Rights
Dear Harvard: Fire President Drew Faust And Dean Rakesh Khurana
If these idiots do this off-campus, 1) GOOD and 2) it’s none of the college’s business.
In an e-mail to undergraduate students and the Harvard community, University President Drew Faust announced that beginning with next year’s entering class, undergraduate members of unrecognized single-gender social organizations will be banned from holding athletic team captaincies and leadership positions in all recognized student groups. They will also be ineligible for College endorsement for top fellowships like the Rhodes and Marshall scholarships.
The unrecognized single-gender social organizations are what is left of the old fraternities and sororities. When the Greek system was banned many decades ago (and Harvard was an all-male college), the frats reorganized as exclusive college clubs located in houses around Harvard Square in Cambridge. After Harvard merged with all-female neighbor Radcliffe College in the Seventies, sorority-like clubs emulated their male counterparts. In 1984, Harvard issued an ultimatum to the clubs to go co-ed, and the clubs responded by disaffiliating with the University.
“Although the fraternities, sororities, and final clubs are not formally recognized by the College, they play an unmistakable and growing role in student life, in many cases enacting forms of privilege and exclusion at odds with our deepest values. The College cannot ignore these organizations if it is to advance our shared commitment to broadening opportunity and making Harvard a campus for all of its students….Captains of intercollegiate sports teams and leaders of organizations funded, sponsored, or recognized by Harvard College in a very real sense represent the College.They benefit from its resources. They operate under its name. Especially as it seeks to break down structural barriers to an effectively inclusive campus, the College is right to ensure that the areas in which it provides resources and endorsement advance and reinforce its values of non-discrimination.”
Faust was following the recommendation of Dean of the College Rakesh Khurana’s recommendations, who wrote in his report on the results of a “study”,
“[T]he discriminatory membership policies of these organizations have led to the perpetuation of spaces that are rife with power imbalances. The most entrenched of these spaces send an unambiguous message that they are the exclusive preserves of men. In their recruitment practices and through their extensive resources and access to networks of power, these organizations propagate exclusionary values that undermine those of the larger Harvard College community…Ultimately, all of these unrecognized single-gender social organizations are at odds with Harvard College’s educational philosophy and its commitment to a diverse living and learning experience.”
Let us be clear what Harvard is trying to do here. It is seeking to punish students for their associations and activities unrelated to the school itself, and using its power within the limits of the campus to indoctrinate ideological values and require conduct that is unrelated to education. This is a rejection of the principle of freedom of association, one of those enumerated rights protected by the Ninth Amendment of the Bill of Rights, and a cornerstone of American principles. If the college can, in effect, create a blacklist withholding institutional honors from those who choose to belong to an all male or all female club completely distinct from the university, what clearly delineated line prevents the same institution from declaring that membership in the Republican Party, Occupy Wall Street, Americans For Trump or the NAACP are similarly undermining its values?
There is no such line. Continue reading
Do We Really Want To Live In A Society Where Tow-Truck Drivers Refuse To Tow The Cars Of Bernie Sanders Supporters?
In Ashville, North Carolina, tow truck driver Ken Shupe arrived on the scene to find motorist Cassy McWade standing by her accident-disabled vehicle on Interstate 26. “He goes around back and comes back and says ‘I can’t tow you,” Wade told a reporter. “My first instinct was there must be something wrong with the car. And he says, ‘No, you’re a Bernie supporter.’ And I was like wait, really? And he says, ‘Yes ma’am,’ and just walks away.”
“Something came over me, I think the Lord came to me, and he just said get in the truck and leave. And when I got in my truck, you know, I was so proud, because I felt like I finally drew a line in the sand and stood up for what I believed.”
A few quick points and then I’ll get to the real issue:
1. Shupe is an utter, virulent, IQ-deficient jerk whose conduct and attitude makes a mockery of whatever faith it is cursed to have him belonging to it, and constitute a blight on the society, community,culture and nation so unfortunate as to be stuck with him.
2. News reports make a big deal out of the fact that McWade is confined to a wheelchair. Ah: the theory is that we are only obligated to help our handicapped neighbors in need, is it? It shouldn’t matter if she was an Olympic medalist in the 50 yard dash. You don’t treat other human beings like that in any society that values human rights and common decency.
3. Shupe’s company is Shupee Max Towing in Traveler’s Rest, South Carolina. Nobody in their right mind should patronize this unAmerican creep, including his own family. This was anti-social, cruel and objectively horrible behavior toward someone in need, and Shupe needs to be shunned, hard. If he can’t co-exist with others any better than this, he needs to live in a cave somewhere, because he’s not fit for human association.
