Average earnings per hour, dollars
Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics
After-tax corporate earnings, billions
Source: Bureau of Economic Analysis
Reported by Public Agenda.
by Rushworth Kidder
Last Thursday the nation crossed a watershed. According to a survey released by Who’s Who Among American High School Students, the number of students who admit to cheating in school now stands at a record 80 percent–up from 76 percent last year.
That Thursday I was home watching them pump the sludge out of our septic tank–an odoriferous rite of passage for life in rural Maine. I fell into conversation with the driver, a jovial soul who runs the business with his father and brother. He asked what I did, so the question of ethics came up. And since I’d been on a radio news program earlier that day about this survey, we got talking about cheating.
He was sobered by the numbers. His parents had founded this small business about thirty years ago. He obviously held them in high regard: The idea that they would have fudged along the way was unthinkable. Not even on taxes, he said. He recalled the time their company got audited. The auditor poked around awhile and walked away shaking her head, declaring she couldn’t find anything wrong at all.
“I never would have cheated off a test!” he said, recalling his own school days and using the vernacular Maine preposition. “I just know I would’ve got caught.”
How times have changed! The students in this survey have “copied someone else’s homework” (76 percent), “cheated on a quiz or test” (40 percent), “used Cliff or Monarch Notes to avoid reading a book” (29 percent), or “plagiarized part of an essay” (13 percent). Only a slender 20 percent say “none of the above.”
Why do they cheat? “Competition for good grades” tops the list at 56 percent–a reprehensible but at least explainable reason for these top students, given that the “one thing they want from their high-school experience” is “preparation for getting into the college of my choice” (83 percent). More troubling is the next reason they cite: It just “didn’t seem like a big deal” (53 percent). In today’s slang, that’s the whatever response–the blow-it-off indifference, the casual disregard for integrity, the subliminal dishonesty that seems so prevalent.
Even more disturbing is that the system supports cheating. The rules are so lax that 95 percent of these students say they never get caught. More than half think it would not be very hard to obtain test questions and answers in their schools. A third of them have never heard anything about cheating from their parents. Little wonder: When Who’s Who surveyed parents in 1997, 63 percent asserted outright that their children had never cheated. Another 11 percent admitted they had no idea whether or not they had.
I thought about all this as the driver was rolling up his hoses. I got out my checkbook, and he checked his gauges and wrote up his (not inconsiderable) invoice. I couldn’t see his gauges. I couldn’t have made sense of them in any case. But I paid without hesitation. It never occurred to me not to trust him.
But who, I thought as I walked back to the house, is going to replace him when he retires? If our best and brightest are sleazing toward success in school, insensitive to the prick of conscience, what will they do when they get out into the world? It’s not just a matter of pumping my tank honestly. It’s a matter of sucking dry the nation’s wealth of respect and confidence–and, along the way, siphoning off a bit here and there from the pools of the funds, ideas, and relationships they will hold in trust for others.
What are we to make of all this?
Three things. First, this is not an indictment of students, but of adults. We’ve lowered the standards. We’ve looked the other way. We’re the models.
Second, this is not irreversible. Corporations are spending millions on ethics training programs–something they wouldn’t do if it were impossible to readjust the moral compass later in life. Experience proves that these voids can be filled in, that mature employees can be brought to higher-order thinking on ethical matters.
But third, this issue won’t go away by itself. Like a full septic tank, it will just sit there stinking until somebody acts. Unless we all, corporations included, understand the importance of teaching character in our schools, the next generation of honest employees will be harder and harder to find. There’s too much sludge in the system. The telltale stench is beginning to waft through our lives.
What can you do? There’s a school near you, I’m certain, that’s already moving into character education. They’re fighting to turn around the “no big deal” syndrome. They’re trying to pump out the moral sludge. They need all the support they can get, from real people on the front lines of commerce and industry, who know the cost of cheating and are willing to set and explain the standards.
(c)1998 by Rushworth Kidder
Comments and questions? Email Rushworth Kidder: rkidder@globalethics.org.
It’s often the little things that change the character and complexion of asituation. Seemingly small actions and decisions can add up to a dismayingethical or legal whole.
