The Great American Foreclosure Song

Nice!

Law Music Video: Chemical Workers' Song

Industrial workers may be at risk for serious health injuries due to long term exposure to dangerous chemicals.  The workers know this inherently, yet need to make a living. What is the social response through law?

Pick your favorite version:



A Capella lads from UConn:




















The dance version:

Trump is the Pedagogical Gift that Keeps on Giving

Some people, events and sources seemingly never cease to provide teaching opportunities and materials for our courses on law and ethics.  I have previously credited Lindsay Lohan for the treasure trove of litigation that her travails have provided.  But I think that Donald Trump has, and will for many years, provide us with a wealth of teachable moments.

Today's example comes from his comments in the presidential debate. First, when challenged by Secretary Clinton over his failure to pay income taxes, Mr. Trump responded as indicated in the video clip below from the second debate:

In the first :50 of the clip below from the first debate, Mr. Trump gave his view on business regulations:


So, placing Mr.Trump's positions side by side, we hear:

"Don't rely on business people to do the right thing on their own.  Socially responsible conduct must be enforced by law.  But laws that seek to enforce socially responsible conduct are bad for business and government should reduce or eliminate them."

Is this just another iteration of the narrative of: "Regulations that protect me from that other guy are good, but regulations that protect the other guy from me are oppressive."?

Regardless of what happens in the election, Donald Trump has now become the most visible example of American business culture and conduct.  Students may see a failure to counter these examples in a business ethics course as affirmation of their value. Is this the business culture that we seek to foster in our students?

Thought Provoking Law Quote: Frank Galvin in, "The Verdict"

In this blockbuster movie from the 1980's based on Boston lawyer Barry Reed's novel, an alcoholic lawyer mired in hard times thrust upon him by a legal system that rewards cronyism tries to redeem himself by winning a medical malpractice case.  See the post here.

In one scene, the lawyer, Frank Galvin (played by Paul Newman and earning an Oscar nomination) gives us a glimpse of what lies inside the gritty exterior and beyond the grimy practices.

The weak, the weak have got to have somebody to fight for them.... That's why the court exists. The court doesn't exist to give them justice, eh? But to give them a chance at justice.

See the scene below, beginning around :30:

The Political Context of Business Organizations

We spend a lot of time in our Legal Environment classes and space in our textbooks covering the law-making procedures of courts.  Likewise, the administrative rule-making process is well covered. Inexplicably, we spend little or no time and space teaching about legislative law-making. Is it because we are too squeamish about the sausage-making?

Business law educators are familiar with the AACSB guidlines for undergraduate education and have lauded their recognition of the need for business education on legal and regulatory topics.  But one subject among those AACSB topic guidelines is all too often overlooked:

Standard 9: Curriculum content is appropriateto general expectations for the degree program type and learning goals.[CURRICULUM CONTENT] …

General Business and Management Knowledge Areas

· Economic, political, regulatory, legal, technological, and social contexts of organizations in a global society

· Social responsibility, including sustainability, and ethical behavior and approaches to management …

(emphasis added).

In very few business schools do we offer course work exposure to the political context of organizations in society. It would seem that some discussion of the political law-making process in our Legal Environment courses is not only justified but necessary.

Which brings up the topic of the  recently released publication, "The Confessions of Congressman X."  This 65 page pamphlet purports to be the candid inside disclosures of a longtime Congressman.  As reported in the New York Post, the pamphlet contains revelations such as:

“Business organizations and unions fork over more than $3 billion a year to those who lobby the federal government. Does that tell you something? We’re operating a f–king casino.” 

and:

“I contradict myself all the time, but few people notice. One minute I rail against excessive spending and ballooning debt. The next minute I’m demanding more spending on education, health care, unemployment benefits, conservation projects, yadda, yadda, yadda.”

And quoted in the Washington Post:

“The average man on the street actually thinks he influences how I vote. Unless it’s a hot-button issue, his thoughts are generally meaningless. I’ll politely listen, but I follow the money.”

The way that big business money affects public policy as expressed in law is as relevant to a Legal Environment class as a discussion of stare decisis.  Just because sausage such as this is sure to give one indigestion, doesn't mean our students shouldn't know about it.

