Workplace

Unethical Tweet Of The Month: Hillary Clinton

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

hedge funds

Among her almost infinite flaws, Hillary Clinton is stunningly lacking in self awareness, and her statements often—astoundingly often—point to her own misconduct and ethical bankruptcy without her comprehending the self-indictment. She has tweeted, more than once, this sentiment, for example:

“To every survivor of sexual assault…You have the right to be heard. You have the right to be believed. We’re with you.”

…though Hillary was emphatically not “with” the women who credibly accused her husband of sexual assault, and still do. She will make statements to one group that are the exact opposite of what she recently said to another group, without batting an eye. Hillary actually committed the meta-lie of saying she never has lied, which is manifestly unbelievable. Then there was this Titanic-style gaffe…

“There should be no bank too big to fail and no individual too big to jail.”

…coming from someone who is, many legal experts believe, not already under indictment purely because she is “too big to jail.” (and then there is hubby Bill, who engaged in flat-out illegal election conduct in Massachusetts that you or I would have been arrested for, and didn’t even get a rap on the wrists.) Neither Clinton has any integrity at all, or shame either. It’s really quite stunning.

Last week, Hillary tweeted this howler:

Hillary Tweet 1

This is an example of a politician intentionally playing to class divisions, ignorance and bias, and worse, encouraging them. It is exactly like saying that it is “unacceptable” that Jimmy Fallon, who only hosts a silly late night show, makes more money than any cancer surgeon, special needs teacher or EMT alive. In some ways it is worse, because most people understand what those jobs are, and may  sort of comprehend the economic principles at work: if Jimmy Fallon drops dead, there is no replacement who will bring to the job exactly what Jimmy Fallon did. He is a unique commodity, and EMT’s are not. The statement is just an emotional attack on the fact that people value laughing over things that are objectively more practical, and entertainment salaries reflect that. Continue reading →

Unethical Quote Of The Month: Above the Law’s Joe Patrice

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

[C]onsensual relationships with adults don’t seem like a big deal. Sure, the conflict of interest of sleeping with someone in your class is deserving of discipline, but, really, in a state where you can marry your sister, is it a fireable offense to hookup with a twenty-something attorney-to-be? Obviously, if there were more serious allegations that would be another matter, but so far we’ve only learned of this more benign brand of misconduct.

—-Above the Law writer Joe Patrice, commenting, incompetently, on the firing of Virginia University College of Law Professor Arthur Rizer, for having sexual relations with multiple students.

Professor Rizer, the Sam Malone of West Virginia University College of Law...

Professor Rizer, the Sam Malone of West Virginia University College of Law…

This commentary, from a regular writer for a website that covers law schools, is so ethically obtuse and legally ignorant that he should be fired. “Not a big deal”? Sexual harassment at law firms is a very big deal as well as a very big problem, and a law professor who flagrantly violates an anti-harassment policy like the prohibition against professors treating the student body as their own personal dating bar is teaching that seeking sex with subordinates is culturally acceptable in the legal profession. It isn’t. It never has been.

The professor’s conflict of interest is the least of his self-created problems. First, there is no valid consent in such cases. The professor has real and perceived control over students’ academic success and legal career viability. This is classic inequality of power that gives a professor implied leverage over a student’s “consent” to sexual relations. Moreover, the knowledge that a professor is having sex with students constitutes third-party sexual harassment. Do other students assume that they are expected to have sex with the professor if he requests it? Is the professor looking at female students as mere sex objects? Are students that provide sexual access more likely to get high grades? What happens to students who say “no”? This creates a hostile environment for study and education. Continue reading →

Ethics Lessons And Ethics Dunces: The Two Young Men Who Knocked On My Door

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

missionaries-men-mormon2I was exhausted yesterday after five hours teaching lawyers and accountants about ethics when there was a knock at my door. I could see through the window that the visitors were two young men wearing nametags, holding clipboards, forms and brochures, and I was in no mood for a sales pitch or to being asked to help some Mormons travel to Tangiers. I opened the door prepared to give them the bum’s rush.

