discrimination

Finally! “The Ethicist” Handles a Genuinely Difficult Ethics Query

/ Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

Kwame Anthony Appiah, who has been the The New York Times Magazine’s Ethicist columnist since 2015 and teaches philosophy at NYU, has been in a rut for months, choosing queries to answer from the Woke and Wonderful like “My mother likes Trump; should we be mean to her?” This time “The Ethicist responds to an ethical dilemma I have had to face myself: “Is it right to accept a job when I know the company discriminated against another candidate?”

The question:

I have been out of work for four months. I recently had an interview for a management-level position in my field, during which the interviewer asked a number of questions regarding my marital status, parental status and spouse’s occupation. I’ve spent most of my career in management, and the questions are clearly inappropriate and at odds with civil rights protections. I answered the questions, because I knew the responses would be in my favor: I’m a middle-aged guy whose spouse works remotely and son is in college. I’m aware of an internal candidate for the job, a younger mother of two school-age children, and the interviewer made comments about divided responsibilities and time commitments.

I kind of need the job, which raises two scenarios. In the first, I withdraw from the process. Should I notify the internal candidate of the legal violation, because I suspect (although have not confirmed) that the same questions were asked of her? In the second, I accept the position. How should I deal with the other candidate, who would be my subordinate, knowing that a likely E.E.O.C. violation tainted my hire? And additionally, should I notify the E.E.O.C. myself, regardless of whether I continue with this company?

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The ABA Is Defending Its Racially Discriminatory Scholarships…Of Course It Is.

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Res ipsa loquitur, no?

In April, the American Alliance for Equal Rights led by Edward Blum, the scourge of affirmative action and “good discrimination” policies, filed a complaint in an Illinois federal court alleging that the American Bar Association’s 25-year-old Legal Opportunity Scholarship discriminates against white applicants. Since their skin color renders them unable to apply, this contention seems beyond debate. The question is whether, as a trade association, the ABA has a right to discriminate.

The Alliance said it is representing an unnamed white male law school applicant who says that he would apply for the $15,000 Legal Opportunity Scholarship were he not prevented from doing so because he is the “wrong” race. The ABA awards between 20 and 25 such scholarships annually to incoming law students, according to its website, which is excerpted above.

I should have covered this in April: sorry. [Believe me, if I could find a way to work on the blog full-time without ending up living on cat food and in a shack by the docks, I would.] Anyway, this kind of thing is why I do not pay dues to the ABA, and why I am suspicious of any lawyer who does. It is an interesting case. I assumed that Blum would lose if the case proceeded, and that his main objective was to shame the ABA into opening up the race-based scholarships to all. But the ABA has no shame. And I knew that.

The American Bar Association responded to Blum’s suit this week, arguing that a scholarship program designed to boost diversity among law students is protected free speech. The 25-year-old Legal Opportunity Scholarship, the largest lawyer association in the nation asserts, is protected under the First Amendment. In its motion to dismiss the ABA also claimed that plaintiff American Alliance for Equal Rights lacks standing to sue.

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More DEI Whac-A-Mole: This Time, It’s the ABA Getting Whacked

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

A sinister feature of the Diversity/Equity/Inclusion “good discrimination” conspiracy is that the participants know that what they are doing is unconstitutional in spirit, illegal in practice, divisive and unfair by traditional American values, and they go forward with it anyway until they are caught. Then they deny that they were doing what they were doing, change their policies, at least ostensibly, and wait for the next opportunity while other organization pursue their DEI schemes.

The idea is to overwhelm the opposition—that is, those who believe all discrimination on the basis of race, gender and ethnicity is unethical and that jobs, promotions, honors, advancements, privileges and admissions should be based on achievement and not subjective attempts at social engineering or compensatory reparations. Eventually, the strategy goes, “everybody does it” will kick in, and fighting the new social norm will be futile.

The latest institution completely corrupted by political bias to be caught playing DEI games is the august American Bar Association. As revealed by Paul Caron’s Tax Prof Blog, a controversial requirement for law school accreditation, Standard 206, which contained flaming DEI mandates like…

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Ethics Quiz: “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month”

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

Who didn’t see this coming?

And why did it take so long?

Naturally, the reaction was explosive on both sides of the, uh, well, both sides. “News about Heterosexual Awesomeness Month has spread worldwide!,” the bar announced in a follow-up social media post. “Many people have asked how they can support us. Owner Mark Fitzpatrick is excited to build a 25,000 sq ft community event center nearby to host events, provide amazing and wholesome food, support conservative ideas, and help true conservatives get elected. So, we started a GiveSendGo fund. For the haters spewing venom, perhaps you feel bad and want to contribute a few dollars now? For the rest of you reasonable people, if you feel inclined to give, please do! May God bless you!”

The Old State Saloon in in Eagle, Idaho, not far from Boise, and its promotional stunt is the work of new owner Mark Fitzpatrick, a South California transplant who bought the bar in 2023 and who describes himself as “a Christian, conservative, Constitution supporter, retired police officer, and family man.”

