Workplace

Ethics Dunce: Guitarist Carlos Santana

/ Jack Marshall / 17 Comments

Legendary rock guitarist Carlos Santana thought it was appropriate to lecture a ballpark full of Atlantans when he was  honored with a “Beacon of Change” award at Sunday’s MLB Civil Rights Game at Turner Field. Pronouncing Georgia’s  new immigration law just signed into law by Georgia Gov. Nathan Deal “anti-American,” the Mexican-born Carlos Santana said,“I represent the human race. The people of Arizona, the people of Atlanta, Georgia, you should be ashamed of yourselves.”

Dear Carlos: If you can't say something responsible about immigration, please just shut up and play.

Later, he told reporters , “This is about fear, that people are going to steal my job. No we ain’t. You don’t clean toilets and clean sheets, stop shucking and jiving.”

Santana is entitled to express his opinion; he is even entitled to express stupid and ignorant opinions. But when he uses his fame, name recognition and a forum given to him as an honor to express a stupid, ignorant and irresponsible opinion, that is intolerable. Continue reading →

The Freeland Community School District Law Suit: Just or Joke?

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

It’s time for another Ethics Quiz!

Freeland (Mich.) High School Marcie L. Rousseau has already been sentenced to prison for committing sex crimes with one of her students, but the matter is hardly over. The student’s lawyer says he is seeking at least $1 million in damages in a lawsuit  naming Rousseau, the Freeland Community School District, Freeland Superintendent Matthew A. Cairy, Freeland High School Principal Jonathan Good and former high school Assistant Principal J. Barry Weldon Jr. as defendants. The suit alleges negligence, and that the three administrators “neither completed a proper investigation nor reported the findings as they had a legal and ethical obligation to do,” despite having sufficient information to alert them that Rousseau was having sex with her student, who was 16 at the time.

This is pretty standard stuff. What is causing some skepticism and hilarity around news rooms, coffee machines and the Internet, however is this: the lawsuit  claims that the young man has suffered and continues to suffer “physical, psychological and emotional injury” because of the illicit relationship with Rousseau, which the law suit claims “was non-consensual”  and which, according to police reports, included at least 100 instances of sexual intercourse and at least 75 other sex acts between May 2009 and February of 2010.

Your question:

Is the law suit’s contention that the young man participated in various forms of sex with his teacher against his will inherently absurd and dishonest when it includes 175 sex acts in a nine month period? Continue reading →

Now THAT’s Hypocrisy: The Prosecutor and the Teenager

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

As part of Ethics Alarms’ continuing effort to clear up the rampant confusion among the American public and media regarding what constitutes hypocrisy, I offer this illustrative tale.

Former Rock Island County, Illinois State’s Attorney Jeff Terronez has already pleaded guilty to providing alcohol to a minor.  As part of his plea deal, which allowed him to avoid more serious charges, he resigned his position as State’s Attorney, forfeited his pension and agreed to never seek public office again. Now it appears that the circumstances of his misconduct may result in a mistrial in the case in which  Terronez first encountered his 15-year-old victim.

You see, the young woman to whom Terronez provided alcohol was the victim and complaining witness in a previous case Terronez prosecuted, in which high school teacher Jason Van Houtte was accused of inappropriate contact with a 15 years old female student. Terronez saw to it that Van Houtte was convicted and sentenced to ten years in prison. Meanwhile, he met with Van Houtte’s comely prey and plied her with liquor socially…at least.

That’s right: the prosecutor began an “inappropriate relationship” with the under-aged complaining witness in a case he was simultaneously prosecuting involving a teacher’s “inappropriate relationship” with the same girl!

Now that’s hypocrisy.

No, It Still Doesn’t Justify Torture

/ Jack Marshall / 21 Comments

No.

The news of how Osama bin Laden was finally tracked down and killed has caused a predictable outbreak of consequentialism. It appears that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed provided some of the key intelligence that led to the successful operation in Pakistan while he was undergoing “enhanced interrogation” in CIA prisons in Rumania and Poland. “See?” Dick Cheney’s fans are saying today. “Rendition and torture work. We wouldn’t have killed Bin Laden without them. So what do you think of those tactics now?” The opponents of torture who foolishly argued against it based on pragmatic considerations—“Torture doesn’t work!”—rather than ethical ones–-“It is absolutely wrong!“—set themselves up for this.  Now what should they say? Continue reading →

The Incredible Self-Disproving Rationalization!

