respect

Abuse of Power in the Schools, Part 2: “Beat the Jew”

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Seven seniors at a high school at a La Quinta, California high school have been suspended for three to five days, causing some of them to miss graduation, because they participated in a role-playing game, organized on Facebook, after school during their own personal time. The school administrators found the game objectionable, which you will be able to understand. But nobody was hurt, and no laws were broken.

That is all we really need to know. That the seniors were disciplined by the school for an activity completely unrelated to school is a pure abuse of power. This is an outrageous extension of school and government authority into the private lives of the students involved. It should not matter what the game was…not to the school. The governments of La Quinta, California and the United States couldn’t outlaw the game, nor could they forbid citizens to play it, not could they punish citizens that did.

Now, because you may be  curious, here’s a description of the game. Continue reading →

Abuse of Power in the Schools, Part 1: Pimping the Kids

/ Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

Blogger-mom Laura Wellington is making the talk show rounds after a post last month on her blog aroused interest and commentary from various newspapers. In the post, she indignantly described a fundraising drive by her child’s school that understandably raised her ire:

“…the letter [my daughter] handed me stated my daughter was to accomplish chores around the house with the goal of being paid by me for those chores the sum of $20.  She would then have to hand the full $20 over to the school to make up for the shortfall in their overall budget which, ultimately, disallowed the kids to go on yet another class trip.  Participation was mandatory according to what my daughter told me and the letter seemingly conveyed (however, on a later phone call, my daughter’s teacher altered the word “mandatory” to be “suggested” despite all evidence to the contrary)…”

Wellington’s complaint is that schools need to exercise fiscal responsibility, and she is joining a rising chorus of protest among parents across the country who feel that their tax dollars should not have to be supplemented with constant arm-twisting from schools urging them  to buy and sell over-priced cookies or provide additional contributions. This is a fiscal policy issue; the ethical issue should be less controversial. When did schools get the authority to dictate what children do outside school? How do they justify requiring unpaid labor for the school’s benefit? Continue reading →

Debrahlee Lorenzana, Looks, the Workplace, and Ethics

/ Jack Marshall / 18 Comments

The Debrahlee Lorenzana controversy raises important ethical issues, even though we may yet discover that it was wholly manufactured by Debrahlee.  Right now, this ethics train wreck in progress is a classic “employer said/ ex-employee said” dispute in which all the facts have yet to be sorted out.  Lorenzana, the former employee, alleges that she was terminated by Citibank for being so va-va-voom! attractive that she distracted her otherwise staid bank coworkers and supervisors. Citibank, the employer, has told the media that “Ms. Lorenzana has chosen to make numerous unfounded accusations and inaccurate statements against Citibank and several of our employees.  While we will not discuss the details of her case, we can say that her termination was solely performance-based and not at all related to her appearance or attire.  We are confident that when all of the facts and documentation are presented, the claim will be dismissed.”

The timing of her lawsuit certainly seems too good to be accidental.  Stanford Professor Deborah Rohde’s recently published book, The Beauty Bias, argues that attractiveness is such a powerful factor in hiring that the nation may need tough new laws to combat “lookism.” Just as the bloggers and op-ed writers were starting to argue about whether we need yet another protected class of Americans and, perhaps, quotas of ugly people in the workplace, here comes a victimized beauty claiming that discrimination cuts both ways. As John Travolta’s character says in “Face-Off,” “What a coinkydink!” Continue reading →

Helen Thomas, Bias, and the Demon Pazuzu

/ Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

Let me be clear: there is nothing wrong with superannuated newswoman Helen Thomas believing that the Jews should “get the hell out of Palestine” and return to Germany and Poland. An if she believes it, there is nothing wrong with her saying so, as she did to a questioning rabbi. It’s good to know. Since we now know her biases on the matter, we can better assess her credibility when she writes about Middle East politics.  As Joe Gandleman writes on “The Moderate Voice:

“Just saying “Go back to where you come from” is the same as the misguided, empty-headed Americans who shout “Go back to Africa” to blacks or “Go back to Mexico” to American born Latinos when they know they are American born Latinos. It shows her so hopelessly biased and lacking realistic perspective that stories written by her beg to be skipped over…. on the Middle East story, how can anyone think that when she asks questions she is seeking information to flesh out a story (unless it was a special on airfares so Jews can fly out of Israel)?”