They were good, though. Their pitch involved a free estimate and a discount for replacing our home’s casement windows. It was a local business using recent college grads, they explained. I explained in return, curtly, that I wasn’t interested, but they persisted, being personable and low key all the while. I decided that I admired their persistence and interpersonal skills—it helped that my dog liked them–and ultimately I agreed to let them give me an estimate on roof repairs, as our roof had sprung some small leaks and we might even need a new one.

They called their office as I listened and scheduled a free assessment and estimate for today at 10 AM. I gave them my phone numbers. I took their cards. Though I was exhausted and had planned on giving them less than five minutes of my time, I ended up talking to the two for twenty minutes. I felt good about it too: they were just starting out in the workplace jungle, and had done an excellent job. They were personable, professional, and determined, spoke well and had a pleasant demeanor. One was black, the other Hispanic. I thought they had earned some positive reinforcement.

Well, it’s 11: 22 AM the next day, and they haven’t shown up, and haven’t called. When they do, I’m going to tell them that they blew it: I’m not trusting a company that can’t keep its first appointment. I don’t know why they missed their promised time, and I don’t care. The key factor is that they missed it. Continue reading →

Adam LaRoche Drama Epilogue: A Reflection On Life, Kids, Baseball And Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

drake-adam-laroche-

Well, I don’t recall anyone leaving baseball like this before.

When last we visited Adam LaRoche a couple of days ago, he was retiring from baseball (and abandoning his 13 million dollar 2016 contract  to play for the Chicago White Sox) because team executive Kenny Williams asked that he not have his 14-year-old son Drake living and traveling with the team, as well as being being perpetually in the clubhouse, as he was all last year. Today LaRoche released a remarkable statement explaining his decision.

It is well worth reading. I’ll have some comments at the end about the bolded sections, marked by me with letters. Now, here’s Adam:
Continue reading →

More Casting Ethics: The Stunt Performer Dilemma

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments
Penelope Cruz and her stunt double. Works for me!

Penelope Cruz and her stunt double. Works for me!

To recap: This month, we have already debated a wide range of casting ethics controversies…

The position of Ethics Alarms is identical in all three controversies. The only consideration in casting a role should be the director’s artistic assessment of who will do the best job meeting the artistic and commercial demands of that role, under the constraints of the project, which can include budget, locale and workplace conditions. Ethnicity, race and off-screen appearance should be secondary, and better still, irrelevant. Efforts to substitute political, diversity or affirmative action goals  for artistic ones undermine the integrity of the work, and are unfair to the audience as well as the work itself. Make-up is a tool of the performing arts, and is unrelated to blackface, which was a convention designed to denigrate African Americans. Confounding make-up used to allow a performer to play a character of a different ethnicity, race or skin shade with minstrelsy and blackface is intellectually dishonest or ignorant.

Now comes a new issue in this spectrum: the use of white, male stunt performers to substitute for black or female stars.

This article, in The Telegraph,  begins with the assumption that the practice is inherently unethical:

“For decades, white stunt performers would paint their faces and bodies black to double for black stars. Similarly, it was not uncommon for stuntmen to put on heels and wigs to double for women. This was not happening in a vacuum: all the while, black and female stunt performers were pressing for recognition and the right to work in the jobs for which they were best suited….There is an understanding within the studios that such incidents don’t look good and need to be kept hush-hush.”

If, as the article and the Hollywood activists it interviews assert, the practice of “blacking up” white stunt performers is designed to exclude qualified black stunt performers from working, then of course it is unethical. Given the close-knit stunt performer community, described as a white, male, “old boys network” in the essay, this is certainly possible, even likely. Nevertheless, the assertion that there is anything intrinsically unethical, unfair or wrong with using a disguised white stunt performer to substitute for a black star, a male stunt performer to substitute for a female star, or any other variation imaginable is, as with the Hispanic and Afghan complaints, based on non-existent ethical principles. Continue reading →

Loyalty Drama: The Strange, Sudden, Ethical, Unethical Retirement Of White Sox First Baseman Adam LaRoche

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

chi-adam-laroche

Yesterday,  baseball’s Spring Training was shaken when Chicago White Sox first baseman Adam LaRoche unexpectedly announced that he was retiring, effectively giving up his guaranteed 13 million dollar salary. LaRoche had suffered a down year in 2015, but he was healthy, and assured of a place in the ChiSox line-up. The reason for the precipitous decision was mysteriously and ominously reported as caused by a “personal matter.”  Was there dire illness in the family? What would make a healthy athlete walk away from his team mates and so much money?

