Leadership

Comment of the Day: “Unethical Quote of the Week: Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson”

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Presenting one of the very best Comments of the Day

Rick Jones, whose own blog Curmudgeon Central should be on everyone’s list of bookmarks and visited often, delivers one of the finest and most thoughtful comments ever to grace Ethics Alarms, and we’ve had many excellent ones. His topic is my post regarding Professor Dyson’s comments on ABC this Sunday about criticism of President Obama, but Rick makes a perceptive connection to the Trayvon Martin controversy as well.And here is the really amazing part: there is not a word here that I don’t agree with completely.

Here is his Comment of the Day, on the post Unethical Quote of the Week: Georgetown Professor Michael Eric Dyson:

“It strikes me that President Obama has come in for at least his share of sniping—legitimate and otherwise. But that isn’t the issue here. Rather, how much of that criticism is based on race? The honest answer is that we can’t say with certainty, but we can make some pretty fair conjectures. Continue reading →

Trayvon Martin Ethics Train Wreck Update: The Wreckage So Far, and The Wreckers

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

The "George Zimmerman Is a Racist" segment in Clinton Mitchell's high school ethics class.

Gallup released a poll yesterday, showing:

  • African-Americans are nearly five times more likely to be convinced that gunman George Zimmerman is “definitely guilty” of a crime than non-blacks.
  • 75% of African-Americans believe that racial bias led to Martin’s shooting, whereas less than half of non-blacks do, though a majority of the public believe that race was a factor in the tragedy.
  • 73% of blacks, about twice the percentage of the rest of the population,  believe that Zimmerman would have been arrested if the person he shot was white.

What we now have, clearly, is  significant, dangerous, and festering racial distrust, not created solely by the Trayvon Martin incident but exacerbated by it. This can only harm race relations, law enforcement, and the nation generally, and yet it is beyond argument that this divide has been encouraged and nurtured. Obviously the potential already existed, and one would think that responsible figures in public life, the civil rights establishment, elected office and the media would take the responsible course and attempt to minimize the shooting’s potential for increasing racial divisiveness in America.

They did not. Once again, they ripped the scab right off racial healing, and did so recklessly, cruelly, ineptly, and in some cases, maliciously. They are still doing it, or passively allowing it to be done by others. This is wrong, and shockingly so. Rational and fair analysts and observers all along the ideological spectrum should be saying so, but they are not. Fairness and honesty should not partisan issues. Playing the politics of hate and divisiveness is a threat to the fabric of the United States of America and in this case, risks unraveling decades of progress in race relations and understanding. There can be no excuse for it, and yet the primary culprits reside among the most influential and prominent institutions in the country. Journalists. Congress. Civil rights organizations. Pundits. Educators. And the President of the United States. Continue reading →

“Blue Bloods” Ethics: The Good Lie?

/ Jack Marshall / 1 Comment

Tom Selleck as NYC Chief of Police Frank Reagan

Tom Selleck’s CBS drama “Blue Bloods,” chronicling the exploits of  the Reagans, an improbable fictional New York City family that dominates NYC’s law enforcement, featured an excellent example of a necessary lie last night, in which utilitarian principles would hold that the lie,  a rather serious and extensive one—many interlocking lies, really—was the most ethical option available.

The situation arose because the Chief of Police (Frank Reagan, played by Selleck) learned that his police officer son, Jamie Reagan, had rescued a child from an explosion, and the press and city were clamoring to know who the hero was. (Nobody saw the rescue, which is a contrived detail, but necessary to set up the ethical dilemma.) But Jamie was also working undercover in a serious and dangerous operation, having infiltrated an organized crime family. (Why was a uniformed cop allowed to stay on the street while leading a double life? Seems reckless to me, but Father Chief knows best.) To protect the undercover operation and his son, Frank Reagan decides on an elaborate deception, persuading his son’s partner, who was on the scene of the rescue, to take the credit and even accept a commendation in a public ceremony.

Lying to the public and the press to such an extent is almost always inexcusable, but protecting an anti-crime effort in the public interest, as well as the imperiled officer involved in it,  is a rare case in which the balance tips away from the truth. The “Blue Bloods” solution was the best one available given the situation and the law enforcement priorities.  But… Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: President Obama (Sigh!)

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

“Ultimately I’m confident that the Supreme Court will not take what would be an unprecedented, extraordinary step of overturning a law that was passed by a strong majority of a democratically elected Congress.”

—President Obama speaking in the White House Rose Garden about the Supreme Court’s deliberations on the constitutionality of Obamacare.