4. To anticipate an objection: you may ask how it is that I can argue that friendship should outweigh political differences and advocacy of unethical conduct, and yet designate Ken for ignominy and rejection. If Ken were a friend of mine, I can see myself standing by him even after this miserable behavior. But, as Samuel L. Jackson tells John Travolta in “Pulp Fiction,” “We’d have to be talkin’ about one charming motherfucking pig.”
In a way, however, we should be grateful to Ken Shupe, who has provided in short order and timely fashion a near perfect example of the society-wrecking virus being actively spread by irresponsible zealots on both ends of the political spectrum who are determined to divide the nation and the culture as never before. Yes, never before. During the American Civil War, generals on opposite sides of some of the most bloody battles ever fought arranged to meet and exchange pleasantries, because they had been, and remained, friends. They understood what the self-righteous tow-truck operator, and, increasingly, our entire society, doesn’t. Continue reading
Apology Ethics 2: Is This A Legitimate Excuse? Does It Matter?
Tom Angel was chief of staff for the Los Angeles County sheriff until emails he had sent to friends four years ago, prior to becoming the sheriff’s top aide, denigrating several different groups of minorities including Muslims, Catholics and Latinos surfaced in the media. Now Angel has resigned.
His boss, Sheriff Jim McDonnell, announced the departure in a statement posted to Facebook that called the messages “inappropriate and unprofessional.” That was fair.
Originally, the department defended Angel, saying in part,
“Although his judgment in this situation is of concern to members of the Sheriff’s Department, no one is more distressed about it than Chief Angel himself. His apologies for this uncharacteristic act have been profuse and sincere. Chief Angel’s decision-making and actions in his long prior career with the Sheriff’s Department and since his return in 2015 reveal more about his actual character and typical good judgment than the instances from four years prior currently reported in the media.”
It didn’t work, especially after Angel’s apology, quoted in the LA Times, was this:
“Anybody in the workplace unfortunately forwards emails from time to time that they probably shouldn’t have forwarded. I apologize if I offended anybody, but the intent was not for the public to have seen these jokes.”
Should that have been sufficient? Continue reading
Unethical Quote Of The Week: President Obama
“Today, I want to update you on some important progress we’ve made to protect our communities from gun violence. As I said in January, these commonsense steps are not going to prevent every tragedy, but what if they prevented even one? We should be doing everything we can to save lives and spare families the pain and unimaginable loss too many Americans have endured.”
—- President Barack Obama, announcing new measures that his administration will pursue to help curb gun violence.
This is at least the second time, related to gun deaths, that President Obama has invoked the logically, practically, philosophically and ethically absurd “if only one life is saved” argument. President Obama isn’t as smart as his blindly loyal supporters think he is, and definitely not as smart as he thinks he is, but he must be smarter than that.
Yet he uses this ridiculous logic anyway. In Obama’s defense, his entire, nauseatingly inept administration has been rationalized on this basis, so it is a mindset that may be set in cement. Obamacare has allowed some Americans to get insurance that they desperately needed, so, the flawed logic goes, the fact that the legislation has also divided the country, caused millions to lose health care plans that they were satisfied with in favor of new plans they can’t afford, caused rates to skyrocket, suppressed hiring and done nothing to lower health care costs doesn’t alter the official conclusion that the policy is a success.
It isn’t just that the ends justify the means; the theory is that a single designated positive result justifies not only the means but other negative results too. True, prematurely withdrawing from Iraq caused the country to collapse and Isis to run amuck, but the United States withdrew, and that’s enough. Yes, the Education Department’s “Dear Colleague Letter” has caused male students to be unjustly tarred with unproved rape accusations, been the target of false charges and have had their educations disrupted without sufficient evidence or due process, but as long as some female sexual assault victims receive fair attention to their complaints that would not have occurred before, this gender-based persecution is acceptable collateral damage. Sure, Obama’s refusal to acknowledge that radical Islam is a terrorist threat have allowed irresponsible immigration and migrant policies to continue despite their existential risks, but what matters is that some, many–just one!—peaceful, law-abiding Muslims not be the victims of bigotry, fear and hate.
