Workplace

The Washington Redskins and the Nepotism Trap

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

Bobby Kennedy was lucky. Kyle Shanahan isn't.

No leadership error embodies the appearance of impropriety more completely than nepotism, and, for good measure, it also creates an inherent conflict of interest and undermines fairness and integrity. Yet people continue to argue that it is not inherently unethical, and leaders and managers in all fields continue to walk into the nepotism trap. The fact that it doesn’t always snap shut is not an argument in its favor, for this is just moral luck; letting your kid play with matches in bed won’t necessarily burn the house down or kill him, but it’s still irresponsible.

Washington Redskins fans now have a painful lesson in nepotism’s drawbacks to guide their own decisions. As has been a routine event about now in the pro football season since hapless owner Dan Snyder became responsible for the team’s personnel, the Redskins season is imploding, and the head coach is on the griddle. This season that coach is Mike Shanahan, and the problem is his offense. The Skins were shut out Sunday, 23-0, and appear to have no quarterback, no offensive line, and no clue.

The team’s offensive coordinator? Kyle Shanahan, the head coach’s son. Now what? Continue reading →

Do the right thing? Naaaa.

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

Business executives regard this as a gross and unfair exaggeration. It's time for them to prove it.

Nabors Industries Ltd. (NBR), the world’s largest oil-drilling companies, will pay outgoing CEO Gene Isenberg $100 million in cash as a result of provisions in Isenberg’s employment agreement. Isenberg is 81, and has led Nabors since 1987.

Jeff Dietert, an analyst at Simmons & Co., an energy investment bank in Houston, wrote his clients yesterday that “We believe the compensation to Mr. Isenberg is excessive,” noting that handing over $100 million payment “for what we view as essentially retiring will be offensive to some.”

May be excessive? Offensive to some?

Here’s what I would hope would be going through Mr. Isenberg’s mind about now: Continue reading →

Five Questions and Answers About The Steven J. Braun Law Firm Halloween Party Outrage

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

Imagine: tasteless Halloween costumes!

Background: New York Times Joe Nocera is stirring up public outrage because some employees of a law firm involved in questionable foreclosure practices attended the firms 2010 Halloween party dressed as homeless people. Photos taken at the Steven J. Baum law firm’s Halloween party last year were passed along to Nocera by a former firm employee.  In one that was posed on the Times site, two party-goers are dressed as  homeless people, with one holding a sign that reads, “I lost my home and I was never served.” Nocera wrote that the costumes show an “appalling lack of compassion.”

Here are ten questions and answers regarding ethics issues raised by the incident. Continue reading →

The Ethical Duty To Correct Stupidity

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

The Martin Luther King Memorial was unveiled without the commission responsible for it bothering to fix what has been almost unanimously condemned as an embarrassing mistake, a rephrased, out-of-context quote on the sculpture base (“I was a drum major for justice, peace, and righteousness”) that misrepresents Dr. King’s career and was also something he never said. This is inexcusable, but at least the boob who unilaterally made the decision spelled “righteousness” correctly. The sign above is emblematic of a different ethical problem, the widespread abdication of the shared obligation to speak up when one sees someone else making a really stupid mistake. Continue reading →

Ethics Hero: Robert Downey, Jr.

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Superhero on the outside, Ethics Hero on the inside.

Show business Ethics Heroes are about as rare as credible presidential candidates; after all, Hollywood is one of two environments where the ethical culture is even more warped and cynical than Washington, D.C. (The other: the Columbia drug cartels.) Yet a genuine Ethics Hero emerged at the 25th annual American Cinematheque Award gala, when honoree Robert Downey, Jr., now a major star and industry power player, threw his prestige and influence behind a genuine industry pariah, Mel Gibson, in an act of kindness, gratitude, and reciprocity.

After Downey accepted his award before a cheering crowd of important performers and artists, he unexpectedly devoted his moment in the spotlight to recall how Mel Gibson, when Downey’s career had been devastated by habitual substance abuse and Gibson was a megastar, constantly supported him, encouraged him and refused to give up on him, though the Hollywood community had. The “Iron Man” star explained how Gibson, in 2003, gave Downey a starring role in “The Singing Detective,”  which had been developed for Gibson himself, because nobody else would give the troubled actor another chance.  Gibson even paid the insurance premiums for Downey, because the studio would not accept the risk of hiring him, given his history of drug addiction and legal problems. All  Mel asked in return, Downey recalled, was that Downey resolve to help out the next actor who had hit bottom and had no friends in the Town Without Pity. Continue reading →

NOW Is It Obvious That NPR Has A Liberal Bias Problem?

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Recently spotted swimming through the NPR Ethics Code's loopholes

[Notice to Readers: Check the update at the end of the article.]