Ew!

The fact that this promotion is taking place during “Pride Month,” when everyone is supposed shout out hosannas for minority sexual practices while festooning everything in rainbows, means that it is also being taken as a shot across the hallowed bow of wokeness. LGBQ Nation snarks, ” Fitzpatrick claims to have banned a couple of dozen hateful negative Facebook commenters for ‘using horrific words, expletives, using the name of the Lord in vain, etc,’ but it’s hard to tell one heterosexual man’s hate from another’s unbridled excitement.”

Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz of the Day is…

Is “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” unethical?

I’m open to being convinced otherwise, but I think it is a divisive tactic, essentially tit for tat, but inevitable and perhaps necessary. Once upon a time “days” and “months” designated to celebrate particular components of the American melting pot were benign and opportunities for all to signal appreciation for our component cultures. The practice quickly curdled into group chauvinism and anti-majority bigotry with the continued celebration of Black History Month, Women’s History Month and Pride Month. Those groups once arguably needed their “months” to restore self-esteem after long being discriminated against, but now they just resonate as “Who needs whites and men?” exercises in division.

As an aside, anyone who is “proud” of their sex life has problems. I remember when Grant was tiny and we watched “Sesame Street” together, I was consistently amused by a oft repeated number in which a bovine Muppet sang, “I’m proud, proud, proud to be a cow!” “Pride Month” strikes me as similarly excessive. OK, so you’re gay. I don’t care. I’m bald. What do either of us have to be “proud ” about?

If it is unimaginable to have a “Heterosexual Pride Month” or “White Achievement Month” or “Hooray for Men Month,” and it is, then it’s time for those other month-long celebrations to be retired as past their pull dates, and now doing more harm than good.

To that end, I suppose “Heterosexual Awesomeness Month” has a certain “So how do YOU like it?” appeal. Nevertheless, two wrongs don’t make a right.

Added: I have to include that “Proud to be a Cow” song. Here you go…

“Didn’t Earn It”

/ Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

I hadn’t seen or heard the derisive (but accurate!) nickname for DEI, as in “diversity, equity and inclusion” until I saw the Scott Adams “X” post above. I think he’s right. When a quick, pointed and accurate characterization makes people slap their foreheads and think, “Wait, why have I been willing to accept this nonsense?,” it can move metaphorical mountains.

The DEI fad has already been destructive to the economy, the workforce, society and its institutions beyond all imagining, making it one of the more damaging outgrowths of “The Great Stupid,” which really got rolling when its Three Horsemen of the Apocalypse equivalent (the fourth horse was a scratch, thank goodness) began galloping together in 2020. They were the George Floyd Freakout, the Black Lives Matter Scam, and the Wuhan Virus Panic, and together they brought virtue-signaling overdrive, progressive preening and an attack on core American and ethical values, not to mention civilization.

DEI , like the slogan “black lives matter,” was another ingenious manipulation of language to trap the slow of thought and the weak of character into going along with a movement that was intrinsically dishonest and unfair. Who could be against such benign concepts as diversity, equity and inclusion? But the objective was and is obliterating the cultural acceptance of merit as the aspirational basis of the American ideal. Along the way, the DEI industry itself emerged as an engine of waste and carnage with mostly underwhelming and undeserving drivers at the controls, as Harvard University demonstrated for us spectacularly.

Oh, we know how this will go: “Didn’t Earn It” will be roundly attacked a racist slur. Long screeds will be published to dispute “the lie”: the beneficiaries of DEI did earn it, the public will be told, just as anyone with ancestors on distant branches of the family tree who were victims of slavery at least a century and a half ago “earned” million of dollars in reparations today. (That response will anchor DEI to an absolutely indefensible policy goal: perfect.) Eventually, because this is what the dishonest and relentless far Left does, it will come up with another moniker, because DEI will finally have the aura of stench about it that it should—you know, just as “illegal aliens” became “undocumented workers” and are now “migrants” (or “visitors”), “performing major surgery on minors because they have been encouraged to believe they are the ‘wrong’ sex” became “gender-affirming care,” and the classic, “aborting the innocent unborn” was recast as “a woman’s choice.”

Never mind. “Didn’t Earn It” is an ethical tool to combat an unethical practice and ideology that is wasting financial and human resources.

I recommend using it.

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Pointer: Instapundit

No, Taylor Preparatory High School, There Is No “Rap Singing Teacher Principle”

/ Jack Marshall / 40 Comments

I want to credit esteemed EA commenter JutGory for both the headline and the pointer. He properly identified this ethics tale out of Detroit as an important contrast to the “Naked Teacher Principle” and its many variations. The NTP et al. (like the the “Drag Queen School Principal Principle,” “the Porn Actor University Chancellor Principle,” and many others) holds that if you are a teacher or in some other position that requires the respect and trust of your employers and stakeholders, having photographs of you appearing naked or in other sexually provocative conditions appear on line justifies your separation from your job and leaves you no leave to complain.