Obama made John Marshall roll over in his grave. We Marshalls just hate that,,,

This is the kind of presidential dishonesty that drives me bonkers, I must confess. It manages to deceive and misinform. It is dependent on the ignorance of  the public, so it is also condescending, disrespectful, and cynical, in addition to being an intentional  lie.

Not a lie, you say? Perhaps a mistake? Sorry, no dice: Obama was advertised as a former constitutional law expert and a Harvard Law School whiz. He can’t claim now that he’s really a babe in the woods when it comes to the Law of the Land and judicial history.

Unprecedented? The power of the Court to overturn unconstitutional acts of Congress was established by precedent, when Chief Justice John Marshall—love that name—led the court to invalidate the Judiciary Act of 1789. Is Obama playing games with “democratically-elected Congress,” since the Senate wasn’t elected directly until 1912, with the passage of the 17th Amendment. I suppose so…if challenged, he can say that he is still right, because all of Congress wasn’t elected “democratically” in 1789. Of course, few Americans know that, so the statement qualifies as deceit. Continue reading →

Ethics Train Wreck Update: Martin-Zimmerman Reflections

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Is it only fair to show one version of the victim?

As the NAACP joined with Al Sharpton today to lead a protest of thousands in Sanford Florida, some notes on recent ethics carnage and confusion in the wake of Trayvon Martin’s shooting death:

  • Roslyn Brock, who chairs the national board of directors for the NAACP, perfectly illustrated  ignorance of the justice system and short-sightedness that has characterized this whole, sorry incident. “We come to make sense of this great tragedy and the entire world grieves with us,” she said . “When the Sanford police did not arrest George Zimmerman, they essentially placed the burden of proof on a dead young man who cannot speak for himself.” But of course, as every American should know, that is where the burden of proof lies. The alleged victim in a death is represented by the state, and it is the state that has the burden of proof of guilt as well as having the burden to justify an arrest. It is not Zimmerman’s responsibility to prove his innocence, though that is what the un-American process engineered by race-activists and the media has come to. Does the NAACP really want to take the position that there should be a presumption of guilt in criminal matters? Or just in circumstances where the victim is an African-American and the suspect is not?
  • While CNN has taken the lead in trying to present a balanced picture of the controversy, NBC, mostly through MSNBC, has thoroughly disgraced itself by essentially taking an advocacy position on Zimmerman’s guilt, even to the point of doctoring his 911 call to make it seem clear that this was a case of racial profiling. “This guy looks like he’s up to no good…He looks black.” is how Zimmerman’s 911 call was played on the  “Today Show” and relayed on MSNBC’s website. The actual conversation was this: Continue reading →

Trayvon-Zimmerman: Stop This Ethics Train Wreck!

/ Jack Marshall / 86 Comments

Unstoppable?

The Trayvon Martin-George Zimmerman episode is escalating into a full-scale ethics train wreck at a frightening pace, pulling in participants and bystanders alike, and threatening to become a national catastrophe. Usually such things need to play out until all the carnage is exhausted, but this train wreck is different. Too many parties, including the media, are behaving irresponsibly, given the sensitivity of the issues at hand and the possible worse case scenarios. If the train can’t be stopped, it desperately needs to be slowed down.

At this point, however, I wonder if it can. The activists now driving the action obviously no longer care about little nuances like facts, fairness, and law. The participation of Ethics Train Wreck Engineer Extraordinaire Al Sharpton perfectly suits the situation. Whatever the witnesses say, whatever the facts may appear to be to rational and reasonable observers, too many people are invested in the presumption that a white racist shot an innocent black teen for “walking while black,” and nothing short of harsh punishment will avert claims of society-wide racism and the attendant anger, protests, and violence to come.

Disgracefully, more respectable media figures than Sharpton are also throwing kerosene on the fire.  Here, for example, is Pulitzer Prize winning Washington Post columnist Eugene Robinson’s opening to today’s column: Continue reading →

Obama, Trayvon Martin, Biases and Kansas City Burning

/ Jack Marshall / 34 Comments

In Kansas City, Missouri, a 13-year-old East High School student was walking home after the end of his daily classes when he was grabbed by two older teens just as he reached his front porch. They pinned his arms behind his back,  poured gasoline on him, and set him on fire. The victim of the attack was rushed to an emergency room, where he was treated and released. Doctors fear possible damage to his lungs and eyes, but outside of losing his eyebrows and some hair, he only suffered first degree burns.