Obama’s latest “just one is enough” assertion is a direct call to the most naive, least aware and most cognitively impaired among us. If saving just one life were enough, then automobiles should be made of soft plastic and travel no more than a few miles an hour. Requiring airlines to use only airplanes that don’t fly, like the one pictured above, would surely save at least one life. Ships and boats never launched on water are very safe. Continue reading
Comment of the Day: “Comment of the Day (1): ‘Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton’”
Hysterics, obviously…
The gun-banning deceit is revving up again, so to pace the blog on this topic, which already had been discussed in a recent post and a Comment of the Day on it, I held out this excellent post by lively Ethic Alarms regular Steve-O-in-NJ for a few days.
By deceit, I mean statements like White House spokesman Josh Earnest yesterday regarding so-called “smart gun” technology, on which the White House is preparing a legislative push. He said in part:
“I think what is true is that I couldn’t think of another industry off the top of my head that isn’t interested in looking at new technology that could make their product safer. Just about every other industry that I can think of, that’s what people do. That’s what manufacturers do. That is a source of innovation in a variety of fields. I think the best example of this is in the auto industry. Auto manufacturers actually market the degree to which they use new technology to make their products safer, to make cars and trucks safer. It is surprising to me that so many gun manufacturers shirk that responsibility.”
It is amusing that Earnest—is he the worst of the three professional liars the Obama White House has employed to mislead the press, deny the truth and spin misconduct?—prefaced his remarks by dismissing “wild conspiracy theories” that the new initiative was designed to make guns less accessible, then uttered this whopper. Guns aren’t supposed to be safe, or what anti-gun zealots regard as safe, which would mean that they would have to be made out of foam rubber. They are designed to kill things, including, when necessary, people. Cars are not supposed to kill anyone: making safe cars is nothing at all like making safe guns.
You know, Josh, I can’t think of any another industry off the top of my head–which is apparently quite a bit more well-furnished than yours–that makes killing tools and machines and does look for technology to make them “safer” by the anti-gun lobby’s definition. Hunting knives? Baseball bats? Have you ever seen a safe hammer? A safe bomb? Safe poison? Of course “smart gun” requirements would make guns less accessible (meeting regulations costs money and adds to purchase price, “smart” features that don’t work right engender lawsuits, guns that are more cumbersome to use are less desirable to people who want guns…) by making them more expensive and difficult to use. And that’s just what the President, Hillary, Chelsae and the rest want.
You’re a liar who treats the press and public as if they were idiots, Josh. Just off the top of my head. Yes, I know: I don’t care that you are just channeling your boss. The line about gun-makers “shirking responsibility” is a transparent effort to grease the skids for product liability lawsuits that would make it impossible to make guns, which is exactly the agenda being pursued here. Gun rights supporters know it, and are derided as conspiracy nuts. Anti-gun advocates also know it, and think it’s just fine.
Here is Steve-O-in-NJ‘s Comment of the Day on the Ethics Alarms post “Comment of the Day (1): ‘Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton’”: Continue reading
Comment of the Day (1): “Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton”
Over the weekend, J. E. Houghton contributed this excellent comment, spurred by Chelsea Clinton’s semi-incoherent declaration that seemed to admit that her mother was determined to reduce the Second Amendment right to bear arms to a nullity.
I apologize to J.E. for posting it as a main post later than I intended, though I am now glad I did. Chelsea’s inartful utterance confirmed what anyone paying attention already knows, but that is still a small minority of the public: the only way anti-gun politicians can achieve the progressive nirvana alluded to by their rhetoric where there is no gun violence except when the government inflicts it is to make self-defense unavailable to the average American. It is important to emphasize what is wrong—as in unethical, undemocratic, unconstitutional, anti-autonomy and totalitarian—about this seductive and sinister position, and as attention on topics here tends to be fleeting, it’s good to have the topic exposed for another week.
Here is J. E. Houghton’s Comment of the Day on the post, Unethical Quote Of The Week: Chelsea Clinton.
I have been interested in the 2nd Amendment debate for over a quarter of a century. In the early days, I honestly believed that there were good points on both sides of a reasonable debate both consistent with the idea that the 2nd Amendment is a fundamental individual civil liberty.
At some point in time, I concluded that there was a certain faction of political thinking that had no interest in an honest debate at all. But rather, this political faction was in fact a political elite that feared the political power of the American people and especially their potential “last ditch” power of armed insurrection if things got too far gone.
A Federal Court Reinstates Tom Brady’s Suspension For Cheating
Good.
