Newly minted and unemployed lawyer Ethan Haines has gone on a hunger strike in the name of all unemployed former law students, to protest misleading law school employment statistics, commercial school rankings, and antiquated career counseling programs. “I designated myself class representative since these students are not able to come forward themselves, for fear that vocalizing their concerns will negatively affect their careers,” he writes on his website. He is alerting various law schools about his Dick Gregory-style protest, intending “to bring awareness to the concerns of law students and recent law graduates by having them addressed by law school administrators. Their primary concerns are inaccurate employment statistics, ineffective career counseling, and rising tuition costs.” The strike, he says, “was motivated by a recent American Bar Association (ABA) investigate Report, which concluded that educational leaders are unable to timely combat the adverse affects of U.S. News’ rankings on legal education.” Continue reading
fairness
Perry v. Schwarzenegger: Choosing Ethics Over Morality
Predictably, Judge Walker’s decision in Perry v. Schwarzenegger striking down California’s voter approved Proposition 8 has infuriated foes of gay marriage, who have condemned his opinion as judicial activism, a rejection of democratic process, and an agenda-driven farce. Walker himself is being attacked for having a conflict of interest, because he is widely believed to be gay himself. (The belief that a gay judge cannot rule objectively on the issue of gay marriage while a straight judge can is itself an expression of bias.) This is not surprising. What is surprising, at least to me, is that the only substantial argument critics of the opinion can articulate is based on the exact proposition Walker rejected in his opinion: that laws should be able to prohibit conduct based on morality and tradition alone, without quantifiable and verifiable reasons relating to the best interests of society. By insisting that a California law that would withhold a fundamental right—marriage—from a class of Americans must justify itself with reason rather than tradition, Judge Walker ruled that it is ethics, not morality, that should govern American law and justice. Continue reading
On Unethical Tipping
I had an enlightening, even shocking, discussion last night with a young woman who waitresses as a second job. I asked her about her observations regarding customer tips during the recession and generally. From what she says, there are a lot of unethical diners out there. Continue reading
Porn: Finding Ethics in the Strangest Places
It should surprise nobody that Amy Fisher, the “Long Island Lolita,” now out of jail for shooting her lover’s wife, married and in her mid-thirties, is outfitted with nifty breast implants and making money shooting porn films. At least her notoriety is being exploited in a manner that does not confer true celebrity status for her misconduct, unlike, for example, Michaele Salahi, who has been featured in glamour shots by the national media as a direct result of her crashing a White House social event with her equally shameless husband. Amy was dismissive of her part-time porno career in a recent interview, and the woman she shot in the head, Mary Jo Buttafuoco, suggested in a follow-up interview that Fisher was ethically clueless (a not too far-fetched conclusion, all things considered), and that the fact that she made her living being photographed performing various sex acts despite being the parent of small children proved it.
This got me thinking about pornography..no, no, wait!—I mean about the ethics of pornography. Continue reading
Unethical Pundit of the Week: The Daily Beast’s Dana Goldstein
I try not to consider political punditry unethical, except when the opinion rendered is unusually dishonest, misleading, uncivil, or unfair. Unfortunately, the current ideological blood sport fostered and nurtured by such outlets as Fox New, MSNBC, the Daily Kos and Breitbart, and carried on by such commentators as Ann Coulter and Frank Rich, make it increasing difficult to follow my own guideline. Occasionally there pieces so outrageously unfair that they make me angry, and those are ethically perilous: emotion is not conducive to balanced analysis. Usually I pass. The recent screed of Dana Goldstein on The Daily Beast, however, has to be condemned.
I just hope I can get through the process of explaining what without becoming furious.
It is entitled “Is Jan Brewer Anti-Immigrant Because She Didn’t Go to College?,” earning an ethics red flag right off the bat for intentionally equating Arizona’s anti-illegal immigration law with being “anti-immigrant,” which it is not. Continue reading
Ethics Quote of the Month: Judge Vaughn Walker
His opinion declaring the voter-approved ban on same-sex marriages in California unconstitutional is here.