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

A Chicago scene website is highlighting businesses serving citizens of the Windy City that market lies.  It focuses on three of the breed. The first, The Alibi Network, was one of my Unethical Websites of the Month years ago. For a fee, it will concoct and document elaborate support for excuses, fake illnesses, adulterous getaways masquerading as business trips. It’s the kind of enterprise George Costanza might have started; if you have a strong stomach, you can read about it here.  The second is “Rent-a-Date,” which is less objectionable than it is sad, an escort service with no sex, for guys who can’t get a date and want to impress employers, old classmates and other shallow people by hiring one and pretending that the relationship is real. You know, George would have used this one, too.

The third of these slimy businesses, however, is truly awful, an outfit called “The Reference Store”
The business creates phony former employers, complete with websites and local phone numbers, for job seekers worldwide. (You know, George could have used this service to give credibility to his favorite fake reference, “Vandelay Industries”! It’s a George Costanza Tri-fecta!) Continue reading →

Flashback: “Ethics Test at McDonald’s”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Background: The McDonald’s beating and video story reminded me of another ethics essay arising out of a McDonald’s incident, one that I was personally involved in. This post first appeared on The Ethics Scoreboard in 2006, and reading it again, I realized it was one of the first times that I used the ethics alarms imagery that became the basis for this blog. The incident that inspired the essay still troubles me. I wish I could blame McDonald’s for the callousness that my 2006 experience and last week’s incident in Maryland exposed, but unfortunately, our problem relates to the Golden Rule, not the Golden Arches. Here is “Ethics Test at McDonald’s”:

Life gives ethics tests like pop quizzes. You often get no warning, and if you’re thinking about something else, you might not even realize the test is going on. Continue reading →

The MacDonald’s Beating Video, Another Dead Canary in The Ethics Mine

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Vernon Hacket: videographer, violence afficianado, shameless bystander

Last week, In the early hours of  April 18,two teenaged patrons at a Rosedale, Maryland MacDonald’s brutally beat Chrissy Lee Polis, 22, into a seizure. The attack was captured on a video recorded by Vernon Hackett, one of the MacDonald’s workers, on a cellphone camera. Other employees can be heard laughing on the video, and Hackett apparently is heard warning the attackers that the police are coming. He has been fired by the restaurant’s proprietor.  (More on this here.)

His firing was well-deserved, but it doesn’t begin to address the disturbing implications of the incident. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Sen. John Ensign

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

“While I stand behind my firm belief that I have not violated any law, rule, or standard of conduct of the Senate, and I have fought to prove this publicly, I will not continue to subject my family, my constituents, or the Senate to any further rounds of investigation, depositions, drawn out proceedings, or especially public hearings.”

Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.), announcing his resignation from the U.S. Senate about two years late. Ensign’s continuing service in the upper chamber has been a continuing embarrassment thanks to a 2009 sex scandal and sordid cover-up attempt. Interestingly, Ensign maintains that such conduct doesn’t violate any “standard of conduct” for him and his colleagues.

Sadly, perhaps he’s right.

“I didn’t violate any laws or rules” has been Ensign’s mantra since it came to light that he: Continue reading →

Are Conviction Bonuses For Prosecutors Ethical?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

Next, how about a bonus for confessions?

Sometimes a story starts the ethics alarms ringing so loudly that it is hard to think about anything else. It is rare, however, to have this occur when it is not entirely clear what is so unethical. An unusual bonus arrangement in Colorado is in this category.

Carol Chambers, the District Attorney for Colorado’s Eighteenth Judicial District, offers financial incentives for felony prosecutors who meet her office’s goals for convictions.  Plea bargains and mistrials don’t count in the incentive program; they have to be trial convictions.  The bonuses average $1,100, and Chambers says she gives them out to encourage prosecutors to bring her district’s rates in line with other jurisdictions in the state. No other Colorado DA gives out bonuses, or bases evaluations on conviction rates. Continue reading →

The Professions Most Likely to Cheat on Their Taxes?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Gee, where do "Treasury Secretaries" fall on the list?

A study of I.R.S. data by a University of Chicago graduate student, now Doctor, Oscar Vela,  produced the following list of the professions most likely to file fraudulent tax returns, at least according to his analysis. Make of it what you will. The Time Magazine website blog post about the list is worth reading, first for the blogger’s highly questionable theories explaining, for example, why lawyers aren’t on it, but mostly to see conclusive proof that Time is hiring English-as-a-second-language night students, relatives of Ko-Ko the talking gorilla, or stroke victims to write their blogs. Sample sentence: “His conclusion was that as much as we would like to think so we pay taxes out of  the goodness of our hearts, or even because we are fearful of fines or worse.” Henry Luce just did a back-flip in his grave.

Dr. Vela’s theory is that the professions that are required to maintain a perception of integrity are less likely to cheat. Let us say that I am dubious. Why then are scientists so high on the list?

Here it is: Continue reading →