Ethics+-+Case+Studies

=Regional Ethics Bowl Cases Fall 2017=

© Association for Practical and Professional Ethics 2012
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Case 1: Euthanasia for Alcoholism On July 14, 2016, a Dutch general practitioner euthanized Mark Langedijk by giving him a lethal injection. Langedijk’s death had been approved by a physician from Support and Consultation on Euthanasia (SCEN), the Netherlands’ medical body that examines requests from persons wishing to avail themselves of state-assisted dying. “Enough is enough,” stated the 41-year-old alcoholic, who had unsuccessfully undergone twenty-one attempts at rehabilitation for his addiction. His marriage destroyed, Langedijk said he “could not continue to live as an alcoholic.”1 Physician-performed-euthanasia (“mercy killing”) has been permissible in the Netherlands since 2002; although still officially illegal, it is not prosecuted when 1) the patient’s request is voluntary and well-considered, 2) the patient’s suffering is unbearable, and 3) there is no prospect of improvement. A SCEN physician must agree that these criteria are met. Contrary to popular belief and usual practice, the act does not state that euthanasia may only be performed in the ‘terminal stage’ of a condition.2 Initially, 90+% of requests came from terminally ill cancer patients. However, over the last decade requests have come from persons with a greater variety of diagnoses. More than one person has requested and been granted euthanasia for “social isolation and loneliness,”3 and pediatricians have recommended that euthanasia be available to patients as young as 10-years-old. The number of euthanasia deaths has nearly tripled since 2002.4 As with any controversial action, worries arise. First, procedural questions arise about the clarity and quantifiability of the criteria generally, and about the distinction (if any) between physical and psychological pain particularly. Second, debates are ongoing about who is the appropriate judge of “enough”; proponents of broader criteria appeal to patient autonomy, while opponents worry about potential abuse. Finally, the moral obligations of physicians to patients with refractory suffering is unclear.

1 Bradford Richardson, “Mark Langedijk, Dutch Man, Euthanized over Alcoholism,” The Washington Times, June 13, 2017, [over-alcoholis/]. 2 Regional Euthanasia Review Committee, “Code of Practice,” RTE, June 13, 2017, []. 3 Richardson. 4 Gordon Darrocht, “Rise in Euthanasia Requests Sparks Concern as Criteria for Help Widen,” Dutch News, June 13, 2017, http://www.dutchnews.nl/features/2015/07/rise-in-euthanasia-requests-sparksconcern- as-criteria-for-help-widen/.

Case 2: Why Suicide? In March 2017 Netflix released an episodic web series based on a novel by Jay Asher called Thirteen Reasons Why. The series follows the lives of high school students living in the wake of a classmate's suicide. The narrative concept is that before Hannah Baker's suicide, she recorded a series of thirteen audiotapes outlining the reasons why she kills herself. Hannah leaves these tapes in the custody of a friend, Tony, who delivers them to a cast of characters—each of whom Hannah believes contributed to her ending her own life. Soon after the show was released, critics began to publicly complain. One criticism common to many parents, mental health professionals, and teachers is that the show glamorizes suicide. The National Association of School Psychologists cautions that the show's "powerful storytelling may lead impressionable viewers to romanticize the choices made by the characters and/or develop revenge fantasies."5 This concern has been echoed by some parents who claim that the suicides of their teenage children were triggered by the show.6 The series now begins each episode with a trigger warning, but originally the show contained trigger warnings for only three episodes—the 9th, which graphically depicts Hannah's rape, and the 12th and 13th, which feature suicide scenes. Hannah Baker’s suicide at the end of the first season is graphic and violent. Nic Sheff, a writer on the series, describes the portrayal as "an instant reminder that suicide is never peaceful and painless, but instead an excruciating, violent end to all hopes and dreams and possibilities for the future. The show's production team anticipated a controversial discussion about the show, given the prevalence of suicide, suicide attempts, and suicide ideation among teens. As producer Selena Gomez puts it, "this is happening every day… Whether or not you wanted to see it, that’s what’s happening. The content is complicated." According to the CDC "17.0% of students (grades 9-12) seriously considered attempting suicide in the previous 12 months (22.4% of females and 11.6% of males)."8 Though this data precedes the release of the show, the correlative evidence in a recent study has shown that “13 Reasons Why, in its present form, has both increased suicide awareness while unintentionally increasing suicidal ideation."9

5 “13 Reasons Why Netflix Series: Considerations for Educators,” National Association of School Psychologists, August 9, 2017, https://www.nasponline.org/resources-andpublications/ resources/school-safety-and-crisis/preventing-youth-suicide/13-reasons-why-netflix-seriesconsiderations- for-educators. 6 Katie Kindelan and Sabina Ghebremedhin, "2 California Families Claim '13 Reasons Why' Triggered Teens' Suicides" ABCNews, June 28, 2017, http://abcnews.go.com/US/california-families-claim-13- reasons-triggered-teens-suicides/story?id=48323640. 7 Nic Sheff, "13 Reasons Why Writer: Why We Didn’t Shy Away from Hannah’s Suicide," Vanity Fair, April 19, 2017, []. 8 "Suicide Facts at a Glance 2015," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, August 9, 2017, []. 9 John W. Ayers, "Internet Searches for Suicide Following the Release of 13 Reasons Why," Journal of the American Medical Academy, July 31, 2017, http://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullarticle/2646773?utm_source=Silverchair_Information_Systems&utm_campaign=FTM_07272017&utm_content=news_releases&cmp=1&utm_medium= email.

Case 3: Quarantines On January 19, 2017, the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) enacted a new rule, effective February 21, 2017, to expand its powers to screen, test, and quarantine people traveling into or within the United States, in the presence of a sudden epidemic of an infectious disease (e.g., Ebola), when quick and decisive action is necessary to contain the threat.10 The new rule aims at preserving public health, but some epidemiologists, lawyers, and health organizations say it poses a serious threat to civil liberties, because it allows authorities to detain and examine people without ensuring due process, and completely eliminates the requirement for informed consent.11 Indeed, a similar attempt proposed in 2005 was scrapped in 2010 after a wave of critical comments.12 Moreover, in the past broad quarantine powers have been abused and used to harm minorities—such as a quarantine of San Francisco's Chinatown in 1900.13 In an op-ed for The New York Times, Kyle Edwards, Wendy Parmet, and Scott Burris argue that the present regulations do not have strict enough medical guidelines or sufficient protections for when errors in the decision to quarantine occur: "[T]he new rules give the C.D.C. significant in-house oversight of the decision to quarantine, with up to three layers of internal agency review. This internal review has no explicit time limit and could easily stretch on for weeks while a healthy person languishes in quarantine."14 To be clear, while the internal review might stretch on for an indeterminate amount of time, the law only expressly allows for an individual to be quarantined for 72 hours before they are entitled to review.