The problem, incidentally, is not that NPR has a liberal bias, but that it so emphatically dishonest about it. Despite the Juan Williams fiasco, when the publicly funded radio network’s only Africa-American contributor was fired for politically incorrect truth-telling, despite the cover-up, when his boss twisted the Code of Ethics to justify the action (and violated it herself in the process)—despite the James O’Keefe embarrassment, with an NPR board member being recorded while sounding like a Saturday Night Live parody of a biased media leader—-and despite a spate of  naval-gazing within the organization to find ways to show the oddly deluded public that NPR is really and truly “fair, unbiased, accurate, complete and honest”… leaving “no question about [their] independence and fairness” —I’m sorry; I had a fit of the giggles there for a second—-National Public Radio can’t help itself. In the matters of bias, integrity, double standards, conflicts of interest and fairness, its ethics alarms were either never installed or have turned to cheese.

Tell Juan Williams about this: National Public Radio’s Lisa Simeone, who  hosts NPR’s nationally syndicated “World of Opera” program as well as “SoundPrint,” a program that airs on NPR’s WAMU affiliate  in Washington, D.C., has served as a spokeswoman for the Occupy Wall Street spin-off group, “October 2011,” which is currently occupying Freedom Plaza in Washington, D.C. and making all the same contradictory, vague and impossible progressive/ leftist/anarchist demands that its parent is. Continue reading →

Introducing the Munroe Rule: “If You Teach, Don’t Denegrate Students Online; If you Denigrate People OnLine, Don’t Teach”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Viki Knox fans

I want to thank Viki Knox, the  Union Township (N.J.) high school teacher who decided to proclaim her condemnation of gays on Facebook, for making it possible for me to re-use much of an earlier post. This saves me a lot of thought and time.

That one involved Jerry Buell, a veteran high school teacher who was suspended indefinitely earlier this year by Lake County, Florida’s Mount Dora High School for posting an anti-same-sex marriage rant on his Facebook page.  In his post, prompted by New York’s decision to legalize gay marriage, Buell said that the news made him want to throw up, that gay marriage was “a cesspool,” and that homosexuality was a sin. Knox went Buell one better, going to the heart of the matter by declaring that homosexuality is a sin that “breeds like cancer” and describing it as “perverted.” She also wrote:

“Why parade your unnatural immoral behaviors before the rest of us? I/we do not have to accept anything, anyone, any behavior or any choices! I do not have to tolerate anything others wish to do.” Continue reading →

The Intern, The Lawyer and The Recycling Bin: A Cautionary Tale

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

We entrusted the job to our intern: what could go wrong?

Here is a story that should frighten all lawyers who employ non-lawyers to assist with various tasks in their practice, which is to say, every one of them. If you have a lawyer, or ever expect to hire one, maybe it should frighten you, too.

A young woman dumped documents containing private information from the clients of Ashley Bell, one of Gainesville, Georgia’s most respected attorneys, in a newspaper recycling bin at The Gainesville Times. The Times said that a majority of the documents remained in their original file folders, and no effort had been made to conceal the contents or redact sensitive information. The files included phone and Social Security numbers of former clients, information on juveniles and reports and evaluations conducted by the Department of Family and Children Services and Court Appointed Special Advocates regarding the physical and sexual abuse, which state law requires be kept confidential.  From the Times: Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Unethical Website—and Readers— of the Month: The Spearhead”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Bill Price, who operates the website I criticized in the post “Unethical Website—and Readers— of the Month: The Spearhead,” offers this response in the Comment of the Day. Among other things, he mentions some new revelations about Victoria Liss (whose story I wrote about here) , the Seattle bartender whose inept and excessive web-shaming brought infamy and abuse down on the head of the wrong man. It seems that she has wrongly accused men before. It’s not exactly a surprise. Bill post raises many issues, and I’ll have some responses at the end. Here is his Comment of the Day:

“Hi Jack, noticed the post, and have to say I’m a little disappointed.

“Your article on Amanpour was indeed quite good, and much appreciated. But I’d like to point out that The Spearhead is very lightly moderated, and therefore many of the comments are indeed very radical. Additionally, those who comment and rate the comments are the most radical of all — less than 5% of readers are regular commenters. This always happens on any politically oriented board with a large readership, so it should be no surprise. Continue reading →

And You Thought Natalie Munroe Was An Unethical Teacher…Well, Meet Jeremy Hollinger

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Jeremy Hollinger, showing his compassion for his students' struggles

Remember Natalie Munroe, the teacher who blogged about how much she detested her high school students, calling them names like “rat-boy” and “jerkoff”? What, you may ask, could be more destructive to the necessary trust between teacher and student, or parents and the teacher to whom they entrust their student’s education, short of actual abuse?

How about a teacher ridiculing his grade school special ed students?

Believe it or not, that’s what Jeremy Hollinger, a Mobile (Ala.)County Public School teacher who handles a second grade special education class at the Eichold-Mertz Elementary School did on his Facebook page. (In news reports, that’s what he “allegedly” did, or “is accused of” doing. In fact, all the evidence is public, it is clear and unambiguous, and the bottom line is, he did it.) Most spectacularly, Hollinger posted a mocking picture of himself wearing a seizure helmet and making a goofy face. Among his charming jibes at the young and challenged children in his class were such satirical comments on their behavior as “I guess crayons are on the menu” and “Why is there shit on the floor?” Continue reading →