Ethics Quiz: Section 16

/ Jack Marshall / 20 Comments

Here is a controversy that I was completely ignorant of, and I am embarrassed to admit it.

One more bi-product of the George Floyd Freakout, ‘The Great Stupid’ that has washed over the land like the Great Molasses Flood of 1919, and the Stalin-esque attempt to airbrush American history, including the toppling of statues honoring certain distinguished Americans who were not sufficiently psychic to absorb the lessons and accumulated ethics wisdom of those with the advantage of a century or more additional history and human experience, was the Naming Commission, established by the 2021 National Defense Authorization Act in the throes of all of the above malign influences. It’s official mission is to recommend removal of “all names, symbols, displays, monuments, and paraphernalia that honor or commemorate the Confederate States of America.” The Commission extended its reach to the Reconciliation Monument at Arlington National Cemetery, which is located in the special section known as Section 16. The monument, which you see above, is scheduled to come down.

Of all the many times I have visited Arlington—my father and mother are buried there, also my grandfather, and Dad loved to take me on tours of the place as he checked out his future residence, especially when he was taking part in the annual Battle of the Bulge veterans ceremonies—I never saw this section. It has a fascinating history.

Arlington was established as a burial ground for the Union military dead. Indeed, Montgomery Meigs, the Quartermaster General of the U.S. Army who was responsible for the burial of soldiers, ordered Robert E. Lee’s Arlington estate to be turned into a cemetery so Lee could never return there. Meigs had his son, an early casualty of the war, buried literally on the Confederate leader’s doorstep as a statement of contempt and defiance. No Rebel combatants were permitted on the sacred grounds.

However President William McKinley, himself a Medal of Honor recipient for his heroism at the Battle of Antietam, announced that the U.S. government would commit to honoring the Confederate dead, saying in a speech in Atlanta that “sectional feelings no longer holds back the love we feel for each other. The old flag waves over us in peace with new glories.” Congress authorized Confederate remains to be buried at Arlington National Cemetery in 1900, and in 1906, the construction of a monument was commissioned to represent the nation’s acceptance of the Confederacy back into the nation, healing of the deep wounds of civil war. 1903 saw President Theodore Roosevelt send a floral arrangement to the Section 16 to commemorate Confederate Memorial Day, and began a tradition that has been regularly observed since, with President Obama expanding the practice to laying two floral wreaths, one at the Confederate Memorial, the other at Washington, D.C.’s African American Civil War Memorial.

This week the Republican Congress has sent a letter of protest to the Defense Department, demanding that preparations to remove the monument cease, and pointing out that the purpose of the memorial is not to honor the Confederacy, but to stand for national unity, reconciliation, and peace.

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Should the Reconciliation Memorial be removed along with the remains of the Confederate soldiers buried in Section 16?

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Fire The Teacher And School Board, Pull Out All The Students, Raze The Building And Sow The Grounds With Salt…But First, GET OUT!

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Ugh. Here is another one of those “conservative stories” that so far the progressive media has ignored. I can’t find any non-conservative reports, but it appear to be real. A tenth-grade teacher of “Ethnic Studies World History” at Chief Sealth International High School (Could there be a description that screams “Woke mania!” any more shrilly?) failed a student on a class quiz called “Understanding Gender vs. Sex” because he wrote that only women can become pregnant as an answer to one question and and that only men have penises on another.

According to local radio 770 KTTH, some of the questions on the quiz focused involved personal pronoun use (“When someone uses ‘they/them’ pronouns, what does that mean about their gender identity?”) and stereotypes. (“True/false: Transgender people are gay”). Question 4 asked for a true or false response to the statement, “All men have penises.” The student chose “true” because 99.9% of the time it is true. The teacher marked it incorrect. Question 7 was another true or false question, “Only women can get pregnant.” Again, The same student marked this statement “true” as well. The teacher believes that men can get pregnant, though 99.999999999999999999999+ men throughout history and currently could not and can not.

The child’s mother is perplexed, reportedly telling the Jason Rantz Show on the radio station that her complaints have gone unanswered, and that her son says he has been called “fucked and racist” and “a product of the patriarchy” by teachers in the school.

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The Harvard President’s New Scandal: Now The Only Way Gay Can Prove She’s Fit To Lead The University Is To Leave It [Expanded & Updated]

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

City-Journal, arguably the best of the conservative websites, has extensive coverage of the plagiarism allegations against Claudine Gay, whose presidency of Harvard was already on shaky ground following her awful testimony before Congress regarding the burgeoning anti-Semitism on campus. It is too detailed for me to summarize correctly, and if I cut and paste sufficient amounts of the piece I’ll be plagiarizing, so you should read all about it here. (You may have to register, but access is free.)