The law also includes provisions in which an individual can obtain a second medical opinion, and challenge the detainment in court.15 Nevertheless, some scientists and lawyers argue that the CDC's expression of its powers is heavy-handed, and that they do not spell out that they will only use their broad powers when absolutely necessary…For instance, the CDC used its powers at point-of-entry places to monitor travelers' temperatures during the latest Ebola outbreak, and maintained a list of 10,000 travelers who ended up being monitored for 21 days because of potential exposure. None were infected.16 On the other hand, as explained by public health expert Lawrence Gostin, the CDC needs broad powers, because “quarantines can be key to stopping people from spreading deadly bugs…[T]he United States is vulnerable to a whole range of infectious diseases that are circulating around the world, but we don't know which one will be next. And so when something sweeps upon our shores, we don't want to have a delay.”17 Moreover, given global warming's unpredictable impacts on the environment that may increase mosquito-born infectious diseases, 18 as well as the genesis of other non-environmental-related infectious diseases, the CDC likely needs authority to contain such threats for public health and safety.

10 Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, "Quarantine and Isolation," Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, March 21, 2017, []. 11 Ed Yong, "The CDC's New Quarantine Rule Could Violate Civil Liberties, " The Atlantic, December 30, 2016, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2016/12/cdc-quarantine-rule-violate-civilliberties/ 511823/. 12 John Blosser, "Obama Scrapped CDC Rule Giving Feds Power to Block Ill Travelers," NewsMax, October 3, 2014, []. 13 Cyriaque Lamar, “In 1900, San Francisco’s Chinatown Was Quarantined with Barbed Wire Fences,” Gizmodo, January 24, 2012, https://io9.gizmodo.com/5878877/in-1900-san-franciscos-chinatown-wasquarantined- with-barbed-wire-fences. 14 Kyle Edwards, Wendy Parmet and Scott Burris, "Why the C.D.C.'s Power to Quarantine Should Worry Us," The New York Times, January 23, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/opinion/why-thecdcs- power-to-quarantine-should-worry-us.html?mcubz=0. 15 Seth Augenstein, "New CDC Rule Gives Enhanced Quarantine Powers," Laboratory Equipment, February 20, 2017, https://www.laboratoryequipment.com/news/2017/02/new-cdc-rule-gives-enhancedquarantine- powers. 16 Ibid. 17 Lawrence Gostin, interview by Rob Stein, "New Quarantine Authority Gives CDC More Power to Stop Outbreaks," NPR, February 2, 2017, http://www.npr.org/2017/02/02/513104963/new-quarantineauthority- gives-cdc-more-power-to-stop-outbreaks. 18 Kevin Loria, "Zika and Other Mosquito-Borne Illnesses Could Hit Hard This Summer," Business Insider, June 28, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/zika-mosquito-borne-disease-summer-risks-2017-6.

Case 4: Muslim Ban? Shortly after taking office earlier this year, President Donald Trump signed an executive order “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.”19 The order would suspend admission of Syrian refugees, as well as travel to the United States from seven Muslim-majority countries (Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Syria, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia). The order immediately sparked large-scale protests across the country, particularly at airports, where travelers were being detained and deported pursuant to the order.20 It was also swiftly challenged in court.21 The executive order is based on Trump’s call during his presidential campaign for “a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States,” in order to prevent terrorist attacks.22 He criticized his opponent, Hillary Clinton, for policies that he believed would “let the Muslims flow in.”23 Eventually, he softened his language, calling for “extreme vetting” and no more immigration from “terror-prone regions.”24 Though the executive order did not mention Islam, critics were quick to label it the “Muslim ban” that Trump had promised. Trump shot back: "To be clear, this is not a Muslim ban, as the media is falsely reporting, . . . This is not about religion—this is about terror and keeping our country safe."25 But his words are little comfort to those who see the ban as not only Islamophobic but also unconstitutional and unethical. For example, one protestor explained, "I'm Jewish and it's supposed to be never again. Jews should be the first ones to defend Muslims considering what has happened to us and it seems it's being repeated under Trump."26

Protestors point out that the United States turned away Jews fleeing the Nazi regime during World War II, because it was feared that allowing them in would also allow communists to infiltrate the country. Many of the people who had sought refuge in the United States were ultimately murdered in concentration camps. This historical mistake is, sadly, being repeated, protestors claim.27 As one columnist put it, “[t]oday, to our shame, Anne Frank is a Syrian girl.”28 But do we have an obligation to help refugees from other countries?29 According to Trump and his supporters, we must prioritize the protection of our country and its citizens over aiding refugees.30 Though “[i]t is important that we provide sufficient aid and protection to keep refugees safe and healthy in place,. . . it is not necessary to bring Syrians to the United States to fulfill our vital moral obligations.”31 Supporters believe the restrictions are necessary to keep the United States safe from terrorists who are attempting to infiltrate the country in order to carry out attacks, pointing out that the listed countries are “either torn apart by jihadist violence or under control of hostile, jihadist governments.”32 They believe that “a short-term ban on entry from problematic countries combined with a systematic review of our security procedures is both reasonable and prudent.”33 However, protestors see this focus on safety as thinly-veiled Islamophobia and fear of multiculturalism.

They believe that if safety truly were the issue, Trump and his supporters would focus more on home-grown terrorism—including attacks carried out by white supremacists—which is an issue that cannot be solved by closing the country’s borders. Indeed, Trump’s reaction to attacks carried out by Muslims, as compared to his reaction (or lack thereof) to other violent attacks, appears to reveal his biases.34 Supporters of the ban refute accusations of Islamophobia by asserting that Islam is, in fact, a violent religion and at the root of the problem of terrorism. Even Bill Maher, talkshow host and self-identified liberal, has argued that we must acknowledge that Islam is a violent religion if we have any hope of addressing the problem of terrorism. “There are bad people and bad ideas,” said Maher. “No one is saying that the only bad things happen in the Muslim world. I am saying that you have to go where the preponderance of it is, and there’s no doubt that most of it happens in this sphere—in the name of this religion.”35 Indeed, according to Maher, real liberals should not become so enamored with tolerance that they become willing to accept intolerant and violent regimes: “The people who could not abide apartheid for one second, somehow, when it comes to gender apartheid—which is in so many [Muslim] countries around the world—they are not to be heard. It is a liberal cause, or it should be.”36

