Wisconsin Democrats have filed an ethics complaint against Governor Scott Walker.
The complaint, and the filing of it, are unethical. Really, really, really unethical. Here’s why. Continue reading
threats
“Keeping It” in Seattle: Flunking the Duty To Stand Up To Anti-Speech Bullies
Could it be time for an “Everybody Beat on Israel Day”?
Count me out. Still, there is finally an instructive example of bullies who don’t embrace radical Islam causing First Amendment timidity, and raising ethical issues too.
Seattle’s Department of Transportation sells advertising on city buses. When the “Seattle Mideast Awareness Campaign” bought space to condemn Israel’s policies with ads headlined,‘Israeli War Crimes: Your Tax Dollars at Work’ featuring a picture of children next to a bomb-damaged building,” the Department was flooded with protests by Jews and Israel supporters. Most of them were stern, indignant or argumentative, but about 25 conveyed an intention to disrupt or vandalize buses,take violent measures, or suggested that bus riders would soon be at risk.” Some examples:
- “If you want to see how tough Jews can be, then go ahead and run those despicable ads and we’ll see who has the last word on this. If you run these ads, we will work together with our Jewish friends and others to shut Metro down.”
- “I think I will organize a group to riot at your bus stops.” Continue reading
“The Strange Case of the Threatening Hypothetical”, Continued: The Verdict Is In!
The Victim
Lawrence Connell, the Widener School of Law criminal law professor placed on administrative leave for using the school Dean in a “violent scenario” to illustrate legal principles to his class, has given a revealing and clarifying interview to the National Association of Scholars website.
This section is most relevant to his current plight, and the fairness of complaints leveled against him by some of his students. It’s also about one of my favorite topics in criminal law, attempt law, which has a significant ethical component, as you will see. But the main point of interest is that includes one of the supposedly racist, sexist, threatening hypotheticals he used.
Q: Can you give me an example of a hypothetical you might have used in class, to which the students who complained might have been referring? Can you describe the context in which you would have used it? Continue reading
The Strange Case of the Threatening Hypothetical
Lawrence Connell, a tenured associate professor at Widener University School of Law in Delaware, is fond of using famous or familiar people in the hypotheticals he presents to his criminal law class. One of his imaginary scenarios involved him as a murderer, and the school’s Dean as his victim. Now he is on administrative leave from the school, as administrators investigate him for using “violent scenarios” that some students complained violated the school’s discrimination and harassment codes.
Widener University spokesman Dan Hanson, meanwhile, has declined to provide more details on the matter, but insists that Widener is committed to academic freedom.
Right. Continue reading
Frivolous Charge of the Month (Runner-Up): Redskins Owner and Ethics Dunce, Dan Snyder
Most NFL fans know that Washington Redskins owner Dan Snyder is the most hapless, inept, and narcissistic team owner in the league, spending millions upon millions of dollars on the once successful franchise while meddling in team affairs and ending up with a squad that seems to get worse every season. Few knew how petty and mean he was, however, until he was angered by an alternative media publication that published a reporter’s withering, exhaustive article last year, entitled “The Cranky Redskins Fan’s Guide to Dan Snyder”, cataloging the full range of Snyder’s non-feasance, misfeasance, malfeasance, and plain old bone-headedness over his career. Snyder’s lawsuit, filed this week in New York, claims that the article contained “numerous outrageous, false and defamatory statements of and concerning” Snyder. “Simply put,” it says, “no reasonable person would accept the publication of these types of false, malicious, and/or defamatory statements about them or their spouses. Nor would any reasonable person tolerate an anti-Semitic caricature of himself or herself prominently displayed on the front pages of a newspaper containing false and malicious allegations.”
The lawsuit is ridiculous on many levels, but mostly because it is a classic frivolous action. Continue reading
Jesus, Ants, Art, and Republican Abuse of Power
The Republicans haven’t even taken over the House of Representatives yet, and they are already emulating Islamic extremists—and I’m not exaggerating. Continue reading
Allied Against Consumers and Ethics: Google and the Sociopathic Businessman
Today the New York Times extensively documents the unethical business strategy used by the owner of a web-based eyewear business.
After making the discovery that Google does not distinguish between positive and negative mentions of a business on the Internet, he resolved to treat complaining customers as badly as possible to encourage complaints about his company on consumer sites. I do mean “as badly as possible”: the Times relates the accounts of customers who received insulting phone calls, threatening mail, and other harassing and bullying communications from the entrepreneur, who uses multiple aliases. The method works well: since on-line diatribes, complaints and bad reviews have piled up over his poor service, outrageous conduct and often shoddy merchandise, the man’s business is booming. Its name consistently nears the top of Google’s search results when a potential customer types the name of his or her favorite eyewear designer and “eyeglasses,” sometimes placing higher than the designer itself. Continue reading
The University of Central Florida Cheating Scandal Irony: the YouTube Ethics Hero Is Really the Ethics Dunce
[Let me begin by apologizing to Ethics Alarms readers for coming so late to the party on this one. I recently read about the UCF business school cheating scandal and the viral video it spawned, and learned that they have been a major source of blog chatter and media attention for more than a week now. It was all news to me. When you spend your days and nights searching for stories presenting ethics issues and manage to miss one that people who aren’t even looking find with ease, you’re doing something wrong. I’m embarrassed. Many of you send me ethics stories you come across; keep doing that, please, and if you know of a big story that I seem to be ignoring, drop me an e-mail about it if you have the time [jamproethics@verizon.net]. Usually I’m ignoring it because I think the ethics of the matter are obvious, but sometimes it is because I have missed the forest for the trees. I’ll be very grateful.]
Now that I’ve arrived at the party, however, I intend to be the official pooper. The lionized professor and Youtube sensation in the incident, Richard Quinn, was a worse ethics violator that the students that he declared “disgusted him.”
In case you also missed the story, here are facts: Continue reading
Anatomy of An Unethical Report on the Cost of S.B. 1070
The Center for American Progress is out with the results of a study that purports to show the adverse economic effects that Arizona’s economy suffered as the result of conference cancellations and economic boycotts in the wake of the state’s controversial S.B. 1070, which gave police the authority to check on citizen status under some circumstances.
The study itself is fine; it is by a reputable research group, and anything can be studied. The Center’s use of it is manipulative, deceptive and hypocritical, however. Continue reading
Ethics Double Dunces in Ohio: McDonald’s Owner Paul Siegfried and Rep. Jean Schmidt (R, OH.)
The great state of Ohio gave us two Ethics Dunces last week, both related to the upcoming election, both Republicans, both outrageous. Your call as to who was worse; it’s awfully close:
1. Paul Siegfried, Ohio Ethics Dunce #1: The owner of several McDonald’s in northeastern Ohio distributed Republican campaign material to his employees and added a threatening note to their paycheck envelope “suggesting” that three G.O.P. candidates receive their support. Continue reading
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