Companies' Fatal Failures to Warn of Product Dangers

The national press is reporting that after discovering a dozen serious infections in European hospitals resulting from the use of their medical scopes, Olympus Corp. notified European Hospitals of the risk.  At the same time, the company ordered its American executives NOT to warn American hospitals. Allegedly, thirty-five U.S. patients died after the European warnings and while American hospitals remained in the dark about the infection risk.

This same scenario seems to play out again and again - from exploding Ford Pintos to suddenly accelerating Toyotas to stalling Chevy Cobalts - and precious human lives were lost. Ultimately, the businesses suffered devastating fines, reputational damage and hyperinflated expense. Are executives always motivated to cash out on short term bonuses leaving subsequent executives to pick up the pieces?  Is there anything we can do in education America's future executives to break the pattern?

Conn. Senator Blumenthal touts his actions against GM's deceit:

Brotherhood of Man

I know that I have posted this before, but I have found a few new videos and thought they might be useful.  I see a lot of smiling faces when I play one of these videos in class or before class starts.

I tell students that they have to get to the point where acting ethically is not a decision but instinct.  You have to inherently derive joy from doing the right thing.  Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, which preceded The Wealth of Nations, said that people will be inherently moral because it brings them joy to do so. Therefore, the basis of the free market economic theory is that everyone, inherently, as if "guided by an invisible hand," acts morally.

Ultimately, it is all about being part of the Brotherhood of Man:

Business Ethics: The Brotherhood of Man

I know that I have posted this before, but I just completed a unit on ethics and wanted to share.

I tell students that they have to get to the point where acting ethically is not a decision but instinct.  You have to inherently derive joy from doing the right thing.  Adam Smith in the Theory of Moral Sentiments, which preceded The Wealth of Nations, said that people will be inherently moral because it brings them joy to do so. Therefore, the basis of the free market economic theory is that everyone, inherently, as if "guided by an invisible hand," acts morally.

Ultimately, it is all about being part of the Brotherhood of Man:





Click image below:

Thought Provoking Law Quote: Abraham Lincoln

How often do we read or hear people saying that NOW we need to pay attention to business ethics. The implication is that recent events and actions have given rise to inequities, injustice and social detriment. However, a strong argument can be made that ethical challenges exist in the very fabric of a capitalist society and these issues have been worthy of attention from the very beginnings of an industrial society.

As the Civil War was winding down in 1864, President Lincoln began to look ahead to what he perceived as the next great crisis facing the nation.

I see in the near future a crisis approaching that unnerves me and causes me to tremble for the safety of my country.  . . .  Corporations have been enthroned and an era of corruption in high places will follow, and the money power of the country will endeavor to prolong its reign by working upon the prejudices of the people until all wealth is aggregated in a few hands and the Republic is destroyed. 

    

           -Abraham Lincoln in a letter to Col. Elkins, Nov. 21, 1864

Guest Blogger: Robert Prentice - The Role of Role Morality in the North Carolina Athletic Academic Scandal

The Role of Role Morality in the North Carolina Athletic Academic Scandal

            Here’s a teachable moment.  Both business professors and students should pay close attention to the academic scandal at the University of North Carolina where “paper” courses were offered in disproportionate numbers to mostly football and basketball players in order to keep them eligible to play without requiring them to attend class, read, write, or learn anything.  For years grades for independent study classes in the Afro-American Studies Department were handed out on a “need” basis rather than an “earned” basis by office secretary Debby Crowder and, to a lesser degree, by department chair Julius Nyang’oro.  Plagiarism was rampant.  The utter lack of academic standards was unconscionable and inexcusable.  It greatly damaged UNC’s reputation as a university that could balance successful athletic programs with high academic standards.

            The important lesson here is not so much what happened as why it happened.  A natural conclusion might be that Crowder and Nyang’oro were corrupt, or greedy, or just bad people.  But the recently-released 131-page Wainstein Report makes it clear that Crowder and Nyang’oro did bad things, but not to line their pockets, or even to promote their department.  Their primary motivation was to help the students.  Crowder’s background led her to do almost anything to help students who were struggling, as she had once struggled herself.  Nyang’oro had taught two students athletes early in his career who had become academically ineligible and been forced to leave school. One had soon been murdered and the other ended up in prison.  Nyang’oro wished to avoid similar future tragedies.

