Workplace

Ethics Dunce: The Single Mother Tip-Stiffer

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

According to a poster on Reddit, a woman allegedly left the message above on her receipt after eating a pricey meal at a restaurant. “Single mom, sorry,” she wrote, in the space left for a tip. “Thank you—it was great!” The furious waiter’s colleague scanned and posted  the receipt, with appropriate invective that has been matched and exceeded by others on the site.

As usual, there are denials that the story is genuine, and claims that some single mother-hating trouble-maker created this miserable ethics smoking gun. “I think this bill is a fraud because I’ve met very few single mothers who expected to get special treatment for their status. They’re just hoping no one holds their situation against them,” wrote one skeptic. This is the “No True Scotsman” fallacy in Technicolor. The fact, if it is a fact, that few single mothers expect special treatment doesn’t prove that this one didn’t or doesn’t. Continue reading →

“The Girl” and the Hitchcockian Horrors of Sexual Harassment

/ Jack Marshall / 16 Comments

“Mr. Hitchcock requests your company in his hotel room over dinner.”.

HBO’s original film “The Girl” has premiered, and has garnered mixed reviews from critics, in part because they recoil from the film’s disturbing portrait of iconic director Alfred Hitchcock, played here by the great Toby Jones, who is almost as uncanny evoking Hitch as he was reincarnating Truman Capote in “Infamous.”  It tells the well-documented story of how Hitchcock chose newcomer Tippi Hedren as his latest blonde obsession (placing her in line behind Grace Kelly, Kim Novak, Ingrid Bergman, Janet Leigh and others) and then relentlessly pursued a sexual relationship with the actress during the filming of “The Birds” and “Marnie.” Hedren, not surprisingly, found him about as alluring a potential sex partner as Hermione would regard Dobby the house elf. Less so, probably. Unlike so many actresses subjected to that kind of extortion as their final obstacle to stardom, however, Hedren refused to submit.

The movie is the most powerful and harrowing, portrayal of sexual harassment I have ever seen, and whatever its fate as a dramatic work, “The Girl” has a future, if anyone’s paying attention, in workplace training sessions. Continue reading →

Debate Alarm: The Fake Statistic Strikes Again

/ Jack Marshall / 30 Comments

Outrageous.

That damn statistic again. Well, there goes THAT head!

Candy Crowley, disgracefully, chose another question at a Presidential debate—the last one was 12 years ago—based on the completely false and misleading statistic, made up by activists, that women earn “72%” of what men do in the workplace, suggesting that there is widespread gender discrimination in wages. It’s not true; it hasn’t been true for decades. It’s a myth, and one that misleads the public by being given this kind of publicity and credibility. ( The question Crowley allowed even lowered the fake percentage an extra, and fake, 5% from the “77%” Bernard Shaw negligently used in a question to Joe Lieberman. in 2000.) I’m glad Romney didn’t dignify it with a direct answer—he was placed in the position of either telling the questioner, “That stat is imaginary,” or furthur imbedding it by treating it as reality.

I’m generally a fan of Candy’s, but this was irresponsible, and I’m disappointed in her. Public policy debate shouldn’t be framed by simple-minded, misleading factoids, and it is the duty of journalists to insist on facts.

Unethical Website of the Month: Third Tier Reality

/ Jack Marshall / 119 Comments

Mr. Furious, of the Mystery Men

Third Tier Reality is one of many blogs recently founded by disappointed law graduates who somehow labored under the misconception that a law school degree guaranteed that they would get 6 figure offers from big law firms and then live the life of Denny Crane until they could retire to a Caribbean island at the age of 55. A depressing number of these deluded souls managed to get themselves in hock up to their eyeballs, and when the recession hit and law firms cut back, felt first, like fools, second, angry and desperate, and third, that it was everyone else’s fault. Thus was born the “law school scam” conspiracy theory. Third Tier Reality, like the others of its breed, maintains that law schools intentionally misled scores of trusting students to pay their obscenely high tuitions,  knowing that they were pumping out more lawyers than the legal market would bear.

To the extent that the site tries to educate would-be law students that there is no guaranteed gravy-train at the end of three years of law school, the website is, at worst, harmless. “My goal is to inform potential law school students and applicants of the ugly realities of attending law school,” he writes. His message: Do not seek a law degree unless…

“(1) YOU GET INTO A TOP 8 LAW SCHOOL; (2) YOU GET A FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIP TO ATTEND; (3) YOU HAVE EMPLOYMENT AS AN ATTORNEY SECURED THROUGH A RELATIVE OR CLOSE FRIEND; OR (4) YOU ARE FULLY AWARE BEFOREHAND THAT YOUR HUGE INVESTMENT IN TIME, ENERGY, AND MONEY DOES NOT, IN ANY WAY, GUARANTEE A JOB AS AN ATTORNEY OR IN THE LEGAL INDUSTRY.”

