fairness

Ethics Hero Or Ethics Dunce? The Rogue Valedictorian

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

I couldn’t find an appropriate graphic for this story, so I decided to post this, my favorite photo of anything, ever.

[My mind is made up about this one, but because my brain is fried after my just completed Rhode trip, I’m willing to be dissuaded.]

Nataly Nolastnamebecauseapparentlyshesoldenoughtobeapublicjerk-Buttooyoungtoaccepttheconsequencesofheractions (I wonder what nationality that is?) was the valedictorian  at the San Ysidro High School  graduation ceremonies. All was going well with the young woman’s speech, which, according to the communications director for the Sweet Union High School District, had been duly approved by the San Ysidro school administration, when her oratory suddenly took a dark and unexpected turn.  After expressing gratitude to her friends, family and some teachers at the school, she began using her moment on stage to throw metaphorical bombs and settle scores.

“To my counselor, thank you for letting me fend for myself,” she said. “You were always unavailable to my parents and I, despite appointments….You expressed to me your joy in having one of your students be valedictorian when you had absolutely no role in my achievements.”

Ms. Nolastnamebecauseapparentlyshesoldenoughtobeapublicjerk-Buttooyoungtoaccepttheconsequencesofheractions moved on to attacking the administration staff, for “teaching me how to be resourceful” because, she claimed,  they failed to inform her of scholarships in a timely manner. Then she really got down to it, telling the audience about a San Ysidro teacher who , she said,“regularly” came to class up drunk.  Natalie thanked the teacher sarcastically for warning students about “the dangers of alcoholism.”

With a final coda—- “I hope that future students and staff learn from these examples”—she left the stage to the cheers of her fellow students.

Here is the Ethics Hero argument, which I expect some, especially some  current high school students, to make: Continue reading →

An Unjust “Three Strikes” Sentence Is Cancelled…After 23 Years

/ Jack Marshall / 8 Comments

Ken Oliver (R) with his father, post-release.

The theory behind “three strikes” laws is that it  restrains habitual law breakers by upping the risks every time they engaged in their favorite pastime. It makes criminal culpability cumulative: three smaller crimes add up to the same punishment as one big one. These laws first arrived in the 90s, under President Clinton. I remember my reaction at the time was 1) maybe it will work as deterrenceand really reduce crime and 2) if a twice-convicted criminal knows that the third “strike” will send him away for a long time and commits a felony anyway, that’s his choice, and nobody should feel sorry for him.  I admit that I still have vestiges of this rationale lurking in my brain; it’s the Baretta Principle, from the TV show that made Robert Blake a star before he had his wife killed: “Don’t do the crime if you can’t do the time.”

Ironically, Blake did do the crime and never had to do the time, but then, he was a star. His career hasn’t been going so well, though.

There is some evidence that “three strikes” laws work. Some states, like California, have recorded dramatic drops in  crime rates since the enactment the measure.  In a 2011 report, Los Angeles reported crime had decreased by half since 1994, when its “habitual felon’ statute went into effect. Data from other studies suggests that this is an illusion. Continue reading →

Ethics Note To The Chicago Cubs: Double Standards Promote Racial Discord Even When They Aren’t As Stupid As Yours

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The Chicago Cubs ridiculous virtue signaling and capitulation to political correctness bullying is metaphorically coming home to roost.

Love it.

In May, as I wrote about here, the Cubs banned a fan for life because he made the ubiquitous “OK” sign behind a black broadcaster. Nobody had any basis to say with certainty what the fan meant, but after the Twitter mob demanded the fans head, the Cubs meekly complied. You see, the OK gesture might have meant, “My race is better than your race,” because a rumor was circulated online that “OK” is a white power symbol.  It might have been trolling by someone who knew that the  symbol would trigger social justice warriors. Or, you know, OK might have just meant “OK” as it as for almost 200 years.

Hmmm…tough one! Occam’s Razor, anyone? Continue reading →

Ethics Alarms Flashback Post Of The Week: “Ethics Quiz: The Sensitive Cop’s Facebook Confession”

/ Jack Marshall / 6 Comments

[A  while ago I wrote that I might periodically re-post one of the more than 2000 Ethics Alarms essays that have appeared here since 2009. The criteria? Let’s see:

  • A post that I have completely forgotten about, and don’t remember even after I’ve read it again.
  • A post that may be interesting to consider in light of subsequent developments since it was written (in this case,  social media posts triggering workplace discipline, and police-community relations)
  • A lively discussion in the comments.

I think this post, based on a find by now-retired Ethics Alarms super-scout Fred, qualifies on all counts. It’s from May of 2014.]

