Professions

Translation For Norwegians: “Oh, Please. We’re The United States Of America. Why Should We Care About Sweden…er, Norway? Whatever.”

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments
I hear he really likes fish, though, and roots for the Vikings.

I hear he really likes fish, though, and roots for the Vikings.

Stipulated: Ambassador to Norway is not the most vital foreign relations post the Obama Administration has to fill. Also stipulated: if one assumes that the quality of U.S. appointee naturally diminishes down the line from the most important diplomatic position to the least, and the top position is filled with the likes of John Kerry, one might assume that Norwegians would be relieved that the post of U.S. Ambassador to Norway wasn’t being filled by a used lawn chair. The final stipulation is that there is nothing unique or unusual about a U.S. President filling a high diplomatic post with someone manifestly unqualified for the job by anything other than the size of their contributions to his re-election. This is not only a case of “everybody does it,” but also “everybody has been doing it shamelessly for about 200 years.”

With all of that stated and understood, it is still impossible to avoid the ethical conclusions that…

  • The performance of President Obama’s selection as Ambassador to Norway in his Senate confirmation hearing was a disgrace and an embarrassment, even by the prior low standards of past appointees.
  • Appointing such an obviously unqualified, and indeed lazy and uninterested, U.S. ambassador to any locale with more human occupants than Sesame Street is irresponsible.
  • Doing so is an insult to Norway, and, by extension, its population, friends, and neighbors, which..
  • Makes the government of the United States look arrogant and  foolish, which…

Kaitlin Pearson: First “Naked Teacher Principle” Subject of 2014, And Maybe The Most Perfect Naked Teacher Example Ever

/ Jack Marshall / 77 Comments

Kaitlin3

It’s 2014, and time for the first Naked Teacher Principle controversy. As it happens, this one may be the standard against which all others are judged.

Kaitlin Pearson, a Fitchburg, Massachusetts elementary school teaching assistant in the special education department at South Street Elementary School, was exposed, wait, no…busted….no, sorry, not that, er..outed as a well-publicized nude model when someone sent an anonymous package containing her “elegant implied nude” photos to the principal. (That’s the first thing that jumped into my mind when I saw the photo above, I can tell you; “Now there’s an elegant implied nude photo!”) She’s on paid leave now, and you never know what those wacky school administrators will do, but Kaitlin is most down-the-middle-of-the-alley example of the Naked Teacher Principle in action as I’ve ever seen:

1. She’s a teacher…

2. At an elementary school…

3. Who has her photo taken in mostly naked and sexually suggestive poses…

4. Has them posted on the web, where they are easily accessed under her name….

5. Has posted many of them herself….

6. Never alerted her employers to her alternate vocation, and in particular,

7. Didn’t explain this practice and its inevitable results when she was interviewing for the job. Continue reading →

Signature Significance Lesson: Pazuzu, The Judge And The Racist Email

/ Jack Marshall / 126 Comments
"Your Honor, uh, you're not quite yourself today.."

“Your Honor, uh, you’re not quite yourself today..”

How many racist e-mails does one have to send out before it proves one is a racist? At Above the Law, legal affairs blogger Ellie Mystal says the answer is one, and I agree. Mystal writes:

“If you send one horribly racist email that actually manages to leak out into public discourse, it’s probably not your only one. Seeing a racist email from someone is like seeing a mouse in your apartment: there’s never just one. I believe in temporary insanity, but I don’t believe in sudden onset racism that magically appears once and only once and then disappears forever. Of course, whenever anybody gets caught in a racist email scandal, they always say that it’s the only one. It’s always “Whoops, that email was racist, but I’m not racist.” The racist email is always allegedly “out of character,” and the person always claims to have shown “poor judgment.” And that person always has some apologists, as if sending one or two racist emails is just something that “happens” in the normal course of business to non-racist people.”

The “out of character” nonsense is what Ethics Alarms refers to as the “Pazuzu Excuse,” as when someone explains that his or her full-throated expression of a vile nature “just wasn’t me” and “doesn’t express how I feel,” as if their being was suddenly possessed by the evil demon that made Linda Blair spit pea soup in “The Exorcist.” People try that excuse—and absurdly often are allowed to get away with it—because, at their core, they realize that signature significance is persuasive when judging character. Non-racists simply don’t send out racist e-mails ever, even once, and one such episode, all by itself, is convincing evidence that the sender is, in fact, a racist.

The racist under discussion by Mystal was retired federal judge Richard F. Cebull, appointed chief judge for the District of Montana by President George W. Bush in 2001. In 2012, Cebull got in trouble when he sent the following e-mail to seven acquaintances: Continue reading →

Reluctant Self-Promotion Dept.: An Honor From Trust Across America

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Trust

I am directed by management to announce to you all that your Ethics Alarms host was recently honored by Trust Across America, whose co-founder and Executive Director Barbara Kimmel often weighs in here. The inspiring non-profit organization, which pursues the crucial mission of enhancing trustworthy behavior in organizations, annually names its Top 100 Thought Leaders In Trustworthy Business, and I made the 2014 list, which is a distinguished one. For example, it also includes Charles H. Green, whose commentaries on posts here often enhance the site.