That is the case with our lead story this week in Business Ethics Newsline,your weekly summary of the top news in ethics. We report on what is thoughtto be the largest civil antitrust settlement in history, a case stemming fromwhat plaintiffs charged was a series of tiny adjustments in the rounding up of fractions in stock values. But in the long run those increments added up tomillions.
In other news from the world of ethics, we report on two stories dealing withethics and foreign policy: one, a nascent trade war between the United Statesand the European Union, and the other a festering controversy over theimplications of Great Britain’s so-called ethical foreign policy.
We have three stories dealing with what are expected to be precedent-settingcourt cases revolving around ethical issues. From Chicago comes the story ofthe city suing gun manufacturers and sellers; from Washington, a wrap-up ofthe latest moves in tobacco suits; and from Houston, a settlement in a racialdiscrimination case.
London correspondent E.B. Mills files two analyses this week: a look at amedia feeding frenzy over allegations of homosexuality, and an examination ofthe ethical implications of light sentences given two British jurists.
And we conclude with our feature Ethics in the News, this week summarizing andlinking you to a story about business ethics classes taught by people who knowboth sides of the ethical line–”professors” who have been behind bars.
–Carl Hausman
TEGUCIGALPA, Nicaragua
When Hurricane Mitch blasted through Central Americalast week it destroyed roughly 90 percent of Honduran and Nicaraguan bananafarms and prompted many of the industry’s key players–including Dole andChiquita–to warn of massive financial losses, impending layoffs, andplantation closures.
Chiquita, which recently came under fire for alleged substandard pay andmistreatment of its Nicaraguan banana workers, has nevertheless been praised by many of its 7,700 displaced employees, who say the company has providedmoney and food in the wake of Hurricane Mitch, reports NPR and Reuters.
Special to Newsline from London Correspondent E.B. Mills
The British and their media are still trying to come to grips with the issueof homosexuality. Following the sudden resignation of Welsh Minister RonDavies, the British press leaped to the assumption that Davies had gotten intoa jam while cruising Clapham Common for gay sex.
After media reports that another cabinet minister, Peter Mandelson, is gay,the BBC banned any on-air references to Mandelson’s sexuality, which in turnled to an outcry against the BBC for issuing such a limited ban on discussionof the private lives of public people.
Then, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper the Sun “outed” Agriculture MinisterNick Brown, and asked in page one headlines if Britain was being run by a “gaymafia.”
The furor that followed was directed not against Brown, but against the Sun.Brown received the support of the public, and his constituency, Britishfarmers, merely shrugged and said “so what?” Some members ofparliament called for a Press Complaints Commission inquiry, but Brown himselfdecided not to prolong the discussion and refused to file a complaint againstthe Sun.
Nonetheless, bowing to public pressure, the Sun by week’s end had issued apolicy of not “outing” homosexuals just for its own sake. And the tabloid hadbeen so thoroughly ridiculed by rival papers that talk of a “gaymafia” was soon abandoned.
Special to Newsline from London Correspondent E.B. Mills
The British and their media are still trying to come to grips with the issueof homosexuality. Following the sudden resignation of Welsh Minister RonDavies, the British press leaped to the assumption that Davies had gotten intoa jam while cruising Clapham Common for gay sex.
After media reports that another cabinet minister, Peter Mandelson, is gay,the BBC banned any on-air references to Mandelson’s sexuality, which in turnled to an outcry against the BBC for issuing such a limited ban on discussionof the private lives of public people.
Then, Rupert Murdoch’s tabloid newspaper the Sun “outed” Agriculture MinisterNick Brown, and asked in page one headlines if Britain was being run by a “gaymafia.”
The furor that followed was directed not against Brown, but against the Sun.Brown received the support of the public, and his constituency, Britishfarmers, merely shrugged and said “so what?” Some members ofparliament called for a Press Complaints Commission inquiry, but Brown himselfdecided not to prolong the discussion and refused to file a complaint againstthe Sun.
Nonetheless, bowing to public pressure, the Sun by week’s end had issued apolicy of not “outing” homosexuals just for its own sake. And the tabloid hadbeen so thoroughly ridiculed by rival papers that talk of a “gaymafia” was soon abandoned.
CHICAGO
Taking a cue from successful actions against the tobacco industry,Mayor Richard Daley last week filed a $433 million lawsuit against gunmanufacturers and dealers, charging 38 companies with knowingly creating anenvironment in which guns fall into criminal hands.