The opinion really begins on page 110. Opponents of the opinion are calling it “judicial activism,” “overturning the will of the people,” and “ruling by fiat.” Don’t buy it. The judge logically, fairly and appropriately explains why withholding the basic right of marriage from same-sex couples is a violation of essential values and American principles of ethics and law. Forget about the pundits and the spin: read what Judge Walker wrote.
Gift or Bribe? Barry Bonds’ Generosity to the NABJ
Barry Bonds, the retired baseball slugger who used banned or illegal performance enhancing drugs to fuel a late-carer transformation that allowed him to grow from merely great into Superman, breaking every home run record in sight as a result, has adamantly maintained his innocence despite a mountain of circumstantial evidence, positive drug tests, and the verdict of common sense. He has also played the race card when it seemed convenient to his cause. Bonds’ cheating ways have made him rich beyond belief, and his only real problems now are 1) the likelihood of a Federal perjury trial next year in connection with his Grand Jury testimony that he never knowingly took steroids, and 2) the fact that few of the sportswriters who vote for the Hall of Fame seem inclined to enshrine steroid cheats, based on their rejection, so far, of Mark McGwire, whose steroid-assisted single season home run record Bonds broke while he was especially pumped-up.
Both of these problems could conceivably be helped by some positive press opinion, something that Bonds has never cultivated, being inclined to treat all journalists as if they were something he had to wipe off the bottom of his shoe. Thus it raised eyebrows when it was announced that the charitable foundation created and controlled by Barry Bonds has donated $20,000 to The National Association of Black Journalists. NABJ president Kathy Times told the Associated Press that the money will be used to fund an annual award promoting entrepreneurial spirit. Continue reading
Charlie Rangel’s Defense and Buster Olney’s Fallacy
Charlie Rangel’s defense against the ethics charges against him is, in part this: I’m not the only one, so it’s unfair to punish me.” From the Washington Post:
“He was not the only lawmaker to solicit donations in this manner, his lawyers argue, saying that peers who did the same thing were not punished. With a trial of Rangel by the House ethics committee possible by mid-September, his legal team reached across the Capitol to point a finger at Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.), who helped raise money for a center named for him at the University of Louisville. Rangel’s team cited similarities with the recently deceased Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.) and with former Republican senators Trent Lott (Miss.) and Jesse Helms (N.C.).”
OK, a question: what’s the matter with that argument? Continue reading
Ethics Tip For Police Being Videoed: Smile!
Every now and then one learns about a practice that seems so obviously wrong that it is difficult to believe it could really occur in America. The police’s broad power to confiscate property used in the commission of a crime stunned me when I first read about it in law school. Municipal government use of the power of eminent domain to take private property and turn it over to corporate interests for profit-making development, as in the Kelo case, was another example. During the health care reform debate, I learned that our elected representatives not only didn’t bother to read major legislation, they thought there was nothing wrong with not reading it. I’m still scratching my head over that one.
The increasingly common phenomenon of police arresting citizens for recording arrests and other police activity on video is the most recent example of conduct that is so wrong it is hard to believe it happens—but it does. Continue reading
The Ground Zero Mosque and “The Niggardly Principles”
Fine, reasonable, ethical commentators, not to mention Mayor Bloomberg, have argued that the moderate Muslim group seeking to build an Islamic center and mosque within a hand grenade’s throw of Ground Zero is blameless, persecuted, and as pure as the driven snow in its ethics.
They are ignoring the Second Niggardly Principle, which is understandable since I just formulated the Niggardly Principles One and Two today, after carefully reflecting upon what it could be about this matter that has led so many wise people astray.
Several years ago, a white Washington D.C. government worker, the Shirley Sherrod of his time, was fired for using the word “niggardly” in the work place, which was found to be racially insensitive to those whose vocabulary was so limited they didn’t know that the word had nothing to do with race. This incident embarrassed the D.C. government, which is used to being embarrassed, and inflamed pedants. Eventually the worker was reinstated, and the First Niggardly Principle was born, which is as follows: Continue reading
Ethics Alarms 