Domonique Brown, however, a recent “Teacher of the Month” at Taylor Preparatory High School, did not have any naked photos or anything close on the web. She was fired from her job as a history teacher because the school learned that she had a second career as a rising rap artist named “Drippin’ Honey.” Brown had proven herself to be a skilled and popular teacher for seven years, and is pursuing a master’s degree and a doctorate. But when a parent alerted the school in an anonymous complaint last October that Domonique was also a rap artist, she found her fitness to teach being questioned.

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I LOVE This Lawsuit! It Might Be the Best “Great Stupid” Lawsuit Yet!

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Mohammad Yusuf, a 43-year-old Chicago police officer, has filed a federal civil rights lawsuit against the city because it refuses to allow him to change his race from “white” to “of color,” or something. The Chicago police department allows cops to change their gender identity according to whim, and he argues that this is a double standard.

Yusuf “currently identifies as Egyptian and African American.” When he first joined the force in 2004, the Great Stupid had not yet spread darkness over the land, and he only had a few race option to choose from, he says. Now he believes Caucasian is inaccurate, and besides, despite the woke Chicago police department claiming to have a race-neutral and merit-based promotion system, Yusuf claims he has been “repeatedly bypassed” for promotions in favor of less qualified black officers.

No, really? I don’t think Chicago would ever be a party to something like that, do you? Well, if you can’t beat ’em, join ’em, as the saying goes.

Did I mention how much I love this lawsuit?

Yusuf even provided his 23andMe genetic testing results to prove he is mixed race and it all depends on which he chooses to identify as when it comes to tribal designations and their DEI rewards. Still, the police department obstinately refuses to allow him to be black. It’s strange, his lawyers argue, that other officers can change their genders on official records, since no genetic test would back that up. That Y chromosome is there for life. Is this not a double standard?

“While other CPD officers are afforded the opportunity to have their gender identity corrected to match their lived experience, Officer Yusuf and others in similar positions are barred from obtaining accurate racial designations that align with their racial identity,” the suit says.

Isn’t this great?

From the Res Ipsa Loquitur Files: Microsoft Openly Celebrates Its Illegal and Unconstitutional Policies

/ Jack Marshall / 7 Comments

Now what?

This really is a res ipsa loquitur classic. Microsoft is literally saying, “We don’t have to obey the law, and besides, this is good discrimination.” Why isn’t the Justice Department bearing down on the company already? You know why.

Here is how the company introduces its great success at paying white men less than women and minorities…

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Still More Law and Ethics Matters

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

Boy, the laws and ethics intersection has been almost constantly in the news lately, led by the Fani Willis controversy in Georgia, which apparently will turn on whether the judge believes the justly beleaguered Fulton County DA really paid half of her paramour and co-Trump prosecutor’s expenses on various platonic < cough> trips and cruises in cash, though there’s no record of such payments. Willis’s father even took the stand to explain that keeping huge amounts of cash on hand is “a black thing.” I did not know that!

As Alice would say, “Curiouser and curiouser!” Then we have much ferment in the legal world over whether the New York County Supreme Court’s order for Donald Trump to pay an unprecedented $355 million for inflating asset values in statements of his financial condition submitted to lenders and insurers was just, cruel and unusual punishment, a bill of attainder, or self-evident partisan lawfare. Gov. Kathy Hochul didn’t help matters by trying to justify the award by saying that Trump is special (wink,wink) and we all know what that means when coming from a Democrat. I confess, I don’t know the New York law involved well enough to weigh in on this one, but the verdict certainly adds to the weight of evidence that there is a full-on press to use the courts to crush Trump before he can crush Joe Biden.

There were two non-Trump law and ethics stories recently worth pondering.

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Two Disparate Responses To Being Caught At “Good Discrimination”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Revealed Discriminator 1: Boston Mayor Michelle Wu.

Response: “Deal with it!”

Despite the legitimate uproar over Boston’s Asian-American mayor holding a party that explicitly excluded whites [covered here on Ethics Alarms], Wu and Boston Democrats decided to go with a moldy bunch of lame rationalizations (“it’s no big deal!”…”we’ve been doing it for years”..”we don’t care!”) and not only held the discriminatory event, but proudly issued a photo of it. Naturally, the news media’s reaction is “Republicans pounce!” but long-time conservative pundit Howie Carr, who is usually a bit extreme for my tastes, was spot on, writing in an op-ed for the Boston Herald:

“What if a white mayor had held a whites-only party at a city-owned building, after specifically disinviting all the non-white members of the City Council? It would have been the end of the world, a national story for days if not weeks on end. On the night of the party, there would have been rioting, or looting and violence….had the event been held by a Republican, every GOP politician across the nation would have been asked to denounce it…

Carr added that most of of the ‘state-run media’ in Massachusetts carefully avoided criticizing the party.

The reverse-racists are getting awfully cocky these days.

Revealed Discriminator 2: Harvard

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