            Crowder’s and Nyang’oro’s motives mirrored those of the teachers and administrators at the center of the Atlanta public school scandal that is still playing out.  In Atlanta, smart and dedicated teachers changed exam answers so that their students could pass standardized tests and their schools could stay open.  They thought their students had worked hard and were doing the best they could, so they cheated to prevent the students from being labeled as “failures” and having their schools closed down.  The motivation was understandable, but people are going to jail for their actions and, like UNC, the Atlanta school system will be under a cloud for years to come.

            The notion of role morality provides some context here.  Oftentimes people will do unethical things that they would not ordinarily do because of a role they perceive that they are playing inside an organization.  They might never lie to put money in their own pockets, but find themselves stretching the truth so that their company can meet its profit goals.  In their role as a “loyal employee,” they give themselves permission to be dishonest.  They might never cheat to advance their own career, but they do to help their child get into a better school than the child deserves.  In their role as “loving parent,” they give themselves permission not to live up to their normal standards.

            It is obviously easier to rationalize wrongdoing if we are doing it not to help ourselves but to help someone else, such as our students, our friends, our family, or our co-workers.  If students understand how role morality can make them vulnerable to taking unethical actions, they can guard against such mistakes.   It might be helpful for them to view the educational video on role morality at my school’s website:  http://ethicsunwrapped.utexas.edu/video/role-morality.  The video is easily-available, award-winning, and, best of all, free.

Robert Prentice

McCombs School of Business

University of Texas at Austin

Employment -at-Will on Crack!

There have been plenty of posts in this blog with examples of dodgy firings. Pretty much all of them are allowed under the employment-at-will doctrine. But here is an article with the accurately descriptive headline, "A Woman Told Her Boss About A Devastating Cancer Diagnosis.He Responded By Firing Her." Read it for yourself and fashion your lesson plan on employment law, ethics, employer responsibility, employee vulnerability, ADA (and when it does not apply) or humanity as the case may be.

This is not an isolated case:

UPS Pink Slips Likely to Result in Extra Special Deliveries

According to the Huffington Post, UPS has fired hundreds of workers who staged a solidarity protest for a fired worker. The really troubling part of this story is:

Twenty of the workers were notified of their dismissal on Monday. The remaining 230 were told they would be fired as soon as replacements are trained.

Is this a sustainable model for continuing business? If you were worried about the quality of package handling before this debacle, imagine your packages now being at the mercy of 230 lame-duck, ticked-off employees with nothing to lose by taking their frustrations out on your packages in order to get back at the company.  I thought managers were supposed to be rational actors in an effort to limit liability exposure.  UPS just lit a neon sign that says, "don't use our services until we train a bunch of new employees or your packages are likely to be stomped into slivers."

UPS package handling without the extra added incentive of being fired:

Law and Ethics

From Robert Emerson:



Visit Prof. Emerson's YouTube channel, here, for more videos.

From the Ethics Guy:



Visit the Ethics Guy YouTube channel, here.

And don't forget the Ethics Unwrapped site from Univ. of Texas, here.

Three New Ethics Videos Unwrapped

This blog has previously featured the Ethics Unwrapped website from the University of Texas. The site is now linked in the menu on the left side of the blog.  Professor Robert Prentice advises readers that the site has added three new videos:

We have just released three new videos on Moral Myopia, Moral Muteness, and Moral Imagination, with content provided by Dr. Minette Drumwright, who teaches ethics at the University of Texas's McCombs School of Business and Moody School of Communication.  As always, the videos are free for all to use.

Moral Myopia:

Flash! Flash! Speed Trap Ahead!

A federal judge has ruled that a driver's act of flashing lights at oncoming drivers is protected free speech and may not be punished by government. The case comes from the US District Court in Missouri.

Jonathan Turley, a criminal attorney and a professor at George Washington University Law School, said courts across the country are dealing with the same issue. In virtually every case except those still being decided, the person cited has prevailed, Turley said.