Daley claimed gun makers and dealers are flooding Chicago with more guns thancould ever be used by law-abiding citizens, and should be held accountable fortheir role in increasing inner-city violence, according to the ChicagoTribune.
Daley alleged that dealers sold handguns to undercover police officers posingas gang members who told gun sellers that they would be using their guns tosettle scores in the city, Reuters reported.
While critics of the suit contend that the sales are lawful, some observerspredict that such suits are likely to catch on as cities across the nationstruggle to cope with gun violence.
The Chicago suit follows similar efforts in Philadelphia and New Orleans.Earlier this month, New Orleans launched a product liability lawsuit againstgun manufacturers, charging the companies with creating defective products byfailing to use the latest technology, such as fingerprint sensors, to makeguns safer.
LONDON
Foreign Secretary Robin Cook last week denied that he had ever usedthe expression “ethical foreign policy” and blamed the press formisrepresenting his statements and stirring up confusion over the Sandline affair, acontroversial private arms sale to Sierra Leone currently being investigatedby U.K. authorities.
Fed up with questions over Sandline, Cook lashed out at the media’s repeatedquestions concerning his “ethical foreign policy” and the fact that Sandline,a mercenary company, claimed that it was within the guidelines of thatpurported policy when it sold the guns to Sierra Leone.
“I’ve given up trying to get this across,” Cook told the New Statesman. “I’venever used the phrase. I never said there would be an ethical foreign policy.”
The phrase, used by an interviewer from the U.K.’s Foreign Commonwealth Officelast May and responded to by Cook without apparent reservation (see linkbelow), has haunted the foreign secretary’s recent efforts to explain theSandline incident, according to the BBC.
Cook insists that the government’s efforts “to put into effect our values”have been hampered by the “ethical” moniker, leading to charges ofgrandstanding, the BBC reported.
NEW YORK
A federal judge gave final approval last week to what appears to bethe largest civil antitrust settlement in history–a $1.03 billionsettlement of a class-action lawsuit accusing 37 securities brokers of price-fixing and profiteering on Nasdaq-traded securities.
The landmark class-action case began after two professors published an articletitled “Why Do Nasdaq Market Makers Avoid Odd Eighth Quotes?” They questionedthe brokers’ practice of rounding Nasdaq securities prices up to the nearestquarter-dollar rather than the nearest eighth when quoting prices tocustomers, thereby inflating brokerage profits, the Reuters news agencyreported.
Firms paying out the settlement include Merrill Lynch, Salmon Smith Barney,and Goldman Sachs.
In addition to the settlement, payable to qualified Nasdaq investors under aschedule expected to be finalized early next year, the scandal has promptedthe National Association of Securities Dealers to promise $100 million overfive years to improve market surveillance, the Associated Press reported.
WASHINGTON
Tobacco companies and negotiators for eight states met lastweek in a renewed effort to arrange a settlement over recouping states’ costsfor treating tobacco-related illnesses, while two related legal actions moved forward inWashington State and Washington, D.C.
Negotiators were putting what appeared to be the finishing touches on amassive $200 billion settlement that could end most state suits againsttobacco companies.
In a related trial in Seattle, a former attorney for the Liggett and Myerstobacco company testified that another tobacco company, Brown & Williamson,warned that if Liggett marketed a “safer” cigarette–implying that othercigarettes are unsafe–Big Tobacco would exclude Liggett from theindustry’s joint defense on lawsuits, the Associated Press reported.
Meanwhile, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) last week attacked R.J.Reynolds’s Joe Camel cartoon campaign, saying that the advertisementsillegally targeted teenagers, a charge that the cigarette maker hascontinuously denied. The FTC is seeking a permanent ban on the use of JoeCamel advertising, Reuters reported.
HOUSTON
Pennzoil Co. last week agreed to pay $6.75 million to settle chargesof racial discrimination brought against the company by eleven black workers,who accused Pennzoil of withholding pay raises and promotions from thecompany’s 700 black employees.
Pennzoil’s $6.75 million settlement offer was accompanied by promises tobolster the company’s equal opportunity hiring and promotion policies, as wellas the firm’s relationship with minorities. Pennzoil admitted no wrongdoingin the case.