19 Executive Order 13769 of January 27, 2017, Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States, The White House, https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2017/01/27/executive-order-protecting-nation-foreignterrorist- entry-united-states 20 Rebecca Harrington, “Tens of Thousands Protest Trump’s Immigration Ban in Cities and Airports across the US,” Business Insider, January 29, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/protest-photostrump- muslim-immigration-ban-nyc-boston-dc-la-2017-1/#one-of-the-largest-of-sundays-protests-tookplace- at-battery-park-in-lower-manhattan-within-sight-of-the-statue-of-liberty-in-new-york-harbor-long-asymbol- of-welcome-to-us-shores-1. 21 Alicia Parlapiano and Anjali Singhvi, "The Supreme Court Partially Allowed Trump's Travel Ban. Who Is Still Barred?," The New York Times, July 19, 2017, [] 22 Jenna Johnson, “Trump Calls for ‘Total and Complete Shutdown of Muslims Entering the United States’,” The Washington Post, August 1, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2015/12/07/donald-trump-calls-for-total-andcomplete- shutdown-of-muslims-entering-the-united-states/?utm_term=.7c37f06a14ad 23 Avi Selk, “Pence Once Called Trump’s Muslim Ban ‘Unconstitutional.” He Now Applauds the Ban on Refugees,” The Washington Post, January 28, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/thefix/ wp/2017/01/28/mike-pence-once-called-trumps-muslim-ban-unconstitutional-he-just-applauded-theorder/. 24 Ibid. 25 Ibid. 26 Harrington. 27 Elizabeth Elizade, “Trump’s Refugee Ban Draws Comparisons to Jews Feeling Nazi Regime before WWII,” New York Daily News, January 29, 2017, http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/accounttells- stories-jewish-refugees-fleeing-nazi-regime-article-1.2958878. 28 Laura Tavares, “Text to Text: Comparing Jewish Refugees of the 1930s with Syrian Refugees Today,” The New York Times, January 4, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/04/learning/lesson-plans/textto- text-comparing-jewish-refugees-of-the-1930s-with-syrian-refugees-today.html?_r=0 29 Serena Parekh, “Moral Obligations to Refugees,” The Critique, August 1, 2017, []. 30 Katie McHugh, “Majority of Refugees Coming from Terror-Exporting Countries after Judge Strikes Down Trump’s Executive Order,” Breitbart, February 16, 2017, http://www.breitbart.com/biggovernment/ 2017/02/16/majority-of-refugees-coming-from-terror-exporting-countries-after-judgestrikes- down-trumps-executive-order/. 31 David French, “Trump’s Executive Order on Refugees — Separating Fact from Hysteria,” National Review, August 1, 2017, http://www.nationalreview.com/article/444370/donald-trumps-refugeeexecutive- orders-no-muslim-ban-separating-fact-hysteria. 32 Ibid. 33 Ibid. 34 Sarah Wildman, “Trump Is Quick to Blame Muslims for Terror Attacks. He’s Slow When Muslims Are the Victims.” Vox, June 6, 2017, []. 35 Marlow Stern, "Bill Maher Blames Islam for the Orlando Shooting," The Daily Beast, June 17, 2016, http://www.thedailybeast.com/bill-maher-blames-islam-for-the-orlando-shooting. 36 Ibid.

Case 5: Boycott, Divest, Sanction Citing security concerns, in the early 2000s Israel began to build a wall across the occupied territories of the West Bank, effectively isolating and restricting the movement of 25,000 Palestinians to and from “the West Bank (including West Jerusalem), and the Gaza Strip.”37 While 15% of the barrier follows the 1949 Armistice Line, 85% of it cuts across the West Bank.38 The International Court of Justice (ICJ) and the United Nations (UN) condemned the barrier as a violation of international law. While the ICJ recognized Israel’s duty to protect itself from “deadly acts of violence against its civilian population,”39 the court urged Israel to dismantle the portions of the barrier erected on the West Bank. According to a UN report, the civilian population in the occupied territories has been cut off “from land and resources needed for Palestinian…development, resulting in the curtailment of agricultural practice and the [undermining] of rural livelihoods throughout the West Bank.”40 According to Human Rights Watch, the barrier not only has resulted in the expropriation and destruction of fertile Palestinian farmland, but also has prevented Palestinians from accessing work, education and medical facilities.41 Fuad Jado, a resident of Jerusalem, claims that receiving emergency medical services is very difficult, as ambulances need to “coordinate with Israeli authorities in order to cross into Jerusalem.”42

When Jado’s mother suffered a heart attack, he tried to get through the wall to bring her to the hospital: “I carried my mother through the fields and we went through the gap in the Wall. Once we crossed, she died in my arms.”43 Moreover, ever since the wall was built, illegal Israeli settlements have grown at a rapid pace. In response to Israel’s policies, “Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu…[has called] for international campaigners to treat Israel as they treated apartheid South Africa.”44 The BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement against the alleged Israeli apartheid has garnered support all around the world, on college campuses and even within Jewish groups, like Jewish Voice for Peace. According to Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of Jewish Voice for Peace, the BDS movement “is a call for solidarity from the international community until Israel complies with international law and ends its violations of Palestinian rights.”45 As part of the campaign, a recent BDS action alert supported by Archbishop Tutu and a number of artists, like Roger Waters and Thurston Moore, has urged British rock band Radiohead to cancel their summer concert in Tel Aviv.46 However, the BDS movement has encountered staunch opposition within the U.S. political establishment, with 22 states having “introduced or passed anti-BDS legislation…[that] makes it illegal for states to do business with companies that support BDS.”47 Calling BDS “a smear campaign designed to delegitimize the state of Israel and inflict severe economic damage,”48 New York Governor Andrew Cuomo signed an executive order that requires his state to create and publish a list of institutions and companies that support BDS. Even presidential candidate Hillary Clinton lambasted her church, the United Methodist Church, for supporting BDS, suggesting that the movement was anti-Semitic.49 According to American jurist Allan Dershowitz, the BDS movement is counterproductive and immoral, for it “imposes the entire blame for the continuing Israeli occupation and settlement policy on the Israelis.”50

37 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Occupied Palestinian Territories, “Barrier Update,” OCHAOPT, June 12, 2017, https://docs.google.com/viewerng/viewer?url=https://www.ochaopt.org/sites/default/files/ocha_opt_bar rier_update_july_2011_english.pdf&chrome=true. 38 Ibid. 39 Ibid. 40 Ibid. 41 “Israel: West Bank Barrier Endangers Basic Rights,” Human Rights Watch, June 12, 2017, []. 42 United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs Occupied Palestinian Territories. 43 Ibid. 44 Desmond Tutu, “Israel: Time to Divest,” Third World Traveler, June 12, 2017, []. 45 Rebecca Vilkomerson, “I’m Jewish, and I Want People to Boycott Israel,” The Washington Post, June 12, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2016/06/24/im-jewish-and-i-wantpeople- to-boycott-israel/?utm_term=.8ab597636046. 46 Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, “Help Us Tell Radiohead: ‘You Don’t Belong’ in Apartheid Israel,” BDSMovement, June 12, 2017, https://bdsmovement.net/news/helpus- tell-radiohead-you-dont-belong-apartheid-israel. 47 Vilkomerson. 48 Andrew Cuomo, “Gov. Andrew Cuomo: If You Boycott Israel, New York State Will Boycott You,” The Washington Post, June 12, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/gov-andrew-cuomo-if-youboycott- israel-new-york-state-will-boycott-you/2016/06/10/1d6d3acc-2e62-11e6-9b37- 42985f6a265c_story.html?tid=a_inl&utm_term=.0d3aa0fb700a. 49 Rania Khalek, “Hillary Clinton Attacks Her Church over Israel Divestment Vote,” The Electronic Intifada, June 12, 2017, https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/rania-khalek/hillary-clinton-attacks-her-church-overisrael- divestment-vote. 50 Alan, Dershowitz. “Ten Reasons Why BDS Is Immoral and Hinders Peace,” Haaretz, June 12, 2017, http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-1.573880.

