community to blithely cheer Paterno’s team as if a child molesting scandal could be brushed aside for a weekend of fun and games.

And yet Penn State plans to have Mike McQueary coach the team on Saturday, rendering all of this incoherent. McQueary was the one who witnessed the act of sexual assault that triggered the whole scandal. He reported it to Paterno, but 1) didn”t stop it when he had the chance, and 2) did nothing to make certain that Sandusky’s criminal conduct was being properly handled afterwards. His presence as coach on Saturday all but eliminates whatever message Penn State intended to send by firing Paterno. The bottom line will be that the team will still be coached by an individual who didn’t do everything he could  and should have done to protect young boys from a predator. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students”

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

“Different Angle,” a college student and victim of child abuse, has, appropriately enough, a different angle on the Paterno/Penn State/ Sandusky scandal, and it provides useful and provocative perspective. I’ll let him have his say, as it is extraordinarily well argued, and save my comments for the end. I think he is compassionate, generous, thorough, thoughtful, and wrong. But first, here is his Comment of the Day on  “Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students.”

“As a current college student, prior victim of child molestation, and generally reasonable person, I feel inclined to give my two cents. Having read the grand jury report personally, I am shaken. Unless you are familiar with the shame and humiliation of a situation like this–even if you are familiar–the sheer quantity of these attacks… beyond words. Had any Penn State staff understood the thoughts running through this man’s mind, this comment would’ve started “As a current toddler…” Anyone who knows that the sexual abuse of children is occurring and acts so callously as to downplay it and sweep it under the rug has no place in modern society. That’s as nicely as I can put that.

“With as much emotion and sympathy as I harbor for the young men who’ve endured through this, it pains me to read the bickering and finger-pointing I’ve encountered in comment threads like this. And while it is normally in my nature to grab my trident for a healthy round of devil’s advocate with the popular and most often intelligent opinion, I cannot help but side with Joe Paterno in this matter. I’m about as far removed from sports as a sociable college male can get; I will not rally for a few chants of WE ARE… at the end of this post. If you’re going to scrutinize the choices he made in reference to the 2002 incident, be thorough enough to consider this: He wasn’t thinking about slandering Sandusky, he wasn’t concerned about his career or standing in the community. The decision of if/when/to whom this should be reported wasn’t calculated with pro’s and con’s. Continue reading →

Mike McQueary and Me

/ Jack Marshall / 93 Comments

 

Do you know what you would do, in Mike McQueary's place? Are you sure?

I have defended Mike McQueary, the graduate student assistant coach who, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s report, witnessed Jerry Sandusky raping a young boy in the Penn State showers in 2002 and told Joe Paterno, to this extent: he took the crucial step of reporting the incident to the coach, his boss as a graduate student assistant coach, and that took courage. Because of Paterno’s reputation as a moral and ethical exemplar, the young man had no reason to believe that Paterno would not do all the right things, from confronting Sandusky to finding the boy to alerting the police. (As we now know, Paterno did none of these.)

Even so, he had to believe he was in a career jeopardizing situation. Sandusky was a Penn State football legend, though retired, and presumably had Paterno’s loyalty. Would being the messenger that created liability and public relations problems for his boss’s beloved football program make McQueary a pariah even if it resulted in Sandusky’s arrest? That scenario is not uncommon, unfortunately.

That is why, when a commenter wrote that McQueary was more culpable for Penn State’s inaction than Paterno, I disagreed strenuously, and I still do. Paterno had power, given his iconic status, perhaps the ultimate power. If he had insisted that Sandusky be confronted, removed, and reported to police, it would have happened, and would have happened completely within his natural sphere of influence. For McQueary, however, to track the university’s response and independently take action to stop Sandusky would require exemplary valor. I wish he had done it. But he had placed his faith in Joe Paterno, and at Penn State, that should be a sure bet.

I think it is easy for any of us to conclude that in Joe Paterno’s place, we would not have allowed Sandusky to continue preying on young boys. What would we do in Mike McQueary’s position, however…putting aside the action of physically intervening in the rape itself? There is a reason why the first thing he did was to go home and call his dad for advice. He never, never considered what he would do in such a situation, because never, in his wildest dreams, did he imaging such a crisis occurring.