The settlement, which must still be approved by a federal court, ends thetwo-year-old racial discrimination lawsuit and leaves Pennzoil free to pursueits merger plans with Quaker State Corp.
SELINSGROVE, Pennsylvania
The Christian Science Monitor reports on a growingtrend in college business programs: bringing convicted white-collar criminalsto the classroom to lecture students on business ethics, bad decisions, andthe slippery slope that can lead to prison.
The Monitor, noting that several such programs are currently underway acrossthe country, profiles the pioneering program at Susquehanna University inPennsylvania.
“Nearly 40 years ago I was in your position,” Fred Dellorfano–who iscurrently serving a nine-year prison term for bank fraud and racketeering–tells Susquehanna students. “I was brought up in a wonderful, moral-typefamily situation. I had everything….What would have caused me to fall offthe edge?”
He continues: “At some point in the future, you may have second thoughts aboutdoing the littlest thing that you might feel is maybe not too illegal….Andthat’s really where it all starts.”
A call by South African deputy president Thabo Mbeki for the reinforcement of workplace ethics in the public service was backed by delegates to a parliamentary anticorruption conference in Cape Town last Tuesday. The conference of the National Council of Provinces seeks to come up with short-term solutions, as well as legislation and long-term proposals, in South Africa’s ongoing fight against corruption.
Honorable Ministers,Honorable Members of Parliament,Distinguished Participants and Guests,Ladies and Gentlemen:
Robert Klitgaard, a former professor at the University of Natal,uses a succinct illustration from the Guatemalan experience tocapture the encircling climate of corruption and its pervasiveinfluence:
“When in a society the shameless triumph, when the abuser isadmired, when principles end and only opportunism prevails, when theinsolent rule and the people tolerate it, when everything becomescorrupt but the majority is quiet because their slice is waiting…When so much “whens” unite, perhaps it is time to hide oneself, timeto suspend the battle, time to stop being a Quixote: It is time toreview our activities reevaluate those around us, and return toourselves.”
In the South African context generally and in the public sectorin particular, few will deny that this time has now arrived. Thethreatening state of moral degradation in our society is reflectedin the high levels of crime, disrespect for authority and the ruleof law, and the erosion of key institutions such as the family.
The culture of entitlement, so prevalent in our community, hascontributed to the “name it, claim it” syndrome where individualsseek an elusive moral justification for engaging in criminalactivity. The deepening crisis in public values is largely visiblein the lack of professional conduct from so many wearing the badgeof public honor in the civil service.
To meet the challenge of stemming the tide of corruption we needto march to the tune of a new song, the song of regeneration andrebirth, the song of our renaissance, the song signaling the birthof the “new public servant.”
. . .
Perhaps a professional framework for discussion among managersat this conference might look as follows in respect of commitment toan:
ETHICS MANAGEMENT FRAMEWORK FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR (EMFPS)
1. Ethics in the workplace should be reinfored urgently as a newcultural trait of the public service.
2. Political will and a shared commitment should inform thereinforcement process.
3. Transparency and accountability should be given theirrightful places.
4. Rules of procedure should be clearly articulated.
5. The practice of whistleblowing should be institutionalized.
6. Steps to reward exemplary conduct should be taken.
7. Managers should give moral leadership by example.
8. Misconduct should always be subject to disciplinarysanctions.
9. Integrity training and ethics education should receivepriority.
10. The public interest should as a rule be put first.
We offer the above provisional framework to [the] conference as apoint of departure for deliberations on bringing together theessential elements of an ethics management system to eliminatecorruption and malpractice in the public sector.
The organizational culture of the public sector must change witha paradigm shift from external sanctions (when misconduct isbelatedly addressed) to stronger internal control with anticipatorymanagement systems to check deviant behavior.
Both the spirit and the intent of the law must be adhered to andpublic trust must be constantly reaffirmed in the process of goodgovernance. Sound administrative values of probity, trust, justice,and fairness must be integrated in the daily work ethic and not keptseparate as an issue for social concern only.
“Honesty is the cornerstone of character. The honest man or woman seeks not merely to avoid criminal or illegal acts, but to be scrupulously fair, upright, fearless in both action and expression. Honesty pays dividends both in dollars and in peace of mind.”
–B.C. Forbes