Disgustingly, the New York Times and the Washington Post have not reported this yet. That’s outrageous, and one more screaming example of how the Left circles its wagons any time an ally seriously screws up. Harvard is to progressive indoctrination in education what the Times is to progressive propaganda in journalism, but the last thing the mainstream media needs now is another Hunter Biden laptop fiasco. Harvard is very much in the news already for it’s ugly role in the Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck; Gay is now a central figure, and for the plagiarism development to be given the “nothing to see here” treatment by the news media is spectacularly foolish as well as unethical. [Update: This afternoon, after Harvard mentioned the plagiarism issue, both the Times and the Post finally reported on it its digital editions.]

But I digress…I had initially assumed that the accusations that Gay had violated Harvard’s own policies on citations, credit to other scholars and plagiarism were like past attacks on controversial authors like Ann Coulter, technical but non substantive, the sort that could be dug up on many published public figures by those seeking to damage their reputations. I was mistaken, however. Gay’s violations are substantive and substantial. Moreover, Gay appears to have appropriated material from one of the most significant scholars in the field of racial issues in American, now retired Vanderbilt professor and author Carol Swain.

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Good Ethics News, But Not Much More Than That

/ Jack Marshall / 19 Comments

I take some solace from the Wall Street Journal poll that shows Nicky Haley clobbering Joe Biden in a hypothetical 2024 election. It is the strong evidence I have been searching for that a healthy majority of the public recognize what an epic disaster the Biden administration has been.

Seeing the accumulating polls elsewhere showing Biden trailing Trump by a couple of percentage points here and four or so there, I felt like Hillary, in one of her many pathetic 2016 campaign ploys, asking how it was possible that she wasn’t far ahead of Donald Trump, given the undeniable fact that he was, well, you know, Donald Trump. The WSJ poll (which gives Trump just a 4-point advantage over Biden, 47-43) restores a bit of my faith in the civic competence of the American people. Haley isn’t a particular impressive alternative, but she has executive experience, can put a coherent sentence together, is well short of retirement age, and appears capable of learning. All of this makes her infinitely preferable to Biden or Trump. She is, as I have pointed out before, a weasel whose integrity is dubious at best, and has not displayed enough of the kind of character traits that I believe a trustworthy leader must have in abundance, but if it’s her, Biden or Trump, the choice should be easy. A substantial number of my fellow Americans agree.

This is good. The American public, those with a firm grip on reality and some sense of self-preservation, apparently know that electing either Biden or Trump for another four years is a blind leap into the abyss, hoping to land on a ledge or find a branch to hang onto. Unfortunately, the poll is a) just a poll and b) doesn’t matter as long as Republicans, who get to choose the nominee, are dominated by Trump cultists impermeable to common sense.

Moreover if, by some amazing confluence of good luck and random events along with a butterfly flapping its wings in the Amazon rainforest, Haley were to prevail over Trump, it is nearly guaranteed that this destructive narcissist would run a third party campaign emulating the 1912 Teddy Roosevelt tantrum that gave the nation its most destructive POTUS since George mapped out a workable template. Trump would throw the election to Biden out of spite. Do you doubt that? Does anyone?

He’s the Once and Future Asshole.

Well, who knows—chaos theory and the fickle finger of fate (Cultural reference pop-quiz!) may have surprises in store. At least the poll provides evidence that most of the public realize how awful the Democratic reign has been. They also realize just how unpleasant—I’m choosing my words carefully—another four years of Trump will be, especially after progressives have been programed to believe he’ll be emulating Pol Pot.

It’s a good news/bad news joke. Not a particularly funny one, though.

Incompetent Elected Official Of The Month, Ethics Dunce, Unethical Quote Of The Month: Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.)

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Imagine: this guy is on the House Judiciary Committee! Imagine again: here is what passes for rational, logical, responsible rhetoric on MSNBC.

Asked about the disgraceful performance of the three college presidents under questioning from Rep. Elise Stefanik, Rep. Raskin pulled out every irrelevant anti-Republican talking point he could think of to avoid criticizing fellow woke warriors, beginning with saying he hopes a college president would take action when there are calls for genocide on campus because “lax Republican gun laws” mean “we’ve got to take very seriously” people making threats.

Yes, the debacle at the hearing was about gun control. Then he really got rolling:

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Hamas-Israel Ethics Train Wreck, Academic Clown Car Update: Harvard Closes Ranks

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

As I suggested in the post yesterday, bias and arrogance is a particularly toxic combination, and that is what we are seeing at Harvard now. Characteristically, the university is retreating to its traditional “Who are those low-IQ peasants to tell us what’s right and wrong?” stance.