Never underestimate the difficulty of making the right ethical decision in an unexpected crisis.

I also sympathize with McQueary, because I had my own Mike McQueary moment years ago. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Penn State Students

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

"Give me a C! Give me an H! Give me an I! Give me an L! Give me a D! Give me an M! ...."

The good news: the “Occupy” demonstrations are no longer the most irresponsible and offensive in the country. The bad:#1 is a rally in support of child molesting.

All right, that’s unfair; I apologize, Penn State students. What today’s raucous, banner-waiving, cheering throng of hundreds outside embattled football coach Joe Paterno’s house really was supporting was Paterno himself…now squarely identified as a man who allowed a probable child abuser to continue preying on young boys for years, because, we can only assume, he was more focused on winning football games than being a human being. That’s better. Not much better, though, because cheering Paterno now, at this moment, communicates approval of his choices, priorities and values, which said, in essence, “Let the rapes continue. Go Penn State!” Continue reading →

Ethics Exercise: Being Fair To Herman Cain Now

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The other shoe.

In the wake of Sharon Bialek’s  press conference describing an alleged incident involving of attempted quid pro quo sexual harassment by Herman Cain in 1997 [read the account here] , and the Cain camp’s instant and unequivocal denial, fair Americans are posed with a classic ethics challenge: how do they assess her accusations while being fair to the accused? It is a daunting problem, with many components. How do can we compare Cain’s credibility with Bialek’s? What, relevance, if any, does the timing of her appearance have? How are the previous, still anonymous, un-detailed allegations of hostile work environment harassment to be factored in to our calculations?

Addressing this conundrum requires wading into a jungle of biases, presumptions and  caveats. Among them:

1. Is Bialek credible? Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

Did you know that Jerry Sandusky's autobiography was titled, "Touched," Joe?

“The fact that someone we thought we knew might have harmed young people to this extent is deeply troubling. If this is true we were all fooled, along with scores of professionals trained in such things, and we grieve for the victims and their families. They are in our prayers…It was obvious that the witness was distraught over what he saw, but he at no time related to me the very specific actions contained in the grand jury report. Regardless, it was clear that the witness saw something inappropriate involving Mr. Sandusky. As coach Sandusky was retired from our coaching staff at that time, I referred the matter to university administrators…If true, the nature and amount of charges made are very shocking to me and all Penn Staters. While I did what I was supposed to with the one charge brought to my attention, like anyone else involved I can’t help but be deeply saddened these matters are alleged to have occurred.”

—–Penn State Football Coach Joe Paterno, commenting on the indictment on 40 charges of child sexual abuse brought against his long-time former defensive coordinator, Jerry Sandusky. It was Paterno who first brought allegations of Sandusky’s sexual molestation of young boys to the University’s attention, and two Penn State administrators have also been charged with covering up Sandusky’s alleged misconduct.

Paterno’s statement is ethically troubling on many levels, self-serving and disingenuous. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: 53% of the American Public

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

If only Herman Cain could have been tried by the same standards of fairness as the Salem Witch Trials...

I am as sick of the Herman Cain sexual harassment issue as you are, I swear. But still..

A new Reuters/Ipsos poll conducted over the weekend among 1057 respondents revealed that 53 percent now believe that allegations of sexual harassment against Cain are true. This, despite the fact that none of the 53% know what it is he is supposed to have done that constitutes sexual harassment, and, I am quite confident, almost none of them sufficiently understand what the definition of sexual harassment is. But they are still sure he did it, whatever it is, to at least one of these women, whoever they are.

I cannot image imagine a more unfair, irresponsible and indefensible opinion. Two women who have not revealed their identities and who have not had their allegations tested, examined or confronted, and whose accusations have no descriptions or facts connected to them whatsoever, have convinced 53% of the public of a political candidate’s wrongdoing despite his denials, and despite the fact that they know of no instance where he has engaged in conduct that could fall under the category of sexual harassment. It is one thing to pronounce someone guilty of a specific act of misconduct in the absence of evidence and without the accused having a chance to challenge it. That is wrong. But to pronounce an individual guilty of  an unknown act that has only been characterized but not described, in the absence of evidence and a named accuser?

The judges in the Salem Witch trials were more reasonable and just.

Congratulations to the news media for a successful smear campaign.