Case 6: The War against Fake News The 2016 presidential election brought to the forefront the issue of fake news—the publication of false information packaged as news, often with the intention of misleading readers. Some of the most egregious examples were the story about Pope Francis endorsing Donald Trump for President of the United States, and the report that ISIS urged American Muslims to vote for Hillary Clinton.51 The concern over fake news became heightened when The Washington Post’s Craig Timberg published a controversial story claiming that the election of Donald Trump received the “support from a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign that created and spread misleading articles online with the goal of punishing Democrat Hillary Clinton, helping …Trump and undermining faith in American democracy.”52 Timberg’s article cited as evidence a report put together by anonymous analysts from the website PropOrNot, which featured a list of over 200 sites deemed to be “routine peddlers of Russian propaganda during the election season.”53 Shortly after its publication, the story went viral and it was picked up by news outlets like USA Today.54 But further investigation by reporters from Rolling Stone, The New Yorker, and The Intercept (among others) revealed that the central thesis of Timberg’s article relied on “the work of a shadowy group that smears some 200 alternative news outlets as either knowing or unwitting agents of a foreign power.”55 For example, among the sites blacklisted as “Russian propaganda” were Truthdig, which features the work of Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Chris Hedges, and other “flagship publications of the progressive left.”56

In an ironic twist, The Washington Post’s attempt to expose fake news resulted in “far more fake news than it exposed,”57 observed journalists Ben Norton and Glenn Greenwald from The Intercept. While the publication of fake news is not a new phenomenon, technological advances, such as the Internet and social media, have had a dramatic impact on the dissemination of false information. Because of social media platforms like Facebook, “[c]ontent can be relayed among users with no significant third-party filtering, factchecking, or editorial judgment.”58 Given that “62% of adults get news on social media,”59 Facebook and Google are taking steps to make sure fake news is eliminated from searches and feeds. For example, Google modified search algorithms to prevent holocaust-denial sites from appearing in search results.60 Meanwhile, Facebook announced last year that it would partner with fact-checkers who would be “labeling, and burying fake news and hoaxes in its News Feed.”61 In the future, Facebook will be relying on artificial intelligence with “the capability of sweeping through Facebook posts, searching for keywords, sentences, paragraphs or even the way a story is framed.”62 Though the packaging of lies as fact has been widely recognized as a serious obstacle to a functioning democracy, journalists and media scholars63 have expressed worries about placing “absolute editorial control in a small set of hands with no apparent recourse and no documented appeals process.”64

51 Hannah Ritchie, “Read All about It: The Biggest Fake News Stories of 2016,” CNBC, June 13, 2017, []. 52 Craig Timberg, “Russian Propaganda Effort Helped Spread ‘Fake News’ during Election, Experts Say,” The Washington Post, June 13, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/russianpropaganda- effort-helped-spread-fake-news-during-election-experts-say/2016/11/24/793903b6-8a40- 4ca9-b712-716af66098fe_story.html?utm_term=.56ffceae8849. 53 Ibid. 54 Doug Stanglin, “Reports: Russian Operation Boosted 'Fake News' Phenomenon,” USA Today, June 13, 2016, [phenomenon/94424206/]. 55 Matt Taibbi, “The 'Washington Post' 'Blacklist' Story Is Shameful and Disgusting,” Rolling Stone, June 13, 2017, http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/washington-post-blacklist-story-is-shamefuldisgusting- w452543. 56 Max Blumenthal, “Washington Post Promotes Shadowy Website That Accuses 200 Publications of Being Russian Propaganda Plants,” Alternet, June 13, 2017, http://www.alternet.org/media/washingtonpost- promotes-shadowy-website-accuses-200-publications-russian-propaganda-plants. 57 Ben Norton and Glenn Greenwald, “Washington Post Disgracefully Promotes a McCarthyite Blacklist from a New, Hidden, and Very Shady Group,” June 1, 2017, The Intercept, [a-new-hidden-and-very-shady-group/]. 58 Hunt Allcott and Matthew Gentzkow, “Social Media and Fake News in the 2016 Election,” National Bureau of Economic Research, no. w23089 (2017): 211. 59 Allcott and Gentzkow, 212. 60 Hannah Roberts, “That Awful Holocaust-Denial Website Is Finally Falling in Google's Search Rankings,” Business Insider, June 13, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/holocaust-denial-web-sitefalls- google-search-results-2016-12. 61 Alex Heath, “Facebook Is Going to Use Snopes and Other Fact-Checkers to Combat and Bury 'Fake News’,” Business Insider, June 12, 2017, http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-will-fact-check-labelfake- news-in-news-feed-2016-12. 62 Bill Boyarsky, “Will Facebook’s System to Detect Fake News Lead to Censorship?,” Truthdig, June 12, 2013, http://www.truthdig.com/report/item/will_facebooks_fakenews_ detection_system_lead_to_censorship_20170208.63 Ibid. 64 Kalev Leetaru, “Facebook's Fake News Detector and The Myth of Technology as Savior,” Forbes, June 12, 2013, https://www.forbes.com/sites/kalevleetaru/2016/12/24/facebooks-fake-news-detector-and-themyth- of-technology-as-savior/#562d40405af8.

Case 7: Professor Blackface I n October 2016, University of Oregon law professor Nancy Shurtz decided to throw a Halloween costume party at her house, inviting friends, colleagues, and students. Upon arriving, the guests immediately noticed their host’s costume: Shurtz, a white woman, was wearing a white lab coat, a stethoscope, an afro wig, and black make-up on her face and hands. In short, Shurtz had donned blackface, a style of make-up associated with minstrelsy. (Minstrel shows were an early 19th-century form of entertainment that featured mostly white actors wearing black face paint for the purpose of portraying African Americans in a derisive fashion.65) According to one of the students who attended the party, “the costume was so ludicrous and offensive that it was apparent that many of the guests were avoiding interaction with Shurtz.”66 Notwithstanding their discomfort, guests did not confront Shurtz about her costume. Students explained that, despite wanting to leave the party, they felt obligated to stay, “because Shurtz had papers of theirs still waiting to be graded.”67 As the news of the party spread through the campus like wildfire, students of color found themselves “put in the awkward position of having to explain why blackface is inappropriate.”68

After complaints from faculty and students reached the university authorities, the law school suspended Shurtz, launched an investigation, and subsequently published a report. According to the investigation, Shurtz was deemed to have committed “discriminatory harassment,” citing the negative impact of her costume on her students and the university at large.69 The investigators concluded that “[t]he lack of understanding by some students, coupled with an existing lack of diversity in the law school student body, has led to minority students feeling further disenfranchised from their classmates and the school.”70 In response to the fallout from her Halloween party, Shurtz issued a written apology in which she explained that her costume was inspired by Dr. Damon Tweedy’s memoir Black Man in a White Coat, which focuses on Tweedy’s experience of racism in medical school. She added that her intention was “to provoke a thoughtful discussion on racism in our society, in our educational institutions and in our professions.”71 Despite Shurtz’s public apology, several faculty members have called on Shurtz to resign. Others, while not necessarily calling for her dismissal, have expressed confusion and dismay over the incident, noting the irony that a professor who has served in the law school’s diversity committee could be ignorant of the association between blackface and the “really tragic history of lynching…slavery…[and] Jim Crow.”72