What Brady doesn’t get: When people think you cheated, the smirk is does as much damage as the conduct.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit appeals court reinstated the NFL’s four-game suspension of New England Patriots quarterback Tom Brady yesterday. This overturned last year’s ruling by U.S. District Judge Richard M. Berman, who had nullified the league’s suspension of the superstar quarterback. The three-judge panel of the appeals court wrote…
“We hold that the Commissioner properly exercised his broad discretion under the collective bargaining agreement and that his procedural rulings were properly grounded in that agreement and did not deprive Brady of fundamental fairness.”
It is important to note that the Court only ruled on whether NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell had the power to suspend Brady and did not violate the player’s rights as a players union member by doing so. The NFL’s current deal with the players gives Goodell the kind of power Major League Baseball gave to its first commissioner after the 1919 Black Sox Scandal, when gamblers fixed the World Series. Goodell, like Landis, can use his discretion to punish a player for “conduct detrimental” to the game and the NFL. They did this because a disturbing number of NFL players were getting headlines for doing things that don’t comport with what the public expects of its paid heroes, like sucker-punching women, shooting people, getting in bar fights, and engaging in assorted felonies. The game also has a very successful coach, Brady’s coach, in fact, who has made it very clear that he will cheat whenever he can get away with it..
I’m not going to rehash the “Deflategate” incident: I wrote enough about it when it occurred. Nobody knows for certain if Tom Brady in fact did conspire with Patriots employees to cheat when his team was behind in a crucial play-off game, but we know this: Continue reading
Ethics Hero: Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins
Craig Watkins, a D.A. who understands his ethical priorities.
In Law School, I had the honor of being instructed in the superb Georgetown Law Center Criminal Justice Clinic, by far the single best course of any kind I participated in at any level of my formal education. Our mentor in prosecutor ethics was Seymour Glanzer, the man who, as an Assistant U.S. Attorney, cut the deal with Nixon’s White House Counsel John Dean that cracked open the Watergate scandal.
Sy had one mantra he repeated to the clinic students often, trying the beat it into our heads forever: the prosecutor must be the center of justice and ethics for the criminal system. Defense attorneys have to defend the accused whether they are guilty or not, but prosecutors are charged with achieving justice, not convictions. “If you don’t have sufficient legal and reliable evidence to convict a defendant of a crime, or have any doubts about that client’s guilt, drop the case,” he told us.
His principles do not hold sway among many, perhaps even most prosecutors, to the shame of the criminal justice system. Too many see their duty as convicting as many accused as possible, putting the law-abiding public at ease by closing cases and filling prisons. Over-zealousness, sometimes to the extremes of withholding exculpatory evidence from defense attorneys while placing questionable eye-witnesses and unreliable experts on the stand under oath, is rampant in district attorney offices across the country.
The worst of the worst may have been Dallas. Vanessa Potkin, chief counsel of The Innocence Project at Cardozo Law School, argues that “no other county in the country beats Dallas. It’s a county that beats out most states in the country.”
It’s an indication of a system that needs reform, she says, with “staggering numbers of the innocent put in prison.” That is why the recent steps taken by new Dallas District Attorney Craig Watkins are so important, and so necessary. Continue reading
Read ‘Em And Weep: The Jefferson Muzzle Awards
Thomas Jefferson Center for the Protection of Free Expression (TJC) hands out yearly “awards” to government agencies that show themselves hostile to free speech. This year, however, the Jefferson Muzzle Awards were reserved for various colleges, as the increasingly radical left institutions of higher learning, spurred by such groups as Black Lives Matters and the craven administrators who quiver in fear of them, have scarred freedom of expression over the past year in a multitude of ways.
Fifty schools got their ceremonial muzzles—the Muzzies?—in five categories:
1. Censorship of Students
2. Censorship by Students
3. Efforts to Limit Press Access
4. Threats to Academic Freedom, and
5. Censorship of Outside Speakers
And it’s not funny.
_______________________
Pointer: Instapundit
Ethics Alarms 
Not a comment on the post so much as on the underlying conditions that spawned it, Ethics Alarms reader Chris Bentley weighed in on the lack of ideological diversity on campus and the fact that many leaders both educational and political think that’s just fine. The key question: do you listen to an argument against what you may believe with an open mind, or a closed one? The ethical answer is “Open,” but the predominant mindset on college campuses believes there isn’t any question to that effect.. Wrong is wrong, and the Left is Right, so the the only question is, “Do you allow those with wrong ideas speak at all?”
It is terrifying that universities, of all places, would ever consider that issue unsettled in the United States of America.
Here is Chris Bentley’s Comment of the Day inspired by the post, Dear Harvard: Fire President Drew Faust And Dean Rakesh Khurana: