Ethics Newsline®

Special to Newsline from editor Carl Hausman

Controversy over conflicts of interest in the financial world continued to dominate the news in ethics during May, with this week’s edition of Ethics Newsline reporting on a $100 million settlement in the case against Merrill Lynch, alleged to have misled investors in hopes of appeasing big investment banking clients. On May 20, we carried a summary of what appears to be a record number of restatements of earnings following revelation of various accounting scandals, and on May 13 we covered a probe into allegations that Enron manipulated California’s energy supply during 2000 and early 2001. And on May 6 we featured a summary of Congress’s probe into fluctuating oil prices.

May saw several news stories dealing with the intersection of governance and ethics: a subpoena for White House records related to energy policy (May 27), a call for ethics reform in Canada (May 27), a government suit against municipalities for alleged voter mistreatment during the 2000 elections ((May 27), a dramatic shift in the Justice Department’s view toward interpretation of gun control (May 13), a stay on executions in Maryland (May 13), and a call by a Canadian newspaper for an end to what it views as U.S. trade protectionism (May 13).

Media ethics issues figured prominently in ethics news: a controversy over an ad agency’s use of the homeless in its marketing (May 27), protests over the use of a 9/11 photo of President Bush for fund-raising (May 20), concern over the airing of a videotape depicting portions of the killing of a Wall Street Journal reporter (May 20), and protests against the calling of reporters to testify in war-crimes trials (May 20).

Workplace stories also were featured in Ethics Newsline during May: a call for action to stem workplace violence (May 13), a settlement in a case involving testing workers for predisposition to certain workplace injuries (May 13), and a U.S. Supreme Court ruling upholding seniority rights in the workplace (May 6).

As always, education ethics remained a continuing theme throughout our coverage: Harvard’s effort to reform grade inflation (May 27), criminal charges in the U.K. brought against a mother for allegedly allowing her daughter to be truant (May 20), and a call for more comprehensive sex education in the United Kingdom (May 6).