The list is described on the TAA site this way:

“While there are many “top” lists and awards, none specifically address trustworthy business – perhaps because the word “trust” presents a definitional challenge. For five years Trust Across America has been working with a growing team of experts to study, define and quantify organizational trust. During the course of our research, we have met with and spoken to hundreds of experts, across a variety of professional disciplines who, when their efforts are combined, help create trustworthy organizations. As our understanding of trust deepens, so does our pool of exceptional candidates. Many of the honorees are well-known CEOs and leadership experts, while others are quietly working behind the scenes as teachers and researchers. We intend to shine the spotlight on both groups, to redirect the focus from the “scandal of the day” to the trustworthy leaders and organizations of the day.”

I could not be more grateful, honored or humble (hey, I can be humble!), and I want to thank Barbara and her organization for this recognition and encouragement. Trust, as I write here often, really is the essential goal of ethics, for without trust, productive human society is impossible. We have a very long way to go to repair the fraying societal and institutional trust now plaguing America, but groups like Trust Across America give me hope that the task is not impossible, just daunting. I do believe that together, by setting and maintaining high standards and not allowing ourselves to be distracted by biases and rationalizations, a more trusting, ethical world is within reach.

Ethics Dunce: Law Professor Josh Blackman, Too Desperate To Take A Cheap Shot At Justice Scalia

/ Jack Marshall / 39 Comments

Supreme Court Justice Scalia, though not quite to the absurd degree of Sarah Palin, is a conservative who inspires such visceral dislike from the residents of the American Left that he often inspires them to behave irrationally in their eagerness to express their contempt. Such was the case this week, when Scalia sharply rebuked a lawyer making his oral argument before the high tribunal in the case of Marvin Brandt Revocable Trust v. United States, a property rights dispute over the conversion of abandoned railroad rights of way into public trails. The advocate, Steven Lechner, was before Scalia and his colleagues for the first time, and began his argument by reading from his notes. This is not cool, and violates Supreme Court tradition, rules, and long-observed standards.

Tony Mauro, blogging at the Legal Times, explains: Continue reading →

The Unforgivable Conflict of Interest: Sports Agents, Robbing Their Ignorant Clients

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments
The ethical course is to choose.

The ethical course is to choose.

Sports agents are rich, powerful, and ethically handicapped by inherent conflicts of interest. The first two qualities so far have insulated them from dealing fairly and openly with the second. This is wrong, and has got to stop. For it to stop, it would help if the players, their unions, the sports leagues and the sports media didn’t either intentionally pretend not to see the obvious, or weren’t too biased and ignorant to realize what’s going on.

Four years ago, I wrote about this problem in a long piece for Hardball Times, a baseball wonk blog of consistent high quality.  The specific agent I was writing about was Scott Boras, the king of baseball player agents, but the egregious conflict I flagged isn’t confined to that professional sport; it’s present in all of them. In the article, I argued that Boras, a lawyer, is engaged in the practice of law when serving as an agent and was therefore violating the legal ethics rules, which prohibits having clients whose interests are directly adverse to each other, specifically in the so-called “Zero-Sum Conflict” situation.

A lawyer can’t assist two clients bidding for the same contract, because the better job he does for one, the worse his other client fares. A lawyer can’t sue a defendant for every penny that defendant has on behalf of one client when he or she has another client or two that have grievances against that same defendant—if the lawyer is successful with the first client, he’s just ruined his other clients’ chances of recovery. There is some controversy over whether the legal ethics rules automatically apply to a lawyer-agent like Boras, but never mind—whether he is subject to the legal ethics rules or not when serving as an agent, the conflict of interest he is blithely ignoring still applies, still harms his clients, still puts money in his pockets, and still should not be permitted. Continue reading →

The Fifth Annual Ethics Alarms Awards: The Worst of Ethics 2013 (Part Three)

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

Jill-Greenberg

Unethical Artist Of The Year

Photographer Jill Greenberg, whose art requires parents to make their children cry. Runner-up: Peeping Tom photographer/artist Arne Svenson

Kaitlyn Hunt

False Allegation Of Anti-Gay Bigotry Of The Year

Kaitlyn Hunt’s parents, who spun a false tale of anti-gay prejudice to portray their sexual predator daughter as a victim after she was accused of statutory rape by the parents of her under-age target. Hunt’s parents even managed to suck the ACLU into their web and the liberal-leaning press portrayed her as a martyr to anti-gay bias. But Hunt’s lies ultimately caused her cover-story to unravel.