Mediaite reported last night: “The Harvard Corporation, one of the two boards governing the Ivy League school, will meet Monday to discuss the future of President Claudine Gay in light of the fallout from her anti-Semitism testimony before Congress last week. The other governing body, Harvard’s Board of Overseers, met Sunday. Tensions are reportedly high at both boards over whether taking action would be worth it appearing that Republican. Rep. Elise Stefanik was able to ‘force’ an ouster.” I have not seen this anywhere else, but it’s so ineffably Harvard that I am inclined to believe it. Harvard’s leadership might decide not to take the correct and responsible action because they don’t want to appear to be bending to—yechh!—Republicans. The university would rather let its reputation and credibility fester, not to mention leaving the supposedly superior institution under the management of an administrator who has shown herself unable to handle the job, to avoid being momentarily on the same side as the people it teaches its students to despise and distrust. This is pure hubris, vanity, and pride.

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I Can’t Resist Posting This Before I Hit The Sack….

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

This was sent to me by Harvard late Sunday night.

Somehow, I doubt that the dangers of ultra-processed foods are really the top priorities in Cambridge right now….

Bias Makes “Saturday Night Live” Stupid And Unfunny

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

The outrageous performances of the three “context” obsessed college presidents teed up satirical possibilities like few other public events. The skit virtually wrote itself. The day of SNL’s latest episode, one of the three, UPenn’s Liz Magill, stepped down in disgrace. So handed this rich and easy topic for parody and high comedy, what did SNL’s writers choose to ridicule?

Why, Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-NY), whose sharp questioning and refusal to accept non-answers led all three officials to unmask leftist academia’s ethics rot, what Bishop Robert Barron described as their “Collapse of Moral Reasoning.” Instead of performing the clarifying function that effective and objective satire can provide (and that SNL has provided in the past, if you have a good memory), the show defaulted to circling the progressive wagons. The theme of it’s satire was “Republicans pounce!” as if there is nothing amiss when the leaders of three prestigious universities make legalistic arguments to justify allowing Jewish students to be targeted and threatened on their campuses.

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Ethics And The 700 Million Dollar Baseball Player

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

In Mike Flanagan’s latest horror epic, the Poe mash-up in which “The Fall of the House of Usher” is repurposed into a nightmare scenario for the Sackler family of Oxycontin infamy, the avenging demon named Verna, who sometimes appears as a raven, lectures a soon-to-be victim on the evils of greed:

So much money. One of my favorite things about human beings. Starvation, poverty, disease, you could fix all that, just with money. And you don’t. I mean, if you took just a little bit of time off the vanity voyages, pleasure cruising, billionaire space race, hell, you stopped making movies and TV for one year and you spent that money on what you really need, you could solve it all. With some to spare.

Yes, Verna is a communist and deluded, but it was impossible to read about the $700 million ten-year contract the Los Angeles Dodgers just gave baseball free agent Shohei Ohtani without that speech creeping into my thoughts. $700 million dollars?

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UPenn’s President And Board Chair Resigns After Congress Debacle…Now What?

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

There were two major stories with ethics implications that arrived last evening after I had closed down Ethics Alarms for the night. Both involved institutions that involve lifetime connections for me. I’d prefer to write about the astounding $700,000,000 contract baseball’s biggest star Shohei Otahni signed—and will—but first I must again deal with another Harvard issue.

Late yesterday,the president of the University of Pennsylvania, Elizabeth Magill, resigned, and the school’s chairman of the board followed with his own resignation a couple of hours later. Magill was one of three elite college presidents who embarrassed themselves and their employers with offensive, legalistic answers to pointed questions from Representative Elise Stefanik (R-NY) regarding their school’s tolerance of anti-Semitism on their campus in the wake of the October Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, and their weak responses to demonstrations on their campuses that could fairly be called threatening to Jewish students.

UPenn’s situation became critical when alumnus Ross Stevens announced that he was withdrawing a gift worth around $100 million. That would be a significant loss even for Harvard, whose endowment exceeds the treasuries of many nations. The resignation immediately focused attention on Claudine Gay, Harvard’s president of just a couple of months, whose responses to Stefanik’s withering cross-examination in the Congressional hearing were extremely similar to Magill’s. The resignation of all three women was called for in an unusual letter signed by 72 members of Congress, many of them Democrats.

MIT President Sally A. Kornbluth, the third inept president, had performed slightly better than her two counterparts at the Ivy League schools, though not by much. MIT leadership quickly gave her a public vote of confidence, reflecting, I think, the school’s calculation that its non-humanities and non-social sciences focus as well as its traditional position as only the second most famous university in Cambridge, Mass. would allow the controversy there to calm down sufficiently so it could get back to what the institution really cares about: technology, ones and zeros, and engineering. It is a cynical response, but a safe one.

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