Today, the club revealed the surprisng answer. Last year, LaRoche’s son, Drake, 14, spent most of the season with his father and the team and even had his own locker in the home clubhouse at U.S. Cellular Field. Drake was with also with the team in this year’s spring training. White Sox executive vice president Ken Williams told LaRoche that he would have to limit the amount of time his son spent in the clubhouse this season, and in response, LaRoche announced he was quitting.

Again, the threshold question to so much ethical analysis is crucial: What’s going on here?
Continue reading →

Yet More Casting Ethics: Let’s Slap This Bad Idea Down For Good, Shall We?

/ Jack Marshall / 78 Comments
What? They cast a Hispanic actor as Khan instead of a genetically engineered Mongolian actor?

What? “Star Trek” cast a Hispanic actor as Khan instead of a genetically engineered Mongolian actor?

One way really terrible ideas take hold and do damage to the culture is for rational people to ignore them while zealots, ideologues and wackos keep repeating them over and over until they no longer sound as wrong as they are. Allowing illegal immigration to continue undiscouraged was one of those ideas, manifestly ridiculous and destructive. Now look where we are.

Ethic Alarms has had several posts on another really bad idea lately that is being pushed on the culture by political correctness and affirmative action activists: the loopy assertion that ethnic roles in movies and TV should only be cast with actors whose ethnic origins match those of the characters, and that if a director casts someone else, racism and bigotry are at play. Not too long ago, such an assertion would be regarded as too silly to discuss, but we have been through an intense period—the period known as “The Obama Era”— where tribal spoils, grievance-mongering and group identification have been accorded higher priority than, for example, talent, competence, experience or proven success. Through the fog of such distortions, the idea of rigid ethnic casting doesn’t seem so crazy, though it is crazy indeed.

I regard it my duty as someone who has both professional expertise in ethics and casting to slap down this rotten and indefensible  idea every time it raises its repulsive head. I recommend that you do the same.

Yesterday, Ana Valdez, the ex­ec­u­tive di­rec­tor of the Latino Donor Col­lab­o­ra­tive, wrote to the Washington Post to endorse film critic Ann Hornaday’s column complaining about white actors playing Middle Eastern roles (I managed to hold down my bile with that one), and  added…

She failed to ac­knowl­edge per­haps the big­gest white­wash­ing: the con­tin­ual cast­ing of white ac­tors to play Lati­nos. This has been go­ing on for decades, from Eli Wal­lach play­ing Calvera in “The Mag­nif­i­cent Seven” to Mark Ruf­falo play­ing Michael Rezen­des, a Bos­ton Globe re­porter, in “Spot­light.” Jen­nifer Con­nelly won an Os­car for her por­trayal of Ali­cia Lardé Nash in “A Beau­ti­ful Mind,” and Ben Af­fleck played Tony Men­dez in the Os­car-win­ning “Argo.” All of these char­ac­ters are Latino. Ethan Hawke, Meryl Streep, Cather­ine Zeta-Jones, Jeremy Irons and Glenn Close all have played Lati­nos in mo­tion pic­tures…. It does look like Hol­ly­wood is try­ing not to hire Lati­nos.

No, it doesn’t look like that at all. Continue reading →

The Manager, The Hot Reporter, Conflicts and Professionalism

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

moranfarrell

It’s nice of my favorite baseball team to supply me with ethics stories, don’t you think? This one has management ethics, relationship ethics, journalism ethics, sexual harassment and professionalism.