“If there was any time I despised wearing a police uniform, it was yesterday at the Capitol during the water rally. A girl I know who frequents the Capitol for environmental concerns looked at me and wanted me to participate with her in the event. I told her I have to remain unbiased while on duty at these events. She responded by saying, ‘You’re a person, aren’t you?’ That comment went straight through my heart!”

Thus did Douglas Day, a police officer at the West Virginia Capitol in Charleston, confess to Facebook friends his mixed emotions while doing his duty.

For this he was fired.

The day Day wrote his Facebook post, Capitol Police Lt. T.M. Johnson told him  that the post “shows no respect to the department, the uniform or the law enforcement community which he represents.”  About a week later, Sgt. A.E. Lanham Jr. wrote to Day that he “found the entire [Facebook] posting to be extremely offensive and shocking … This is just another episode of many incidents which show his bad attitude and lack of enthusiasm toward police work in general and toward our department in particular.”

Day was thunderstruck. “If they believed there was some sort of a violation I made, then why wasn’t it addressed? They never brought me in and never said anything to me,” Day said. “In 2½ years working there, I had no disciplinary action taken against me at any time. Nothing was ever written up and I received no reprimands.” So much for the “many incidents.” Continue reading →

Morning Ethics Warm-Up, 5/15/2019: Of Ficks, Flicks, Fairness, And. Yes, “Fuck”

/ Jack Marshall / 38 Comments

 

Suffering from low blog traffic hangover…

I know I complain about traffic here too much, but it’s the only place I where can complain about it. Either because of Trump Derangement, ethics apathy in a Nation of Assholes, my exile from NPR (for telling an undeniable truth that was accused of being a defense of Donald Trump), Facebook’s sabotage, or sunspots, Ethics Alarms readership is down significantly since the high point of 2016. Yesterday, the usually lively day of Tuesday did a credible imitation of Saturday, when tumbleweeds roll through here, and I can’t find any reason why. Kept me up much of the night, so now I’m going to be slow, cynical  and cranky all day….

1. Speaking of a nation of assholes…Stephanie Wilkerson, the certifiably awful human being who kicked Sarah Huckabee Sanders out of the Red Hen restaurant, was given a forum (disgracefully) by the Washington Post to boast about her “resistance.” Of course she frames herself as a victim, then celebrates the fact that she received support from many Americans who are as hateful, bigoted, and un-American as she is. Depressingly, many of my Facebook friends “loved” or “liked” her nauseating column, which is nothing more nor less that a hard tug on the loose threads on the seams that hold our nation together. These phony advocates of “inclusion” actually favor discrimination and prejudice based on political affiliation and personal viewpoints, which is no less unethical and destructive than discriminating based on race, gender or creed.

Stephanie Wilkerson’s Post column marks her a fick, an individual who is unethical and proud of it.

But I would still serve her in my restaurant.

2. Here’s another topic I’m sick of writing about: We TV, that august cultural institution that features the beneath the bottom of the barrel reality show, “Mama June, From “Not” to “Hot.” is the latest product to use the hilariously clever device of implying variations of “fuck” in its marketing, because saying but not quite saying “fuck” is inherently witty and memorable. The word being so used by We is “flicks.” Get it?? Continue reading →

Ethics Quiz: The Cubs Fan Ban

/ Jack Marshall / 37 Comments

(I have already made up my mind about this one, but I’m willing to be persuaded otherwise…hence the quiz.)

At the start of the bottom of the third inning of the May 7th Marlins-Cubs game, the NBC Sports Chicago broadcast went to analyst Doug Glanville for some “in the stands” commentary. Behind Glanville,  , a fan in a hoodie waved hello to the camera, flashed a peace sign, then made an upside-down OK hand gesture with his fingers.

Always looking for outrages and ways to hype racial tension, sharp-eyed activists flooded  the Cubs  with tweets like this:

@cubs @dan_bernstein What say you about this racist fan flashing a white power sign behind Mr. Glanville at tonight’s game? pic.twitter.com/zR7DqYWgQv

— Marc Lipkin (@Flipkin) May 8, 2019

Whether or not that gesture is “racist” is a matter of opinion, debate, and context. Annoyingly and self-consciously “woke” lawyer-NBC sports blogger Craig Calcaterra explains: Continue reading →

A Smoking Flip-Flop: Here Is Why Larry Tribe Cannot Be Regarded As An Objective Legal Authority Any More

/ Jack Marshall / 14 Comments

…well, other than the fact that his recent tweets indicate that the 77-year-old  prof is no longer playing with a full deck…*

I had a back-and-forth with a smart non-lawyer who is suffering from Trump Derangement, and who cited the opinions of Professor Tribe to counter Alan Dershowitz’s critique of the Mueller Report. He didn’t like my assertion that Tribe has proven himself to be a partisan hack of late, willing to espouse whatever public opinion the Left and “the resistance” will find useful.

