The Naked Mayor Principle ( or “What an Idiot!”)

April 4, 2025 / Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Tom Ross, the “non-partisan” mayor of Minot, North Dakota, has resigned. Guess why. He accidentally sent an explicit nude video of himself to City Attorney Stefanie Stalheim. For some reason, this moron waited for a city investigation to be completed before doing what he should have done the moment it happened, which was back in January. The investigation found that the mayor and Stalheim had concluded a town business related phone call about a Minot police officer who had committed suicide and the mayor sent her the “Ew!” video shortly thereafter.

Ross insisted he sent the video to the wrong address and had intended to send it to his girlfriend. So what? The Naked Mayor Principle, though never explicitly stated here because no previous mayor has been this stupid (or stupid in this particular way), is a natural corollary to the Naked Teacher Principle, which states that a secondary school teacher or administrator who allows pictures of himself or herself showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses to be seem online cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result. A high elected official who sends such a photo or video to an employee is in an ethically similar position. Bye!

The frisky mayor handed over his resignation letter prior to a Minot City Council special meeting called to deal with the scandal. The city investigator found that due “to Ross’s position as one of increased visibility, responsibility, and trust, and due to his decision to use a personal cell phone to conduct city business, that the fact that he would use that device to record and send videos of this nature is in and of itself reckless enough that he knew the risk he was taking by engaging in such behavior.” Yah think? The investigator also concluded that the incident met the city’s standard for workplace harassment, whether or not it was accidental. I don’t know about that, but it doesn’t matter. The town’s mayor takes naked photos of himself and sends it to people. Ick. Pooie. Elected officials shouldn’t be behaving like teenagers, even competently. He’s an idiot. Idiots shouldn’t be mayors.

Case closed.

The Nearly Naked Teacher’s Volunteer Principle!

February 10, 2025 / Jack Marshall / 12 Comments

Funny, I was just thinking about how there hadn’t been a genuine Naked Teacher Principle story in a long time, and POOF!—one magically appears. The last genuine variation of the NTP, as we call it around here for short, was in late December 2023, featuring the Porn Actor University Chancellor. Last year, there was one storie nixed by the NTP qualifications committee of one, the rap-singing teacher, and one really weird story that deserves its own category, The Drag Queen School Principal Principle.

Today’s NTP story, however, is the Real McCoy, as you can probably guess from that photo above of Victoria Triece, 33. Victoria sued Orange County Public Schools for $1 million in 2023 because Sand Lake Elementary would not let her volunteer to assist with her son’s class activities after discovering she had a web presence that was, they thought, inappropriate. Ms. Triece is an Only Fans star, an adult entertainer, and a former cover girl for Playboy and FHM magazine.

In the lawsuit she claimed to be “humiliated'” by the rejection, arguing that her personal life was off limits to be judged by the school administrators. They violated her rights of free speech, free assembly and her right of privacy, she averred, and also subjected her to ‘”sexual cyberharassment” for sharing photos from her OnlyFans site among staff and with media outlets.

See, this is the essence of the Naked Teacher Principle. It isn’t that someone who has exposed (or nearly) their bodacious bod on the web has to be judged unfit or even should be judged unfit to teach impressionable young minds once the photos become public. The NTP just holds that they have no one to blame but themselves if that’s the decision.

Orange County Circuit Judge Brian S. Sandor ultimately ruled that Victoria had no “substantive due process right” to volunteer at the school, so her lawsuit had no valid claims. The judge also wrote that Triece does not have the right to argue with school about being removed, since the volunteer program “does not include any language that confers any right or benefit upon an individual to participate in the program, to remain in the program, or to appeal a removal decision.”

__________________

Pointer: Old Bill

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

March 22, 2024 / 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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The Drag Queen School Principal Principle

February 5, 2024 / Jack Marshall / 2 Comments

I was going to make this tale an ethics quiz, but decided that we’ve settled this issue before.

Dr. Shane Murnan had been the principal at John Glenn Elementary School in Oklahoma City since June. After he was hired, The Libs of TikTok revealed last September that he was an extracurricular drag queen, and placed photos of him as “Shantel Mandalay” on social media. Predictably, conservatives pounced and demanded that he be fired, while the school defended him. The uproar intensified, however, and Shantel was eventually placed on administrative leave.

Now he has resigned, finding that the scrutiny and criticism from social media and elsewhere is too much to bear.

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Believe It Or Not! The Best “Naked Teacher Principle” Variation Yet: The Porn Actor University Chancellor!

December 29, 2023December 29, 2023 / Jack Marshall / 9 Comments

I was tipped off to this story, which I hereby designate a Ripley, yesterday, and regret not getting it up before the rest of the news media and blogosphere caught up.

The Universities of Wisconsin Board of Regents voted unanimously this week to fire longtime UW-La Crosse Chancellor Joe Gow. UW System President Jay Rothman said the university leadership had discovered “specific conduct”that caused harm to the university’s reputation.

The “specific conduct” was appearing in online porn videos with his wife.

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The Democrat Porn Star Virginia Legislature Candidate Renders The “Ethics Dunce” Designation Obsolete: “The Naked Porn-Performing Political Candidate Principle” Perhaps?

September 14, 2023September 14, 2023 / Jack Marshall / 4 Comments

I don’t know what you call this, but whatever it is, “ethics dunce” just isn’t enough.

That’s Susanna Gibson above with her husband (I don’t know where those annoying stars came from) performing on a porn website while she was already running as a candidate for the Virginia House of Delegates. The 40-year-old Democrat, along with her lawyer husband, have been appearing in flagrante delicto on an X-rated website, and offering to perform sundry sex acts in front of the camera, including those involving violence and bodily excretions, in exchange for money—not that there’s anything wrong with that.