The Boston Globe reported last week that Boston Red Sox manager John  Farrell and Comcast SportsNet New England reporter Jessica Moran, who covered the team,  were romantically involved. Moran promptly resigned. This quickly degenerated into the usual ethically muddled discussion by members of the public who watch George Stephanopoulos interview Hillary Clinton and see nothing amiss, and have been so badly taught the ethics basics that they couldn’t identify a conflict of interest if they tripped on one, and members of the news media, who, if anything, are worse.  Among the questions being floated, and their somehow elusive answers…

These are consenting adults. Why aren’t they free to have a relationship?

Because they are professionals, with special duties to their constituencies and stakeholders, and the relationship between a reporter and her subject undermines independence, loyalty, trust and competence.

Why is it always the woman the one who has to lose her job?

It isn’t. The journalist has to lose her job, because the journalist breached the basic ethics of the profession. The baseball manager’s conduct is wrong,  but comparatively tangential to his duties at worst. It is still seriously unethical, however, and undermines team culture and the status of other women who have duties involving the team.  Farrell, by dating Moran, was sending a message to his players and other team personnel that these women are legitimate targets for sexual courtship rather than workplace colleagues.  The relationship may have constituted third party sexual harassment, making other women feel as if team leadership had sent the message that they weren’t to be taken seriously as professionals.

Why is everyone making a big deal about this? She’s a beautiful young woman, covering a team of men. Isn’t this to be expected? Continue reading →

Hypnotist Ethics Amuck: I’ll Take the Chicken, Thanks

/ Jack Marshall / 31 Comments

Hypnotist

[I’m on the road, and have a commentary on last night’s debate to file, but it’s hard doing it right in cabs and airports. This stupid tale, however, doesn’t take as much thought.]

Like the last post, this one begins in Minnesota. Something strange is going on up there. I didn’t write about this lawsuit  a year or so ago when it first came to my attention, but it is apparently still live. It is unbelievable, but also true.

PRIDE Institute Inc. of Eden Prairie is a non-profit agency that works with lesbian, gay and transgender clients, helping them deal with “mental health, substance abuse and sexual health” issues. As a special treat for its staff, the HR department hired a hypnotist as entertainment at a staff holiday party. The hypnotist, Freddie Justice, started his act  by telling the employees that he recognized it was a work event and that they didn’t have to worry about, for example, being hypnotized to “cluck like a chicken.”  His audience put at ease, Freddie entertained the group for nearly an hour and a half, hypnotizing volunteers and persuading them to do various silly things for the amusement of their colleagues.

Then the hypnotist asked the agency’s director of human resourcesor permission to conduct a final special demonstration.. With her permission, Justice selected three female volunteers, hypnotized them and told them they were going to experience an intense orgasm, like Meg Ryan’s fake version in “When Harry Met Sally.” All three did, spectacularly so, in front of their co-workers and the CEO of the agency. Continue reading →

Yup, Joe Morici Is A Hero, And CVS Is Right To Fire Him

/ Jack Marshall / 41 Comments

batman

Joe Morici says his military instincts kicked in when he saw two thieves jump over the counter at the Beltsville, Maryland CVS where he worked and grab narcotics. Despite CVS’s strong (and typical) policy against employees playing Batman, Morici chased them to the front door, fended off a screwdriver attack, and retrieved most of what was stolen, though the criminals fled.

“He tried to hit me again with the screwdriver. I disarmed him of the screwdriver, while having the other guy pinned against the one door,” Morici said.

CVS fired him. Of course they did. The company can’t have clerks risking their own lives and those of customers by reckless interference with robberies.  Morici happened to have some training, but he wasn’t hired as a security guard, and chasing down bad guys isn’t in his job description. CVS had to fire him. It couldn’t give him a reward, either, because then it would have clerks all over the country trying to be heroes.

Thus Joe behaved, irresponsibly and CVS behaved responsibily, but allover the news media, this story is being played up as a great injustice, showing how cruel, heartless and ungrateful corporations are. That’s ignorant, and in the case of the news media, willfully so: their employers know CVS was right.

“Ah,” those Trump supporters will say. “This is why we need someone to make America great again! We don’t appreciate heroes any more!” It’s a visceral position, and like many visceral positions, simple-minded. This is, however, the way our culture encourages demagogues.

To be fair, Bernie Sanders supporters probably think CVS is wrong too.