Gender and Sex

The Ethics of Teacher-Student Facebook Friending

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Sometimes what appears harmless and benign at first glance starts looking inappropriate and unethical after we learn more about it. Social networking media has been teaching this lesson with alacrity over the last year, and we now have another example that will be making some friends of mine re-evaluate their Facebook friend list…I hope.

The New York Post has reported that least three educators from New York City  public high schools have been fired in the past six months for having inappropriate exchanges with students on Facebook, including one of which culminated in a sexual relationship. Continue reading →

A Law Firm Finds New Ways To Be Unethical

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Now remember, it’s only a complaint so far, and the law firm involved will have its own version of the story (though I’m betting on an out of court settlement before this becomes a law suit.) Still, this case suggests that there are still new vistas in unethical law firm conduct to be explored.

A “Mad Men”-style law firm required all of its female secretaries and non-legal personnel to wear high heels. One of them who was unaccustomed to wearing heels tripped on the carpeting, injuring her back. When she returned to work, the firm refused to make any accommodations for her due to the injury, such as not requiring her to lift heavy objects.

Nice.

Krystal Ball, the Dildo Nose, Human Nature, and Trust

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Krystal Ball is a Democrat running for an open Virginia Congressional seat in the 1st District. Today, however, most Americans who know her at all only do so because some spectacularly embarrassing photos of her have gone viral on the Internet. In the shots, a Santa-clad Ball is shown in a series of suggestive poses involving a bright red dildo, which is fastened to the nose of young man wearing reindeer antlers. In some shots, she has Rudolph the Dildo-nosed Reindeer on a leash, just to add that dominatrix flair we all associate with the holidays. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Carl Paladino

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Carl Paladino now says he is a big supporter of gay rights, which in his case means that despite the fact that he considers their sexual orientation “invalid,” he still feels that, l ike child molesters and criminals, they deserve basic Constitutional rights…except gay marriage, of course.

The GOP candidate for governor of New York chose a day just barely removed from a series of vicious attacks on gay men, and just a couple of weeks after a gay Rutgers student was humiliated into suicide by a cruel “prank,” to proclaim to a gathering of Hasidic Jews that he does not want children to be “brainwashed into thinking that homosexuality is an equally valid and successful option,” and criticized his opponent, Andrew  Cuomo, for marching in the city’s Gay Pride parade, saying,”I didn’t march in the Gay Pride parade this year. My opponent did. And that’s not the example that we should be showing our children and certainly not in our schools.” But Mr. Paladino isn’t homophobic; oh no!  He just thinks  children should be taught that they shouldn’t hang around with gays, like, you know, lepers, winos, and cannibals. Continue reading →

Leona Gage: A Celebrity Liar Ahead of Her Time

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Leona Gage died last week, and there are people who love her and will miss her. But Gage’s obituary would have never been deemed worth of mention in major newspapers had it not been for a series of lies she concocted in 1957 because “she needed the money.” She was Miss USA that year, until contest organizers discovered that, contrary to what she had said,  she wasn’t single ( a requirement then); wasn’t waiting “until she was 26” to have a boyfriend (she had been married twice at 14, and already had a child), and wasn’t 21…she was just 18. Continue reading →

How Partisanship Corrupts Us All At Election Time

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

The upcoming election, among other horrible things, will stand as a landmark of ethical corruption, as parties, news sources and voters will have thoroughly abandoned integrity and weakened their core values by excusing damning behavior from their favored candidates, behavior that, if honestly and objectively evaluated, should disqualify them from any office of trust.

We have already seen disturbing examples of this phenomenon in such embarrassing displays as Rep. Charles Rangel’s birthday celebration, as major Democrats lined up to give tribute to a Congressman who has abandoned multiple ethical duties, including an absolute disgrace for any Chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, willful tax evasion. Rather than take a stand for honest government and representatives the public can believe in, partisan supporters are blaming Rangel’s self-made problems on Republican attacks, as if they made Charlie do it all at gunpoint.

The same theme is being echoed by conservatives on talk radio, who are making the case that the ridiculous Christine O’Donnell, who has undeniably misused campaign funds and misrepresented her educational background numerous times and ways, is being criticized for these “errors” because of a “media double-standard.” The only way to interpret such a defense is that the people making it believe all lies, misuse of donations and efforts to mislead the public are excusable if the press has ever ignored them when the transgressor was from the other party. Or they really don’t believe that, but are saying that they do. Either way, they are corrupt. Continue reading →

Ethics Dunces: Beaverton, Oregon School District Administrators

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

This one is the easiest of calls.

Seth Stambaugh, a student teacher for the 4th and 5th grades at an elementary school in Beaverton, Oregon, was asked by one of the students if he was married. Stambaugh said he was not and, when the student asked why, replied that it would be illegal for him to get married in Oregon because he “would choose to marry another guy.” The student asked if that meant Stambaugh preferred to be with other men, and Stambaugh responded, “Yeah.”

As a result of this exchange, a parent complained, and Stambaugh was fired. Continue reading →

Karen Owen’s “Fuck List” and the Rutgers Sex Video Suicide: Not So Different

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Karen Owen is a recent graduate of Duke. Either they don’t comprehend the nature of the internet at Duke, or are graduating more than their share of cruel, thoughtless, reckless dolts, because Owen decided it would be a hoot to make a faux “senior thesis” Powerpoint presentation documenting her sexual activity with thirteen Duke athletes, none of whom gave consent to be named in her “study”. She classily dubbed it her “fuck list,” but it was unofficially titled “An education beyond the classroom: excelling in the realm of horizontal academics.”  (“Horizontal academics…get it?) Then she e-mailed the file to three “friends,” and, as you’ve probably guessed, one  or more of them sent it around to their friends, who eventually made it viral. Soon two websites decided to maximize the harm to all concerned, as websites are prone to do…especially websites called “Deadspin.” Continue reading →

Yucks All Over:Sifting Through the Whitman/Allred/Diaz/Brown Ethics Train Wreck

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Is anyone doing or saying the right thing for the right reasons in the current controversy in California over Meg Whitman’s housekeeper? I think not. Let’s look at the main participants, and avert your eyes. It ain’t pretty:

Gloria Allred: Emerging out of nowhere to manufacture a campaign controversy that may sink conservative Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman’s chance of beating liberal Democrat golden oldie Jerry Brown, feminist advocate Allred is exploiting a long-time illegal immigrant for political purposes (Allred’s support for Brown goes back decades), torpedoing the campaign of a woman trying to be the state’s first female governor. Continue reading →

The Right Lesson From The Rutgers Sex Video Suicide

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The tragedy can be blamed on moral luck.…bad moral luck. The two Rutgers students who humiliated a classmate by secretly taping a gay sexual encounter between him and another young man and live streaming it onto the internet couldn’t know that their sensitive victim would jump off a bridge to his death in despair. Most students would not react this way. Some might have a breakdown; some might seek revenge. Some might not even care. Raunchy teen hi-jinx gross-out comedies often feature equally awful “jokes” or worse, depicted as just part of the carefree, amoral life among uninhibited youths. This time, however, the prank killed. Everyone will look at students Dharun Ravi and Molly Wei as monsters now, because of the unpredictable result brought about by their cruel violation of a fellow student’s dignity and privacy. Continue reading →