While flashing lights might be legal, is it ethical? Who is being helped? What public purpose does it serve? Shouldn't speeders be caught and punished?  If ethics is the communal sense of right and wrong, does it matter if you are a member of the community of drivers or the greater community of citizens of the area - including children, elderly, disabled and non-drivers who are at risk from speeders?  How many times has an innocent driver been injured or even killed because a speeding driver lost control and crossed the center line? You might think that you are helping out a fellow driver, but are you really part of the problem?

Just thinking...

Shocking Lack of Ethics in Politics

This story involves a shocking violation of any conceivable ethical standard.  But it involves politics, not business. Once again, if these are the people who make laws, then what hope do we have that they would give a hoot about using law to mandate ethical conduct.

Apparently, Republicans in Florida have made a website that looks like a site for Democratic Congressional candidate Alex Sink.  However, when you click on the button to donate, you are actually pledging money to her opponent.

As reported by The Cloakroom:

The Tampa Bay Times interviews one donor who thought he was giving to Alex Sink's (D) congressional campaign. It even used the same blue and green color scheme as the candidate's official website.
Said the donor: "It looked legitimate and had a smiling face of Sink and all the trappings of a legitimate site."
But he didn't see the small print, which said, "Make a contribution today to help defeat Alex Sink and candidates like her." 

See candidate Sink's actual website, here.  Read The Daily Kos report and see images from the fake site here.  See NRCC website  to defeat Sink here.

Image from Alex Sink's site:


Image from NRCC site:

Ethics Unwrapped: Moral Equlibrium

From the University of Texas Ethics Unwrapped series:

Ethics: It's About the Brotherhood of Man.

Law is an expression of public policy decisions.  Sometimes the public policy intentionally permits less than laudable conduct.  The employment-at-will doctrine comes to mind as an example. To encourage employment, the law gives free reign to employers to dismiss employees - even if the grounds for the dismissal seem unfair. See posts: Fired For Racial Tolerance; Fired For Choice of Necktie; Fired For Wearing Orange Shirts.

Ethics, on the other hand, carry no such hidden agenda.  Ethical principles encourage doing the right thing, independent of considerations of expediency, efficiency, profit or other purportedly justifiable circumstance. In short, ethics is about the "Broterhood of Man."  As in:

There is a Brotherhood of Man,
A Benevolent Brotherhood of Man,
A noble tie that binds
All human hearts and minds
Into one Brotherhood of Man. 

Your lifelong membership is free.
Keep agivin' each brother all you can.
Oh aren't you proud to be
In that fraternity,
The great big Brotherhood of Man? 

Oh, that noble feeling,
Feels like bells are pealing,
Down with double-dealing,
Oh Brother! 

You, you got me;
Me, I got you, you! 

From "How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying":

Daniel Radcliffe:


Robert Morse:


Matthew Broderick - click on image below:


Drew Carey:

Socially Irresponsible Investment Banking

This is a re-post of a video originally posted in 2010. Having used this video in class last week, I am once again reminded of its effectiveness. The LSCB has many more readers now than it did when this was first posted, so hopefully more readers will enjoy this learning resources and find ways to incorporate it into their classes.

This video allows you to consider the relationship between ethical conduct and short or long term profit as well as popular impressions of business.

Using "God" to Sell Products or Services

The LSCB previously posted commentary about a Sam Adams Beer Ad that quoted the Declaration of Independence but conspicuously deleted references to "Our Creator." Sam Adams's response: The Beer Institute Advertising and Marketing Code (yes, this exists) states:

Beer advertising and marketing materials should not employ religion or religious themes. 

Indeed, ethical standards are important and this one seems to make sense.  Can you image a beer ad that says, "Drink Schlockmeier Beer. It's God's choice for you?" Such advertising would be patently absurd and would unfairly play on the consumer's faith to sell a product for profit. While such a business practice is undoubtedly legal, wouldn't it most certainly be unethical?

Consider the commercial below.  It suggests that by using this dating service, you will find "God's match for you." Is this ethical practice or not?  Discuss.

Another link to see ads is available here.