 Unethical Hoax Of The Year

Oberlin students Dylan Bleier and Matt Alden, aided and abetted by  Oberlin College and its president, Marvin Krislov. The two students, self-proclaimed progressives, posted a series of racist and anti-Semitic posters, graffiti and anonymous emails as “an experiment.” Krislov and Oberlin, after cancelling classes and engaging in campus-wide navel-gazing, continued to allow the media and the public believe that this was the work of racists on campus well after it had learned who the real miscreants were.  Runner-up: The horrible Meg Lanker-Simons, former University of Wyoming student (now admitted to law school—I don’t want to talk about it) who threatened herself with rape and used the bogus threat to show that her campus was violent and sexist.

Most Unethical Use of Social Media Continue reading →

I Don’t Care For This Ethics Lesson, Professor…

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

 

You keep using that word. I don't think it means what you think it does....

You keep using that word. I don’t think it means what you think it does….

Police reports say that Robby Burleigh, 42, and his pregnant fiancée—she’s 20— got in an argument last week over a text message he didn’t like and the fact that he doesn’t want her to have their baby. According to the fiancée, Burleigh grabbed her, threw her to the floor, pinned her down and broke her phone so, she claims, she couldn’t call for help. Then, she says, he  dragged her across the floor to a safe where he keeps his gun, and said, chillingly, “You’re going to commit suicide today.”

Oh! I forgot the best part!

Burleigh teaches philosophy of religion, biomedical ethics, introduction to ethics and introduction to logic at Baton Rouge Community College, and his fiancée is a student of his. Clever ethics lesson, Professor! Continue reading →

The Alex Rodriguez Suspension, Barry Bonds, And The Slippery Slope

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

New York Yankees' Alex Rodriguez stretches before American League baseball game at Fenway Park in Boston

In a decision that further defines major league baseball’s cultural standards regarding performance enhancing drugs and the players who use them, New York Yankee Alex Rodriguez was suspended for the entire 2014 season and post-season by an arbitrator yesterday. Rodriguez, a long-time superstar who was once considered a lock to break baseball’s career home run record, and who is the highest paid player in the game, was suspended for illicit drug use without testing positive under the game’s union-negotiated testing system. He was, instead, suspended for a violation of the player’s Basic Agreement under baseball management’s right to police the game and do what is in its best interests.

The evidence that Rodriguez was a flagrant and long-time steroid abuser came from documents obtained from Biogenesis, a lab that developed drugs for athletes and others, as well as convincing testimony. Rodriguez had challenged the suspension in a grievance procedure after MLB handed down a 211 game suspension during the 2013 season. The arbitrator’s ruling, which is confidential, apparently concluded that the player not only cheated, but obstructed efforts to enforce baseball’s intensified anti-drug measures in the wake of the wide-spread use of PEDs in the 90’s and thereafter.

As expected, the result produced the usual complaints and rationalizations from the disturbingly large contingent of baseball fans and writers who remain obdurate regarding the offensiveness of steroid cheating, claiming that it was “a part of the game,” that the objections to it are inconsistent, and that baseball’s vilification of users is hypocritical. They had been practicing these and related arguments for months as they waited for the baseball Hall of Fame voting results announced last week, in which about 65% of the voters showed that they regarded steroid use as a disqualification for the honor, even when a player-user had excelled on the field. Rodriquez’s defeat deeply undermines the cause of the steroid defenders, and the likelihood that their argument will ever prevail. Continue reading →

Just So We’re Clear: Some School Sexual Predators Are More Unethical Than Others

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

lunchladyJanelle Foley, 32,  who works in the cafeteria of Chapman Middle School in Weymouth, Mass., was charged with four counts of statutory rape for having sexual relations with a 15 year old student at the school during the Thanksgiving and New Year holidays.

This is statutory rape, and wrong, but approximately half as wrong as when the sexual predator’s target  is her (or his)  student rather than someone she glops mashed potatoes for in the lunch line. True, every employee in a school has to be worthy of some level of trust, but a teacher is blatantly misusing her authority and blurring roles to the detriment of education as well as social development when she exploits the position of teacher/role model/ authority figure/mentor for the purposes of sexual gratification. A lunch lady is just picking up horny teens. One is a professional breach and a sleazy crime. The other is a sleazy crime, and nothing more.

On the other hand, the role betrayal involved when a friend’s mother seduces her son’s underage friend is every bit as reprehensible as the acts of a predator teacher. I tend to think the Sexual Predator Lunch Lady is not a serious threat in our schools.

And where does “The Summer of ’42” land along this spectrum?

I ‘m not certain, but closer to the lunch lady than to the teacher, I think.

_______________________________

Pointer: Fark

Facts: Boston.com