dating

Now THIS Is An Unethical High School Coach…

/ Jack Marshall / 22 Comments
Troy Hennum, "genius"

Troy Hennum, “genius”

Juicy ethics topics are stacking up, but this story that just arrived in my email was too jaw-dropping to resist. A spectacularly clueless young man set a new record for open and blatant abuse of authority and irresponsible, unprofessional conduct, though in a novel way.

At  Roosevelt High School in Seattle, the new women’s softball coach, Troy Hennum, ordered members of his team to use their practice time to spread out around the city, take photos of “cute girls,” get their telephone numbers, and bring them back to him. This is colloquially known as “pimping.” He would follow up with date requests via text message, naturally. “Genius, great way to meet a girl, use my girls lol,” he wrote one of the candidates his team flagged as suitable date-fodder.

Come on! What’s the matter with that? Lighten up!

The Seattle Public School District had hired the 25-year-old even though it knew he had been investigated by his former school district for sending inappropriate texts to an athlete in 2012. Well, at least the district did its due diligence. Then it shrugged its metaphorical shoulders and hired this guy anyway. I see the argument: he wasn’t using his team as his own personal dating pool any more, he was using it to recruit other girls. That’s progress!

Hennum was suspended once his human Easter Egg hunt was revealed, and resigned his position, after being on the job for only six days. So sad. Imagine what this genius would have come up with if he had a chance to settle in.

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Pointer: Legal Blog Watch

Facts: Seattle Times

Graphic: Z101.1

 

Ethics Quiz: Is Beautifulpeople.com An Unethical Website?

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

"But I'm beautiful INside!"

Your ethics quiz today involves the dating site beautifulpeople.com, which is in the news for culling 30,000 applicants from its rolls because they were just too darn ugly for a site that promises qualified members that they can…

  •  “Connect with beautiful men and women in your local area and from around the world!”
  • “Chat live with other beautiful men and women!”
  • “Meet REAL beautiful people who actually look in real life as they do online!”
  • “Attend exclusive parties and events!”
  • “Be discovered!”
  • “Be part of the largest most exclusively beautiful community in the world!”
  • “Browse beautiful profiles of men and women without sifting through all the riff raff!”

Last month,  Beautifulpeople.com suffered a cyber attack in which the Shrek virus, named after the popular animated troll, disabled the software that screens applicants, allowing an invasion of new, troll-like members, or at least members not up to Beautiful People standards. Continue reading →

A Blogger Asks: “Why Can’t I Date My Professor After the Grades Are In?”

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

Some times you have to look a little more closely to discover the underlying ethics issue.

A blog called “Dating Glory” puzzles:

“I understand that it’s not a good idea to form relationships with professors while still in the class (favoritism, etc.). But why is it such a big deal when a prof becomes involved with a student who will never be his student again? Especially if they are both single and in and around the same age? Why would this jeopardize a professors job? I like my professor (used to be professor ) a lot, and I get the feeling he likes me. He spends a lot of time talking with me in his office and he often looks at me in ways that makes me think he does like me. I want to ask him for coffee but haven’t because I’ve heard this might jeopardize his job. I don’t mind as much that he might turn me down since I’m no longer his student. But what’s the big deal anyway? Why can’t we be free to date if we both want to? Lawyers date their clients all the time.” Continue reading →

The Doritos Super Bowl Commercial

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

So obsessed was I with the Tebow Super Bowl ad that I temporarily forgot that there usually are one or more product ads that inflame the culture wars.  Sure enough, this time there were two: Audi’s “Green Police” commercial, which has political implications but no ethical ones that I can see, and the Doritos ad, chosen by post-game polls as one of the best and most popular. That one did raise some ethical issues, recently collected by conservative columnist and radio host Dennis Prager.

The spot begins with an attractive woman greeting a date at the door, and asking him inside as she gets ready to leave. She has a young son, four or five years of age, who is snacking on a bowl of Doritos. We ( and the child) see the male date’s face express some combination of excitement, lust and pleasure at the sight of the woman’s comely derriere as she walks into her bedroom. He then sits on the sofa, smiles at the boy, attempts to make pleasantries, and starts to munch on a Dorito. The child sternly slaps the man across the face, and says to him, menacingly, “Put it back,” referring to afore-mentioned Dorito chip. “Keep your hands off my mama…keep your hands off my Doritos,” he continues to the shocked date, getting nose to nose with him in the process. All the actors in the spot are African Americans.

Television commercials can be culturally damaging and irresponsible if they appear to approve, encourage, or endorse wrongful behavior and attitudes. Was this such an ad? Prager thinks so. Let’s examine his objections individually: Continue reading →