In contrast, Shurtz’s supporters have characterized the backlash against the professor as extreme, noting that suspending a tenured faculty member over the offensive nature of a Halloween costume undermines the university’s fundamental commitment to freedom of speech. “Universities are supposed to be a place for debate and controversy,”73 explained Eugene Volokh, a UCLA law professor. According to the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education, students and professors are in trouble if they are at risk for punishment any time their expression motivates rigorous debate on campus…The outcome in Shurtz’s case means that if someone expresses their opinion on any race- or sex-related controversy in a way that others deem offensive, that person will be held responsible for all subsequent discomfort and disruption—even if that discomfort is a natural consequence of constitutionally protected speech, and even if the disruption is plainly someone else’s responsibility.74

65 Christina Coleman, “GlobalGrind History Lesson: The Real Reason It’s Just Not OK To Wear Blackface,” GlobalGrind, June 11, 2017, [to-wear-blackface-list-photos/]. 66 Andrew Theen, “Report: UO Law Professor Who Wore Blackface Violated School's Discrimination Policy,” The Oregonian: Oregon Live, June 11, 2017, []. 67 Scott Jaschick, “Oregon: Professor in Blackface Violated Anti-Harassment Policy,” Inside Higher Ed, June 11, 2017, https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2017/01/03/university-oregon-finds-professorwho- wore-blackface-party-violated-anti-harassment. 68 Theen. 69 Ibid. 70 Ibid. 71 Diane Dietz, “UO Professor Issues Apology,” The Register Guard, June 11, 2017, [on-halloween.html.csp]. 72 Ibid. 73 Eugene Volokh, “At the University of Oregon, No More Free Speech for Professors on Subjects such as Race, Religion, Sexual Orientation,” The Washington Post, June 11, 2017, https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-conspiracy/wp/2016/12/26/at-the-university-of-oregonno- more-free-speech-for-professors-on-subjects-such-as-race-religion-sexualorientation/? utm_term=.9d7c0f489c7b. 74 Jaschick.

Case 8: Goldwater Taking on Water Earlier this year, a small group of psychiatrists held a town-hall meeting at Yale Medical School to discuss President Donald Trump’s mental health. Dr. Bandy X. Lee, a psychiatry professor at Yale University, organized the meeting. She believes that psychiatrists have a “Duty to Warn” that Trump is not only unfit to serve as president, but also dangerous to the health and security of the citizens of this country.75 And though Dr. Lee’s position is controversial, she is far from the only one who subscribes to it. Dr. John Gartner, a psychiatrist and former John Hopkins Medical School professor, has stated that “from a psychiatric point of view [Trump is] the absolute worst-case scenario,” as if someone had tried “to create a Frankenstein’s monster of the most dangerous and destructive leader and had freedom to create any combination of diagnosis and symptoms” found in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM).76 Dr. Gartner has created the following petition on Change.org: We, the undersigned mental health professionals (please state your degree), believe in our professional judgment that Donald Trump manifests a serious mental illness that renders him psychologically incapable of competently discharging the duties of President of the United States. And we respectfully request he be removed from office, according to [A]rticle 4 of the 25th [A]mendment to the Constitution, which states that the president will be replaced if he is “unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office.”

The petition is public and asks only for mental health professionals to sign. The category "mental health professional" is not limited to psychiatrists, but rather includes nurses, psychologists, and other community service providers. Indeed, because the petition is public, at least some of its 59,261 signatures may be from people without a mental-health background.77 Dr. Gartner’s position is controversial because the American Psychiatric Association’s code of professional conduct forbids psychiatrists from publically commenting on the mental health of living public figures without first personally examining them. This rule is informally known as “the Goldwater rule,” after the man who led to its creation. In 1964, over 1000 psychiatrists signed a petition opining that the Republican presidential nominee, Barry Goldwater, was psychologically unfit for the office of president. The petition was published in Fact magazine, which Goldwater later sued for libel and won.78 So it is no wonder that psychiatrists today are hesitant to publically declare President Trump mentally unfit, even if they might personally believe he is. Indeed, as a group of mental health professionals express in a letter to the editor of the New York Times, the silence imposed by the Goldwater rule “has resulted in the failure [of the psychiatric profession] to lend our expertise to worried journalists and members of Congress at this critical time.”79 Dr. Jerrold Post, founder of the CIA’s Center for the Analysis of Personality and Political Behavior, has similar concerns: “You have all kinds of amateurs out there giving diagnoses of what they think is wrong with President Trump's psychological makeup. But they don't really know what they're talking about. Meanwhile, the psychiatrists are not allowed to weigh in.”80

Amid this controversy, it is important to remember that mental illness does not automatically render a person unfit to lead—in fact, certain types of mental illness may help a person be a good leader. According to Dr. Nassir Ghaemi, quite a few famously great leaders like Abraham Lincoln and Martin Luther King Jr. “had some form of mental illness.”81 And as to Trump, it is unclear whether the traits that have so many people so worried are the symptoms of mental illness or simply his personality. Dr. Frances Allen, the chairman of the task force that wrote the DSM-IV, believes that characterizing Trump’s behavior as mental illness not only excuses his bad behavior, but unfairly stigmatizes people who actually suffer from mental illness.82 On the other hand, to his supporters, Trump's behavior is not "bad" at all. Rather, Trump's idiosyncrasies are signs of genius, and any purported concern about his mental health is nothing more than a political smear campaign.83,84 As Dr. Keith Ablow, a psychiatrist and Fox News contributor, puts it: “Donald Trump is stone cold sane. Those who assert otherwise are political opportunists, or fools, or both.”85

75 Gail Sheehy, “At Yale, Psychiatrists Cite Their ‘Duty to Warn’ about an Unfit President,” New York Mag, April 23, 2017, [unfit-president.html]. 76 Emily Willingham, “The Trump Psych Debate: Is it Wrong to Say He’s Mentally Ill?” Forbes, February 19, 2017, https://www.forbes.com/sites/emilywillingham/2017/02/19/psychologist-calls-on-colleaguesto- sign-petition-for-trumps-removal/#7b8f010b64f3. 77 John Gartner, “Mental Health Professionals Declare Trump is Mentally Ill and Must be Removed,” Change.org, https://www.change.org/p/trump-is-mentally-ill-and-must-be-removed. 78 Jane Mayer, “Should Psychiatrists Speak Out Against Trump?” The New Yorker, May 22, 2017, []. 79 Lance Dodes, et al., “Mental Health Professionals Warn about Trump,” The New York Times, February 13, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/13/opinion/mental-health-professionals-warn-abouttrump. html?_r=0. 80 Jane Mayer, interview by Audie Cornish, “Psychiatrists Divided Over the ‘Goldwater Rule’ in the Age of Trump, NPR, May 15, 2017, http://www.npr.org/2017/05/15/528502969/psychiatrists- divided-overthe- goldwater-rule-in- the-age-of-trump. 81 “‘Madness’ and Leadership, Hand in Hand,” NPR, August 20, 2011, []. 82 Allen Frances, “An Eminent Psychiatrist Demurs on Trump’s Mental State,” The New York Times, February 14, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/opinion/an-eminent-psychiatrist-demurs-ontrumps- mental-state.html?_r=0. 83 Keith Ablow, “Donald Trump and the Incredible Power of Psychological Truth,” Fox News, March 3, 2017, [truth.html]. 84 Keith Ablow, “Want to Improve Your Life? Be More Like President Trump (Not Kidding!),” Fox News, April 17, 2017, http://nation.foxnews.com/2017/04/17/dr-keith-ablow-want-improve-your-life-be-morepresident- trump-not-kidding. 85 Keith Ablow, “Relax, Trump Is Stone Cold Sane,” Fox News, Feb. 15, 2017, [].