Ed Whelan, the President of the Ethics and Public Policy Center, found this example of a cynical Tribe flip-flop, worthy of the gymnasts above, that shows what I mean:

 Back in early March 2016, a few weeks after Justice Scalia’s death created a vacancy on the Supreme Court, Harvard law professor Laurence Tribe was perhaps the most prominent of some 350 law professors to sign a letter asserting that the Senate had a “constitutional duty to give President Barack Obama’s Supreme Court nominee a prompt and fair hearing and a timely vote.” Declaring that “[t]he Senate’s obligation in this circumstance is clear,” the letter invoked the Appointments Clause of the Constitution.

But, as I and others (including liberal law professors Noah Feldman and Vik Amar) pointed out at the time, the position that Tribe took had no support in the text of the Constitution and contradicted perennial Senate practice on nominations. The Appointments Clause states only that the president “shall nominate, and by and with the Advice and Consent of the Senate, shall appoint” various executive-branch and judicial-branch officers. In other words, it restricts the president’s power of appointment by conditioning any such appointment on prior receipt of the Senate’s “Advice and Consent” on a nomination. But it says nothing about how the Senate should go about exercising its power to advise and consent-or-withhold-consent, and it thus leaves the Senate entirely free to exercise that power however it sees fit.

Tribe’s position in March 2016 further surprised me because it contradicted Tribe’s own earlier (correct) recognition, in his 1985 book God Save This Honorable Court, that the Senate may block a Supreme Court nomination “by simply refusing to act upon it.”

I’m pleased to discover that Tribe now agrees that the Senate does not have a constitutional duty to take any action on a Supreme Court nominee. Continue reading →

Why I’ve Changed My Position On Transgender Athletes In Women’s Sports, Or “Ethics Evolve With Wisdom And Experience”

/ Jack Marshall / 23 Comments

Yesterday I headlined the story about transgender powerlifter Mary Gregory, who just shattered multiple lifting records, Unfair, Obviously Unfair, Scandalously Unfair. Why Are Athletic Organizations Allowing This? Why Are Women Tolerating It?

Possessed of a keener memory than I, reader Luke G. “pounced,” as the news media always says when Republicans object to Democratic words and conduct that absolutely should be objected to. He wrote in part,

What made you change your mind on this issue? Several years ago you were bad-dogging me in the comments for the views you hold now- you claimed back then that there was no reason [male-to-female transgender athlete] Fallon Fox shouldn’t get to fight in Women’s UFC, because she lives as a female and had transition surgery. According to 2013 Jack, “I don’t believe that males have an unfair advantage at all. Many advantages in physical ability can be made up with skill, and that true of most professional sports.”….I’m just wondering what it was that finally pushed you to flip on this one.

I wrote THAT? Yes, I did. Boy, is it ever inconvenient having over 10,000 searchable posts around to prove your inconsistencies. Continue reading →

Interview Ethics With Angelica Huston

/ Jack Marshall / 15 Comments

The pop culture site Vulture has published a long and wide-ranging interview with actress Angelica Huston. It’s a great interview from a reader’s point of view, candid, funny, revealing. It is also an interview given either by someone with no ethics alarms at all, or someone so steeped in an unethical culture that she no longer comprehends such concepts as loyalty, fairness, confidentiality, kindness, decency and the Golden Rule. That’s not all: the rationalizations also come thick and fast.

Huston reveals private, unflattering and uncomplimentary facts about friends, relatives, colleagues and ex-lovers, living and dead. The interview could be used in an ethics course to illustrate how you don’t talk about people behind their backs. Here are some of the many points that made me wince… Continue reading →

Unfair, Obviously Unfair, Scandalously Unfair. Why Are Athletic Organizations Allowing This? Why Are Women Tolerating It?

/ Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

Over the weekend , powertlifter Mary Gregory, a biological man who identifies as a woman and thus is to be regarded as transgender,  set the Masters world records for women’s squat, women’s bench press, and women’s deadlift. Mary has testicles and a penis. Presumably all she would need to compete in a male weightlifting competition is a new name, and an announcement that the he turned she now identifies as a male again.

An exhilarated Mary wrote on Instagram,

“What a day, 9 for 9! Masters world squat record, open world bench record, masters world dl record, and masters world total record!” Mary Gregory posted on Instagram. Gregory thanked the Raw Powerlifting Federation. “As a transgender lifter I was unsure what to expect going into this meet and everyone – all the spotters, loaders, referees, staff, meet director, all made me welcome and treated me as just another female lifter- thank you!”

I’m happy for you, Mary. Your cheating was allowed. Be proud. You go…girl. Continue reading →