But after the conservative Washington Free Beacon was tipped off to this rare proclivity on the part of a political candidate and wrote about it, Gibson announced that she was shocked—shocked!—that anyone would feel that a candidate for the legislature soliciting money for sex acts was something the public had a right to know about. She found a lawyer willing to try to use Maryland’s “revenge porn” law to punish such people. Daniel P. Watkins of the Meier Watkins Phillips Pusch firm, argues that “it’s illegal and it’s disgusting to disseminate this kind of material”and says that he is “working closely with the F.B.I. and local prosecutors to bring the wrongdoers to justice.”

Sure, Danny, good luck with that! It’s a ridiculous idea for a law suit, but ya never know, so it slips under the wire as “ethical,” though any lawyer bringing such a suit should have to wear a bag on his head.

Ugh. Where to begin?

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The Return Of The Naked Teacher Principle!

November 16, 2022 / Jack Marshall / 11 Comments

Has it really been so long? Ethics Alarms hasn’t had a Naked Teacher Principle outbreak in more than three years! Oh, we’ve had related ethics tales of a naked Congresswoman (Katie Hill), a Santa in a MAGA hat, a naked ex-Miss Kentucky teacher who’s an idiot. a too-sexy firefighter scandal, the unfairly fired naked nurse, and this year’s ridiculous Cross-Dressing Future Congressman Principle involving ex-GOP House member Madison Cawthorne. No authentic Naked Teacher Principle (NTP), however, which states that a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.

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Rep. Cawthorne And The Cross-Dressing Future Congressman Principle Question

April 23, 2022 / Jack Marshall / 5 Comments

Yes, this is a funny controversy, but not entirely trivial. And you knew Ethics Alarms would be on it like hound on a hock of ham, because examining the Naked Teacher Principle [NTP]and its real or proposed extensions, sisters, cousins and aunts, have been a periodic obsession of both Ethics Alarms and its predecessor, The Ethics Scoreboard. Add to that the fact that that Madison Cawthorn (R-NC.), is both a Christian values-spouting politician and a mega-jerk, and the photo above, showing him cavorting in lingerie, cannot be ignored (or, once seen, unseen).

The Principle states that a secondary school teacher or administrator (or other role model for children) who allows pictures of himself or herself to be widely publicized, as on the web, showing the teacher naked or engaging in sexually provocative poses, cannot complain when he or she is dismissed by the school as a result.

It is important to remember that even the Naked Teacher Principle does not hold that teachers necessarily should be dismissed if old photos surface of them online that show more of them than parents and schools want students to see, but that it is their own carelessness that created their career crisis, and that the decision to dismiss them is ethically defensible. Most recent posts on the topic involve whether the NTP can be applied to other professions.The last time it was discussed, in 2012, involved a nurse who made money on the side by posing provocatively on a sexually themed website. The conclusion here was was that there was no “Naked Nurse Principle,” and that her firing was unjust. The previous NTP-related post involved, almost a year before that one, rebutting the argument that there are similar principles regarding police and firefighters. Some of the more interesting versions that have been explored on Ethics Alarms include The Female Bodybuilder Firefighter Principle, The Drag Queen Principal Principle, The Online Porn Star Teacher Principle, Naked Naval War College Professor Principle, and more.

So now we must ask, “Is there a Cross-Dressing Future Congressman Principle”? Continue reading →

Monday Ethics Warm-Up, 10/19/2020: Wherein My Head Explodes At Least Once

October 19, 2020March 1, 2021 / Jack Marshall / 36 Comments

head-explode Calvin

1. KABOOM! Just when I thought 1) Georgetown could not embarrass this alum more thoroughly and 2) my head had been immunized from exploding comes the astounding news that Georgetown University has hired former FBI agent Peter Strzok as an adjunct professor. Strzok is now listed on the university’s staff page and he mentioned the Walsh School of Foreign Service on his Twitter profile. An alumnus, he will be teaching a “Counterintelligence and National Security” in the fall semester.

While engaged in an adulterous affair with then FBI lawyer Lisa Page in 2016, Strzok exchanged suspicious anti- Trump messages that called into question the legitimacy and fairness of the Mueller investigation. The FBI fired Strzok in 2018 for undermining public confidence in the non-partisanship of the bureau and federal law enforcement.

Stay classy, Georgetown! I already have my law school diploma facing the wall; I guess I can coat it with some kind of noxious substance…

2. The villain here is the professor. This is no time to be a weenie. Actually, there is never a good time to be a weenie. A professor at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law used “nigger” (referred to in infantile fashion by the law school’s announcement as “the n-word,” since “poopy badspeak” hasn’t caught on yet) in the context of discussing an offensive language case. But of course a student or six reported him, because they could, and it is an easy way for young progressive cowards to justify puffing up their pigeon chests because they get to cause trouble for someone who did absolutely nothing wrong.

The adjunct professor has not been identified, but in an email from law school administrators, including Law Dean Amy Wildermuth, it was announced that the professor has resigned.

“The instructor apologized and expressed his deep regret to the class, and informed the class at 1 p.m. today that he was resigning immediately from teaching at Pitt Law,” the announcement said in part. “We condemn the use of this word, and we believe that saying this word and words like it, even in an academic context, is deeply hurtful,” the note concluded.

Words are not hurtful. Meanings are hurtful, when they are intentional. This is virtue-signaling and language policing of the most indefensible sort. The professor, whoever he is, had an obligation to the school, the culture, his profession, common sense and himself to fight, not surrender.

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