Case 9: Electoral College America's founding fathers adopted a system of choosing the president called the Electoral College (EC), in which each state chooses electors sent to a convention to elect the President on behalf of their state. The Constitution does not demand that the electors be designated as all or nothing based upon the popular vote within the state; however, this has traditionally been the manner in which electors are awarded when a state is "won" (though a minority of states do apportion their electors based upon the percent of the popular vote won by a candidate). The EC has been criticized by many in recent decades, especially after George W. Bush and Donald J. Trump won the presidency despite losing the popular vote.86 To understand why the EC was chosen, it is necessary to look to historical statements and context. Alexander Hamilton, in the “Federalist Papers 68,” argued that the EC was necessary as a check against the uninformed votes of the masses, who might be swindled by a tyrant. Hamilton states: It was equally desirable, that the immediate election should be made by men most capable of analyzing the qualities adapted to the station, and acting under circumstances favorable to deliberation, and to a judicious combination of all the reasons and inducements which were proper to govern their choice. A small number of persons, selected by their fellow citizens from the general mass, will be most likely to possess the information and discernment requisite to such complicated investigations. It was also peculiarly desirable to afford as little opportunity as possible to tumult and disorder.

This evil was not least to be dreaded in the election of a magistrate, who was to have so important an agency in the administration of the government as the President of the United States. But the precautions which have been so happily concerted in the system under consideration, promise an effectual security against this mischief.87 That mischief was generally considered to be the possibility of a demagogue swindling less educated voters who were insufficiently "judicious" or analytical to choose a President wisely.88 Additionally, the EC was implemented in order to ensure that the more populous cities and states did not exact tyranny over the less populous regions— the agrarian middle of America—which provided strong economic support and essential goods and services to the metropolises.89 In short, the EC was essentially enacted to avoid tyranny of the majority, and was a necessary concession at the Constitutional Convention made to the small states to secure the formation of the United States.90 This standard account of the EC has been challenged by constitutional law scholar Akhil Amar, who has argued that slavery—not the avoidance of tyranny—was the raison d'être of the EC. Amar explains that because “the North would outnumber the South, whose many slaves (more than half a million in all) of course could not vote,”91 direct national presidential elections were deemed unacceptable by southerners. As the Virginian slaveholder and Founding Father James Madison put it, “[t]he right of suffrage was much more diffusive [i.e., extensive] in the Northern than the Southern States; and the latter could have no influence in the election on the score of Negroes.”92 By allowing the South to “count its slaves, albeit with a two-fifths discount,”93 states with a large slave population were allocated a significant number of electors—enough to allow the biggest slave state, Virginia, to supply the winning candidate for the presidency “[f]or 32 of the Constitution’s first 36 years.”94

Leaving aside the controversial historical origins of the EC, contemporary advocates of the EC, such as Richard Posner95, the renowned American jurist and economist, note that the EC typically creates a stronger appearance of result than the popular vote, given the winner-take-all allocation of votes in most states. Moreover, the EC prevents the election of regional candidates who do not have broad appeal, thus leading to candidates who can create broader consensus. Finally, the EC places an emphasis on swing states and swing voters, whose awareness of their importance in the country's electoral decision should result, in theory, in the most educated and invested voters choosing the President. Critics of the EC point out that the contemporary merits of the EC are unsubstantiated. For example, the claim that an election via the EC produces a president with a broad appeal and a strong mandate to govern glosses over the fact that President Trump has been called out by the media for “resurrect[ing] the divisive language of his campaign” since taking office.96 Also, ignoring the popular vote has “lead to backlash and resentment,” as the numerous anti-Trump protests since November 8 demonstrate.97 Opponents of the EC also argue that tyranny of the minority is now clearly a problem, instead of tyranny of the majority.98 For instance, a vote in Wyoming is worth 3.6 times more than a vote in California, which some argue violates the principle of equal protection under the law.99 Along the same lines, the EC is, at its foundation, undemocratic, insofar as it deprives each vote of equal voice—and is oligarchic. However, given that the rules for a Constitutional Amendment to replace the EC are only likely to change with the consent of the minority states that have a reason to want to maintain their electoral power, there are serious barriers to any change in the system.

86 Drew Desilver, “Trump’s Victory Another Example of How Electoral College Wins are Bigger than Popular Vote Ones,” Pew Research Center, August 8, 2017, http://www.pewresearch.org/facttank/ 2016/12/20/why-electoral-college-landslides-are-easier-to-win-than-popular-vote-ones/. 87 Alexander Hamilton, "Federalist Papers: No. 68," The Avalon Project, August 8, 2017, [] 88 Michael Signer, "The Electoral College Was Created to Stop Demagogues Like Trump," Time Magazine, November 17, 2016, []. 89 Emily Badger, "As American as Apple Pie? The Rural Vote's Disproportionate Slice of Power," The New York Times, November 20, 2016, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/21/upshot/as-american-asapple- pie-the-rural-votes-disproportionate-slice-of-power.html?mcubz=0. 90 Marc Schulman, "Why the Electoral College," History Central, June 16, 2017, []. 91 Akhil Amar, “The Troubling Reasons the Electoral College Exists,” Time, November 10, 2016, []. 92 Ibid. 93 Ibid. 94 Ibid. 95 Richard Posner, “In Defense of the Electoral College,” Slate, November 12, 2012, http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/view_from_chicago/2012/11/defending_the_electoral_c ollege.html. 96 Ruth Sherlock, “Donald Trump Calls for Unity but Takes up Divisive Rhetoric of His Campaign Once More in First Stop of 'Thank You' Tour,” The Telegraph, December 2, 2016, http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/12/02/donald-trump-calls-unity-takes-divisive-rhetoric-campaignfirst/. 97 Robert Speel, “These 3 Common Arguments for Preserving the Electoral College Are Wrong,” Time, November 15, 2016, http://time.com/4571626/electoral-college-wrong-arguments/. 98 Badger. 99 Leon Friedman, "Is the Electoral College System for Choosing Our President Unconstitutional?," The Huffington Post, November 18, 2016, http://www.huffingtonpost.com/leon-friedman/is-the-electoralcollege-_ b_13079652.html.

