dignity

Comment of the Day: “The Provocative T-Shirt Problem:

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

"Oh yeah? Well, your good manners and dignity offend ME!"

Sometimes I receive terrific comments to posts via e-mail, and sometimes I decide to make them Comments of the Day. And sometimes I decide to do that and forget, like I did with this comment, from Neil Penny, in response to my July 26 post about Dollywood forcing a patron to cover the mild political message on her T-shirt that “might offend some.” Neil’s comment was about the anecdote included in my post, relating how the dress code at my college was brought down by a concerted effort to comply with its letter rather than its spirit, and how the subsequent loss of decorum in the dining hall was regarded my many students, including me, as a diminishment of the experience.  Here is that lost “Comment of the Day”—my apologies to Neil for the delay: Continue reading →

What’s the Matter With Paul Gust?

/ Jack Marshall / 13 Comments

Oh-oh...now I'VE searched for her too!

Combine the Anthony Weiner debacle and the Naked Teacher Principle (in reverse), and you get the travails of 45-year-old Paul Gust, the computer teacher at the Saugatuck Public Schools in Michigan. He has been fired, and I would fire him too. But which of his actions were a firing offense?

1. Storing photos of naked women on his school computer?
2. Being such a klutz that he accidentally flashed some of the photos on the screen in the middle of a presentation on computer technology?
3. Having the FBI find photographs of underage girls on that same computer, though not photos that constituted child-porn?
4. Having the FBI also discover that he had searched for photos of Miley Cyrus braless, when she was under 18?
5. Having personal e-mails on his computer—beyond dispute involving personal discussions, off hours, on his own time, using his own accounts—that included discussions of sexual fantasies involving teen-age girls? Continue reading →

The Ethics of Stopping the Condemned From Accepting Death

/ Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

In Oregon, a judge has granted death row inmate Gary Haugen’s motion to dismiss his lawyers after they persisted in taking measures to block his execution. They had declared he was not mentally competent to waive his appeals and allow his own state-decreed death to proceed.

Leave it to lawyers to be convinced that they know what’s best, even when it involves someone else’s wishes about his own life and death.

Is the condemend prisoner who approves of his own excecution insane, or courageous?

In an attorney-client relationship, the lawyer is ethically bound to do what the client wants as long as it is legal and within the bounds of the ethical constraints on the lawyer. A lawyer can render advice and should; a lawyer can explain the legal consequences of a course of action. But substituting the attorney’s judgment for that of the client is taboo…except, all too often, in cases like this one, in which a death row inmate decides that letting justice take its course and accepting the state’s death decree is preferable to rotting in prison.  Continue reading →

Buck Foston’s Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

News Item:

“A New Brunswick businessman has filed suit in federal court, charging New Brunswick Mayor James Cahill is holding up approval of his liquor license for a new high end sports bar because he doesn’t like the bar’s proposed name — Buck Foston’s. Larry Blatterfein, who has owned the Knight Club, a bar on Easton Avenue, for 30 years, charges Cahill is violating his first amendment constitutional right to free speech by holding up the transfer of a second liquor license to Blatterfein from another restaurant in town.”

The story goes on to say that the mayor denies the accusation, that the name has nothing to do with the planned establishment’s problems. Maybe not. Continue reading →

The Ethics of Sex in the Classroom

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

"All right, Professor, this time you've gone too far!"

Northwestern University Professor John Michael Bailey decided to enrich his course on Human Sexuality by having a man use a dildo to bring a naked woman to orgasm as his students watched. Did the professor do a live play-by-play of the encounter, like sportscaster  Howard Cosell in “Bananas”? We don’t know. (Yes, today is Woody Allen Film Allusion Day, and no, I don’t know why.) Not surprisingly, this caused quite a bit of controversy on campus, and at least one formal complaint was filed challenging the ethics of the exhibition.  Bailey defended the exhibition, which was voluntary (meaning, presumably, that it wouldn’t be covered on the exam—about a hundred students attended) by arguing that such  unconventional demonstration provide “useful examples and extensions of concepts students learn about in traditional academic ways.”  Northwestern president Morton Schapiro concluded that “I simply do not believe this was appropriate … or in keeping with Northwestern University’s academic mission,” and the college has assigned Bailey other courses while announcing that “Human Sexuality”  will not be offered in the coming academic year. Continue reading →

Appearance of Impropriety I: Federal Judge in a Whites Only Club? Ethical, As Long As He Doesn’t Like The Policy. Wait…WHAT?