That’s all good advice, though it presumes that more people get law degrees under the delusion alluded to in (4) than I believe is true. Nobody ever told me that a law degree guaranteed a high-paying job as an attorney, and if we understood that decades ago when law was booming, I don’t see where the confusion set in. I worked in the administration of Georgetown Law Center, and that school never made such a representation. In addition, Third Tier Reality goes further, as its brethren blogs do, to insist that a law degree from less than a “First Tier” school is actually an impediment in the job market. I hate to kick this particular hornets nest again, but this is a self-serving rationalization for failure. Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Conundrum of the Anti-Gay Marriage Diversity Officer

/ Jack Marshall / 121 Comments

…But be sure to think about it who will see it before you do!

Ethics, law, fairness and common sense are locked in a complex battle in this story, which comes out of Gallaudet University, the famous Washington D.C. school for the deaf.

Dr. Angela McCaskill, Gallaudet’s chief diversity officer, has been put on administrative leave and may face dismissal because the school learned that she had signed a petition opposing Maryland’s same-sex marriage law.  McCaskill apparently signed the petition at her church after her preacher spoke against gay marriage. A measure is on the Maryland ballot that could overturn the recently-passed state law approving same-sex marriage.

Does she have an absolute right to sign a petition in favor or opposing any political or social policy? Yes. Is this a petition something a university official in charge of promoting diversity is wise to sign? No. Is a university whose diversity officer chooses to sign such a petition behaving fairly and responsibly to decide that it should have someone else in that position?

Hmmmm.

And that’s your weekend Ethics Alarms Quiz:

Is it fair and responsible for a university to fire its diversity chief because she signed a petition opposing gay marriage? Continue reading →

One For The “Innocent Until Proven Guilty” Crowd

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Stop scaring my dog!

A commenter recently pulled out the hoary and almost always misused “innocent until proven guilty” line, which reliably makes me scream, frightening the dog and the neighbors. Thus I was happy to see this September 28 ruling by the Louisiana Supreme Court, which found that Philip Pilie, a 2007 University of Georgia School of Law  who passed the bar examination in 2009, lacked the character and fitness to be admitted to practice in the state, despite the fact that he was not convicted of the crime that resulted in his disqualification.

Why? Because he did it, that’s why. Pilie contacted what he thought was a 15-year-old girl online and arranged to have sex. She was, unfortunately for Pilie, really a big, hairy, middle-aged man looking for predators who like to have sex with under-age girls. Pilie  was arrested at the planned rendezvous and charged with two  felonies,  computer-aided solicitation of a minor and attempted indecent behavior with a minor.

Pilie negotiated a deal with the district attorney to avoid prosecution. He completed a pre-trial diversion program including counseling, and all charges  were dropped. Pilie took and passed the bar exam, but was informed  in March 2009 that he lacked the character and fitness for admission to practice, because he trolled on computers for young girls to have sex with, by his own admission. His appeal to Louisiana’s highest court failed, twice.

In the latest decision, the court said that Pilie’s lack of a criminal conviction made no difference in its reasoning. “Had petitioner been a practicing attorney at the time of his misconduct, it is very likely he would have been permanently disbarred,” it wrote. “Given this fact, we can conceive of no circumstance under which we would ever admit petitioner to the practice of law.” Pilie was permanently barred from ever again seeking admission, without ever being “convicted in a court of law.” Continue reading →

As Dean Wormer* Would Say To Bryan Craig: “Sex-Obsessed, Promiscuous and Stupid Is No Way To Be A High School Guidance Counselor, Son…”

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

The Rich Central High principal suspected something was amiss with the girls’ basketball coach when the team members began to act strangely…

A provocative variation on the “naked teacher” scenario has surfaced in Chicago suburb Olympia Fields. Bryan Craig was a guidance counselor and girls’ basketball coach at Rich Central High School until his self-published book “It’s Her Fault” came to the attention of parents and school administrators. Then he was placed on administrative leave, and finally, fired.  The book is for mature audiences only, and based on reports (I haven’t read it and have no intention of doing so) includes pick-up advice, analysis of female body types (including a discussion of the varying colors and temperature levels of the vaginas of various races, apparently the book’s highlight) and Craig’s insight into how women think, a perspective that appears to be muddled at best and sexist at worst. Here is a passage from the book (in an Amazon reader’s review—a favorable one, and from a teenage stripper):

“In some cases, strippers and dancers show the overall dominance a woman can have over a man. Not to say that stripping is what has to be done to truly establish dominance, but these women’s mind-set is in the right place in order to meet the true potential of the point of this book.” Continue reading →

The NFL’s Replacement Ref Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

There are some things even football fans won’t stand for. I think.