As I said: good to know. What is wrong and dishonest, however, is Thomas’s “apology” after it began to sink in that her candidly expressed and crude bias could be a career-ender. So, emulating that eminent anti-Semite, Mel Gibson, Helen released this: Continue reading →

Unethical Quote of the Week: Charles Blow

/ Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

“Such has been the narrative of his presidency: being treated like the janitor in chief — mopping up messes made by others and being chastised for leaving streaks.”

—New York Times columnist Charles M. Blow, discussing the public’s impatience with President Obama’s response to the Gulf oil spill.

Blow’s revolting comment, buried toward the end of an article calling for President Obama to display more emotion [Translation: “Act!”] over the Gulf catastrophe, is nothing short of despicable, but perhaps we should be grateful for it nonetheless.  Now we know the drill: no matter what the issue, no matter what the provocation, biased, race-baiting commentators like Blow will judge any criticism of President Obama to be motivated by bigotry, and refuse to accord his critics the respect they expect to be given themselves. Continue reading →

Baseball Ethics Confusion: When Respect Is Disrespectful

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment

After the Florida Marlins’ Brett Carroll stole second on Chicago White Sox pitcher Scott Linebrink in an attempt to pad a 7-0 lead in the fourth inning of an interleague game between the two teams, the White Sox cried foul. The Marlins, some members of the team said, had violated one of the “unwritten rules of baseball,” in other words, baseball etiquette. Continue reading →

The Old Pro’s Betrayal, Baseball Style

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

It’s a dramatic scenario as old as Homer. The Young Hero (YH) lets his ego get in the way of his judgement, and the Old Pro (OP), now graying, diminished and wobbly, sets him straight with a cuff to the head, a sympathetic smile, and some tough love. Years later, the YH, now established and successful, credits the OP, now dead and perhaps forgotten, with making the difference in his life.

This isn’t just movie and novel stuff, as you know: it really happens. It may have happened to you. I know I’ve played both roles, and more than once.

In 2010, however, the plot is a little different.  Continue reading →

Ethics Dunce: Rand Paul

/ Jack Marshall / 10 Comments

The demise of the Tea Party movement may well come when it actually has to put individual candidates before the electorate and the media to carry its message. At least, that is what the ascendancy of Rand Paul, now the Republican nominee for the U.S. Senate in Kentucky after his primary victory this week, portends. Paul, before his first week as the nominee is up, has managed to expose himself as unacceptably challenged by the task of reconciling the deceptively simplistic philosophy of libertarians with real world ethics. Specifically, he has declared that he does not support the 1964 Civil Rights Act’s requirement that private businesses  serve all members of the public, irrespective of race, nationality, religion and sexual orientation. This position Rand haltingly clung to despite withering interviews on National Public Radio and MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow Show. You can see the latter, in two parts, here and here. Continue reading →

The 4th, the Crisis, and the Duty to Celebrate

/ Jack Marshall / 3 Comments

The Fourth of July is less than 60 days away, and communities are looking hard at their budgets. The signs are ominous. This doesn’t seem like the right time to be throwing big parties.

This week, the Alexandria Chapter of the American Red Cross announced that it was canceling the Waterfront Festival, a summer community celebration with fireworks that it had sponsored since 1981. “We decided that responding to a fire in the middle of the night was a much better use of our resources,” said a local Red Cross’s executive director. Indeed. The total costs of the event totaled close to a quarter-million dollars. In times of financial stress, and even in better times, a service organization using resources and volunteer time to throw a community party of such magnitude seems irresponsible.

So what are we going to do about the 4th of July? Continue reading →

Ethics Quilt: Ghosts, Teachers, Facebook, and More

/ Jack Marshall / Leave a comment
  • Is It Ethical to Censor Someone’s Question You Think Is Unethical?:  Here is a post questioning whether a question can be so offensive that it is unethical to even ask it. The obvious answer: if you refuse to ask it, nobody will have the chance to explain what’s wrong with it.
  • “Yeah, Well, he Probably Deserved it…”:  As mind-blowing as the video of the Texas teacher assaulting and savagely beating a male student are the many, many on-line comments expressing sympathy and even support for her actions. What on earth is going on out there? Yes, teachers are placed in a nearly impossible position by restrictions on class discipline. Yes, there are students whose conduct is outrageous. Yes, I’m sure many teachers have wanted to lash out. Yes, the kid was probably no angel. Neither these or any other factors can possibly justify an adult authority figure resorting to violence against a student, a child, and someone placed in her care by the family and the state. “Where can I contribute to her defense fund?” writes one commenter. Another’s response is that if it were her son, she would come down to the school and beat up the teacher. And people keep asking me why I bother to write about ethics… Continue reading →