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Our Motto: "Trying to find a qualified black member for 110 years...and still looking!"

Is it an ethical violation for a Federal judge to belong to a whites-only country club?

Sure it is. Was that so hard?

Apparently for a judicial appeals panel in Tennessee, it is.

In May of 2008, an anonymous woman complained to the chief judge of the 6th Circuit Court of Appeals that Federal bankruptcy  Judge George Paine II’s  membership in the ritzy Belle Meade Country Club violated the judicial ethics code of conduct that decrees that judges “should not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin.”  This was a reasonable complaint to make, since the judicial codes for both Federal judges and Tennessee judges say that…

 CANON 2: A JUDGE SHOULD AVOID IMPROPRIETY AND THE APPEARANCE OF IMPROPRIETY IN ALL ACTIVITIES

2 C   A judge shall not hold membership in any organization that practices invidious discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, or national origin. Continue reading →

Comment of the Day: “Ethics Quiz: The Home as Billboard…”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Jeff Hibbert sets a record for pithy and concise with his comment on the Ethics Quiz about the company that will pay your mortgage if you’ll let them turn your home into a billboard. Besides, it made me laugh, and I needed a laugh.

“Eventually, everything flat will have advertising on it. This is why I think a flat stomach is overrated.”


			

	


			
				


	

							
Ethics Quiz: The Home As Billboard—“Ick!” or Unethical?
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 4 Comments
								

			


		

		
The Ad firm Adzookie will make their monthly mortgage payments for people willing to turn their homes into billboards. According to the company’s  CEO, it has received over 1,000 applications from people willing to have their houses turned into something like the eye-sore in the photo.


Your Ethics Quiz: Is this unethical conduct by the company, or merely disgusting, provoking our “Ick!” reflex?


For the Unethical side, consider: Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
Ethics Hero: Kirk Douglas
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 12 Comments
								

			


		

		
Kirk Douglas: Hero


Amazingly, some bloggers and critics actually called Kirk Douglas’s appearance as an Oscar presenter last night (it was he who announced Melissa Leo’s win, which she instantly turned into an Oscar low-light) hard to watch and even “creepy.” Sometimes you just have to shake your head and wonder how people’s perception gets so warped.


The 96-year-old stroke victim strode to the stage without vanity, fear or hesitation. He flirted, he joked, he took full advantage of his richly-earned status as a Hollywood legend, the last of the great movie men’s men, and indomitable survivor. And he dared to play with the faux suspense of the event, demonstrating with a wink and grand humor that he, better than most, knows how little awards mean compared to the guts of life. Continue reading →

			

	


			
				


	

							
The Main Ethics Lesson of the Congressman Lee Affair
						

			 / Jack Marshall						 / 2 Comments
								

			


		

		
By now, you probably have heard the saga of ex-Congressman Christopher Lee (R-NY), a married man who was trolling Craig’s list for girlfriends and e-mailed a candidate shirtless photo of himself to prove to her that he was fit..and also, incidentally, as dumb as an unusually dumb brick. The young woman sent the photo to Gawker, which broke the story, resulting in the humiliated Congressman, supposedly a rising GOP star, resigning.


What is the most significant lesson of this rapid fall from political grace?


It isn’t that middle-aged men who don’t comprehend how the internet works should avoid e-mailing photos of themselves that recall George Costanza’s effort to flirt with the Fotomat girl, although that’s true.


It isn’t that horny and untrustworthy individuals who can’t control their libidos should avoid committing themselves to high-profile leadership positions in our government, since the public looks to them to exemplify the best in ethical values and the entire nation is embarrassed when they disgrace themselves. This is true too, but it is painfully clear that such individuals will never learn this, and we are stuck with them, at least until they reveal their true nature. Continue reading →