Case 10: Running Away from the Competition In 2014, Indian sprinter Dutee Chand gold medaled in the 200-meter sprint and the 4x400-meter relay at the Asian Junior Athletics Championships in Taipei, Taiwan. South African runner Caster Semenya, competing in the women's 800 meter run, won gold in the 2009 World Championships, and silver in the 2011 World Championships and 2012 Summer Olympics. Chand’s and Semenya’s medals, as well as the legitimacy of their even competing in the 2016 Summer Olympics, was contested as their testosterone levels are much higher than is found in most women.100 Testosterone is associated with (and, some experts suggest, productive of) increased muscle and bone mass, lean body structure, and higher competitive drive. Chand and Semenya are not the first athletes to encounter the question of endocrinological advantage. At least as early as 1936 questions were raised about alleged sex-based anatomical and physiological advantages of some women athletes.101 Since that time, the IAAF (International Association of Athletic Federations) has instituted multiple different (often excruciatingly humiliating) tests to determine the sex of women who have at least some typically masculine characteristics or who perform astonishingly well in competition.102

Various tests have demonstrated that most such women are intersexed: that is, their internal and external reproductive organs are mismatched. For example, an intersexed person may have an XY (male) chromosomal pattern and normal internal testes, but have external female genitalia. Conversely, an intersexed person may have an XX (female) chromosomal pattern and ovaries, but male external genitalia.103 In the context of the Olympic Games, the concern has been that intersexed competitors who appear to be (and think of themselves as) female may have internal testes that produce testosterone. In such cases, the female competitors will have elevated (for women) levels of testosterone in their blood. However, at the 1996 Olympic Games, seven of eight women found to have a Y chromosome were androgen insensitive: though they had blood testosterone levels higher than normal for women with XX chromosomes, their bodies could not use the testosterone to any physiological advantage. Nonetheless, the IAAF decreed that women with high testosterone levels must reduce these levels or be ineligible to compete. But endocrinologists and sports medicine experts disagree about the effects of this physiological disparity. The testosterone range among competitive athletes is great; males can have low levels and female levels can be high. In fact, a recent study found that “one in six elite male athletes have testosterone levels below the normal reference range…[and] in some cases below the average for female elite athletes.”104 Further, even in athletes with statistically normal chromosomal patterns (XX for women, XY for men) who have statistically normal appearances, scientists are uncertain how and to what extent testosterone affects performance.105 For example, the commonly-held assumption about the link between testosterone-fueled males and their innate competitiveness has been debunked by cross-cultural studies, which have shown that girls and women in countries with matrilineal cultures or “lesser economic development…[are] as competitive as their male counterparts.”106

Add the uncertain effects of differences in nutrition, training, professional coaching, familial and cultural support, and other “nurture” variations; the result is to make determining what makes any particular athlete more or less competitive little more than a guess. Nonetheless, since 2011 female competitors have been tested specifically for testosterone levels. (Men’s testosterone levels are not tested or regulated.) In June 2014, Dutee Chand, a rising young star for the Athletics Federation of India (AFI), was summoned to Delhi for testing, after which she was told she would not be allowed to compete unless she lowered her testosterone level, and that she was banned from all competition for a year. Chand appealed to the AFI to reinstate her, arguing that she had done nothing wrong. She also appealed to the international Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS)—the Supreme Court for sports disputes—which heard her appeal in 2015. In July 2016 the CAS ruled that scientific evidence was insufficient to prove that women with high levels of testosterone have a significant competitive advantage, that the nature and degree of testosterone’s effect on athletic ability is unknown, as is whether any advantage it confers is greater than such “...variables as nutrition, access to specialist training facilities and coaching, and other genetic and biological variations.”107 Thus, CAS judges ruled that requiring women to change their bodies to compete was unjustifiably discriminatory; they suspended the requirement until July 2017. If by then the IAAF was unable to demonstrate that naturally high testosterone levels in women was comparable to men’s broader advantage over women, the regulation “shall be declared void.”108 The International Olympic Committee agreed to eliminate testing pending further evidence. At the 2016 Summer Olympics Caster Semenya won the gold medal in the 800-meter event. Dutee Chand did not advance beyond the qualifying round.

100 Myron Genel, Joe Leigh Simpson and Albert de la Chapelle, "The Olympic Games and Athletic Sex Assignment," JAMA 316, no. 13 (2016): 1359-1360. 101 Melissa Block, “The Sensitive Question Of Intersex Athletes,” NPR, June 11, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetorch/2016/08/16/490236620/south-african-star-raises-sensitivequestions- about-intersex-athletes. 102 Ruth Padawer, “The Humiliating Practice of Sex-Testing Female Athletes,” The New York Times Magazine, June 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/03/magazine/the-humiliating-practice-ofsex- testing-female-athletes.html?_r=0. 103 Neil Kaneshiro, “Intersex,” MedlinePlus, August 1, 2017, https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/001669.htm. 104 Cordelia Fine, Testosterone Rex (London: Icon Books, 2017), 138. 105 Padawer 106 Fine, 124. 107 “Interim Arbitral Award in Dutee Chand v. AFI and IAAF,” Court of Arbitration for Sport, June 11, 2017, []. 108 Jeré Longman, “Understanding the Controversy over Caster Semenya,” The New York Times, June 11, 2017, https://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/20/sports/caster-semenya-800-meters.html.

Case 11: Mind over Matter? On April 29, 2017, the Ditchling Museum of ART + CRAFT opened a new exhibit: Eric Gill: The Body. Gill was one of the finest British artists of the 20th century; his sculptures stand in buildings across the world, including Westminster Cathedral (London) and the United Nations Building (NYC). His sculptures, engravings, and drawings permanently reside in prestigious museums. According to Ditchling’s web page, “[w]ithin Gill’s work, the human body is of central importance; this major exhibition asks whether knowledge of Gill’s disturbing biography affects our enjoyment and appreciation of his depiction of the human figure.”109 The “disturbing biography” referred to is Gill’s sexual abuse of his two oldest daughters during their teens. Prior to mounting the exhibition, Ditchling’s director, Nathaniel Hepburn, convened a workshop that included academics, museum professionals and curators, critics, and journalists to consider not whether, but how, the exhibition might usefully examine this sexual abuse. Journalist Rachel Cooke, a workshop participant, queries: “For me, though, the biggest question remains unanswered: why do this show at all? The darknesses in Gill’s life have been public knowledge... [since] 1989. It is not as though this information is secret. Why force it on visitors?”110

Certainly some viewers will be distressed—perhaps mightily distressed—to see sculptures and engravings of the abused daughters, executed during the periods of their abuse. For example, abuse survivors may experience flashbacks of their abuse. Members of the more general public are likely to experience feelings of disgust and repugnance in learning how Gill came to acquire such intimate knowledge of his subjects’ bodies. Abusers themselves may view their own behavior as validated upon learning that a great artist produced brilliant work as a result of his sexual abuse of minors. Indeed, one post on the museum’s Facebook page notes: “Voyeurism is not art - your exhibition feeds the poisoned minds of child molesters - for the safety of all young bodies and souls at risk - I insist you remove these images.”111 Why, then, bring up the abuse at all? Why not just show Gill’s work without mentioning this aspect of his personal history? The relationship of artists’ personal lives to their works has long been a vexed question that remains unsettled. Director Hepburn responds: “Museums have a duty to talk about difficult issues. They are a place where society can think. There is some public benefit in organisations like ours not turning a blind eye to abuse.”112 Moreover, the American Association of Museum Curators’ Code of Ethics lists as curators’ first value “[t]o serve the public good by contributing to and promoting learning, inquiry, and dialogue, and by making the depth and breadth of human knowledge available to the public.”113 The Code adds that curators’ interpretive responsibilities include: “When possible and appropriate, [curators] accurately and respectfully represent the creator’s perspective.”114 The Code does not address who is/might be the arbiter(s) of “the public good”, or the exact nature of this good. Finally, the issue of self-censorship arises: If museums themselves censor exhibitions’ content by choosing to omit objects viewers might find offensive, the public will be deprived of art that, at least according to some art experts, has aesthetic value— Robert Mapplethorpe’s photos come to mind here.