It was Week #3 of the NFL season, and there is a growing consensus that the replacement referees, the consequence of the NFL’s labor dispute with its regular refs, are making, if not a mockery of the game, a mess of it. The ethics issue: at what point is the quality of the NFL’s product so compromised by sub-professional officiating that the league is cheating the public by presenting it at all?

Airlines don’t use replacement pilots when pilots go on strike; they wouldn’t dare. Chicago didn’t hire street mimes to stand in for the striking teachers. In the NFL’s case, it is making the calculation that football fans will put up with lousy officiating if the alternative is no games at all on Sunday. Meanwhile, the NFL still charges the same outrageous prices for its tickets and still collects full value in merchandising and TV revenue. Translation: It is getting full price for a less than complete product. Is that ethical? Continue reading →

Ethics Quote of the Day: Calvin Coolidge

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

“There is no right to strike against the public safety by anybody, anywhere, any time.”

—-Calvin Coolidge, then Governor of Massachusetts, soon to be Vice-President and later President upon the death of Warren G. Harding, in a September 14, 1919 telegram to labor leader Samuel Gompers on the occasion of the Boston police department strike.

Cal made his words count.

The Boston police were fired for extorting the city, and Coolidge’s words were in the air when President Ronald Reagan responded to an illegal strike by air traffic controllers by firing the strikers and banning the union.

Now Chicago’s teachers are striking, not against the city management that is denying their demands, but against the children of the city and their families.

What would silent Cal say? I think I can guess. Harming children and families for higher wages is as much extortion as leaving a city unprotected against crime, and cannot be defended ethically. The defense will be, inevitably, “Well, management is unfair, and their offer is unjust. What are we supposed to do?”

The answer is: something else.

__________________________________

Facts: Chicago Tribune

Source: Wikipedia

Graphic: Washington, Jefferson and Madison Institute

Ethics Alarms attempts to give proper attribution and credit to all sources of facts, analysis and other assistance that go into its blog posts. If you are aware of one I missed, or believe your own work was used in any way without proper attribution, please contact me, Jack Marshall, at  jamproethics@verizon.net.

The Forgotten Meaning of Labor Day

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Do you know who this is? You should! It’s Labor Day, dammit!

Labor Day commemorates one of the great ethical victories of American society, and not one in a hundred Americans know it. Labor Day marks the end of summer, and a time for retail store sales, and the last chance to get away to Disney World, but few of us think about the real meaning of the word “labor” in the name, and how it is meant to honor brave, dedicated men and women who fought, sometimes literally, the forces of greed, political influence, wealth and privilege in this country to ensure a measure of safety, consideration, fairness and justice for the hardest working among us.

Today labor unions are controversial, and with good reason. Many of them have been run as criminal enterprises, with deep connections to organized crime; many operate in a blatantly coercive and undemocratic fashion. Union demands and strong-arm tactics, while providing security and good wages to members, have crippled some American industries, and limited jobs as well. Today the unions  get publicity when one of them tries to protect a member who should be punished, as when the baseball players’ union fights suspensions for player insubordination or even drug use, or when school districts are afraid to fire incompetent teachers because of union power, or when the members of public unions protest cutbacks in benefits that their private sector counterparts would be grateful for. It is true that today’s unions often embody longshoreman philosopher Eric Hoffer’s observation that  “Every great cause begins as a movement, degenerates into a business and ends up as a racket.” *

That not what Labor Day honors, however. It is celebrating the original labor movement that began at the end of the 19th century, and that eventually rescued the United States from an industrial and manufacturing system that was cruel, exploitive, deadly and feudal. Why the elementary schools teach nothing about this inspiring and important movement, I do not know. I suspect that the story of the American labor movement was deemed politically dangerous to teach during the various Red Scares, and fell out of the curriculum, never to return. Whatever the reason, it is disgraceful, for the achievements of the labor movement are every bit as important and inspiring as those of the civil rights movement and the achievements of our armed forces in the protection of liberty abroad. Continue reading →