The boy is white; his attackers were black. They allegedly said, as they were lighting him aflame, “You get what you deserve, white boy.”

This frightening incident occurred on March 2. I only recently learned of it, because the news media didn’t treat it as a national story. Though the boy’s attackers have not been found, no activists are demanding that the police chief resign. There have been no marches or protests, and students aren’t walking out of Kansas City schools. Nobody, as far as I can determine, has claimed that this is just the tip of a lurking race iceberg, and that it shows the racial hate of blacks toward whites that is hidden by the media and the culture. Most of all, the President of the United States did not say , just to give a wild, hypothetical example… Continue reading →

Dr. Z’s Tips to Avoid Unethical Influences in the Workplace and in Life

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

The wise and provocative "Dr. Z" (on the left)

I’m giving ethics seminars to lawyers and accountants today at a non-profit conference in Washington, D.C. While I’m gone, I thought you might want to think about one of the topics I’ll be talking about, the problem of avoiding unethical influences and being co-opted by an unethical culture. What follows are some of the principles advocated by psychologist  Philip Zimbardo, “Dr. Z” to his students, who is best known for devising the infamous Stanford Prison Experiment (it was even made into a movie), that demonstrated to a frightening degree how ethical individuals could engage in horrendous acts when placed in the right (or wrong) environment. Zimbardo has studied, taught and written about this phenomenon extensively, and I find his advice bracing and wise, as well as fodder for debate and discussion. Here it is: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Month: Eric Fehrnstrom

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

“Well, I think you hit a reset button for the fall campaign. Everything changes. It’s almost like an Etch-a-Sketch. You can kind of shake it up and restart all over again.”

—-Top Mitt Romney advisor Eric Fehrnstrom, answering a CNN interviewer’s query about whether the leading GOP presidential hopeful’s increasingly conservative campaigning positions will hurt him with more moderate voters in he is his party’s nominee.

Translation: “Mitt Romney is a liar, and has no integrity, so he will continue to say whatever is necessary to persuade naive and inattentive voters—you know…most of them— into believing that his policies will please them.  This is why he has no respect for voters at all, and will lie to their faces. Hey, this is politics–that’s how the game is played! My boss is like President Obama, like George W. Bush, like all politicians, really–except nut-cases like Santorum, Paul and Gingrich, who keep saying the same crazy things they believe in no matter how unelectable it makes them. Mitt’s a realist. He hit reset when he was Governor of Massachusetts, then he hit reset when he decided to run for the nomination. He’ll hit reset again when he’s nominated, and you can be damn sure he’ll hit reset after he’s elected. Come on…anyone who believes what a political candidate says has to be an idiot, right?”

Start the countdown. Every day that passes without Fehrnstrom resigning—or better yet, being fired— is an additional reason not to trust Mitt Romney…in addition, that is, to the fact that he’d hire a cynical, incompetent jerk like this in the first place.

Ethics Hero: NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Today the National Football League announced the following response to the results of its investigation of bounties being offered and paid by the New Orleans Saints to its players for injuring key opposition players in games. From the NFL press release:

“Commissioner Roger Goodell notified the New Orleans Saints today of the discipline that will be imposed on team management for violations of the NFL’s long-standing “bounty” rule that endangered player safety over a three-year period.

“Discipline for individual players involved in the Saints’ prohibited program continues to be under review with the NFL Players Association and will be addressed by Commissioner Goodell at a later date. The program included “bounty” payments for “knock-outs” and “cart-offs,” plays on which an opposing player was forced to leave the game. At times, the bounties even targeted specific players by name.

“The NFL’s extensive investigation established the existence of an active bounty program on the Saints during the 2009, 2010, and 2011 seasons in violation of league rules, a deliberate effort to conceal the program’s existence from league investigators, and a clear determination to maintain the program despite express direction from Saints ownership that it stop as well as ongoing inquiries from the league office.

“We are all accountable and responsible for player health and safety and the integrity of the game,” Commissioner Goodell said. “We will not tolerate conduct or a culture that undermines those priorities. No one is above the game or the rules that govern it. Respect for the game and the people who participate in it will not be compromised.”

“A combination of elements made this matter particularly unusual and egregious,” Commissioner Goodell continued. “When there is targeting of players for injury and cash rewards over a three-year period, the involvement of the coaching staff, and three years of denials and willful disrespect of the rules, a strong and lasting message must be sent that such conduct is totally unacceptable and has no place in the game.”

…Based on the record, Commissioner Goodell has imposed the following discipline on Saints management: Continue reading →