109 “Eric Gill: The Body,” Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft, June 6, 2017, []. 110 Rachel Cooke, “Eric Gill: Can We Separate the Artist from the Abuser?,” The Guardian, June 9, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/2017/apr/09/eric-gill-the-body-ditchling-exhibition-rachelcooke? CMP=Share_iOSApp_Other. 111 Ditchling Museum of Art + Craft Facebook Page, June 9, 2017, []. 112 Cooke. 113 American Association of Museums Curators Committee “A Code of Ethics for Curators,” American Alliance of Museums, June 9, 2017, []. 114 Ibid.

Case 12: Gonzo Journalism The Society of Professional Journalists was started in 1909 by DePauw University students who were interested in careers in journalism, and wanted to "uphold high standards in the profession."115 The group spread to other college campuses and evolved into a professional organization. In 1926 the group adopted its first code of ethics, borrowed from the American Society of Newspaper Editors. This code of ethics was revised five times, with the most recent revision in 2014. In the 1973 version of the code of ethics, the guidelines require being objective, free from bias, and avoiding morbid curiosity or excessive coverage of vice and crime.116 The 2014 code of ethics recommends avoiding pandering to lurid curiosity, and providing context but does not call for objectivity or avoidance of bias, except insofar as to require labeling of advocacy or commentary.117 One wonders why these rules have evolved over the past forty years. One famed journalist comes to mind: Hunter S. Thompson. He broke a lot of rules, including the general proposition in journalistic ethics that the reporter was not a part of the story, which is embodied in the prior code's calls for objectivity and biasavoidance. Instead of attempting to be the fly on the wall, he became part of the stories he reported, which upended journalistic history and tradition, and led to the notion of Gonzo journalism. Today's most famed journalists tend to be less flamboyant, but nonetheless involved in the story. Amy Goodman attended the protests in Standing Rock to cover them. She and members of Unicorn Riot, an indie news outlet, were arrested, and their arrests became part of the story, insofar as those arrests may have represented government oppression and/or intrusion on First Amendment rights.118

Many lauded the judge in Ms. Goodman's case for throwing out the riot charges against her,119 but some note that the proliferation of digital and social media and the advent of the "citizen journalist" have made it much harder to distinguish between those involved in the story and those merely seeking to cover it (and even those who may hope to make a story out of the police interactions with large groups).120 Similarly, during the inauguration in Washington, D.C. in 2017, a number of journalists were rounded up with “antifa” (i.e., anti-fascist) protesters, and some such journalists were charged with crimes for allegedly participating in the chaos that they were reporting.121 Some of these journalists claim that their footage would show that they were not participating in the riots, but merely covering the story.122 Even worse, however, are the more recent claims that some of these journalists were subjected to rape as punishment while under arrest.123 Clearly there are some instances when the journalist's involvement in the story is beyond their control, such as in the claimed rape during arrest. In other instances, however, upon running with “antifa” protesters using Facebook Live, occasionally cursing and otherwise using an informal voice, the journalist may become harder to recognize as he or she goes gonzo. We charge the police with a difficult task of deciding what "counts" as journalism when deciding who should be charged during a protest. The question remains whether the journalist has a duty not to become a part of the story, and/or whether there are contexts when proximity to the story is inappropriate.

115 Society of Professional Journalists, "Historic Moments: A Timeline of SPJ's Development," Society of Professional Journalists, June 15, 2017, https://www.spj.org/spjhistory.asp. 116 Society of Professional Journalists, “Code of Ethics (1973),” Illinois Institute of Technology, August 8, 2017, []. 117 Society of Professional Journalists, "Code of Ethics," Society of Professional Journalists, August 6, 2017, []. 118 Lizzy Ratner, "Amy Goodman Is Facing Jail Time for Reporting on the Dakota Access Pipeline. That Should Scare Us All," The Nation, October 15, 2016, [facing-prison-for-reporting-on-the-dakota-access-pipeline-that-should-scare-us-all/]. 119 Sam Levin, "Judge Rejects Riot Charges for Journalist Amy Goodman after Oil Pipeline Protest," The Guardian, October 17, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/17/amy-goodman-northdakota- oil-access-pipeline-protest-arrest-riot. 120 Alleen Brown, "Arrests of Journalists at Standing Rock Test the Boundaries of the First Amendment," The Intercept, November 27, 2016, [rock-test-the-boundaries-of-the-first-amendment/]. 121 Jon Swaine, "Riot Charges Dropped against Three more Journalists at Inauguration Protests," The Guardian, January 30, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/30/riot-charges-droppedthree- journalists-inauguration-protests. 122 Steven Nelson, "Independent Journalist Now Faces 70 Years in Prison after Inauguration Mass Arrest," U.S. News & World Report, May 1, 2017, https://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2017-05- 01/independent-journalist-now-faces-70-years-in-prison-after-inauguration-mass-arrest. 123 "D.C. Police Accused of Using ‘Rape as Punishment’ Targeting Some Arrested during Trump Inauguration," Democracy Now, June 28, 2017, https://www.democracynow.org/2017/6/28/dc_police_accused_of_using_rape.

Case 13: The Ethics of Podcasting The true crime podcast Serial is wildly popular, so much so that it has spawned many imitators since it came out a few years ago. In Serial, journalist Sarah Koenig investigates the 1999 killing of Hae Min Lee, for which her ex-boyfriend Adnan Syed was convicted and sentenced to life in prison.124 Koenig presents the story with a catchy theme song, in weekly installments, with cliffhangers at the end of each episode. For the listeners, Serial is a riveting true crime story. But for Hae’s family as well as Adnan and his family, this is—inescapably—real life. Indeed, one man claiming to be Hae’s brother posted on Reddit requesting that fans stop asking him questions: TO ME ITS [sic] REAL LIFE. To you listeners, its another murder mystery, crime drama, another episode of CSI… You don’t know what we went through. Especially to those who are demanding our family response and having a meetup… you guys are disgusting. Shame on you. I pray that you don’t have to go through what we went through and have your story blasted to 5mil listeners. 125 Some believe that it is unethical for journalists to present these stories as entertainment; others suggest that it is just the unfortunate reality that crime victims become unwitting public figures.126 The recent podcast S-Town, by the same team that produced Serial, has become another instant success.127 It begins as another true crime podcast, with journalist Brian Reed traveling to a small Alabama town to investigate an alleged murder. But it quickly becomes clear that no such murder occurred. Reed abandons the premise, and the podcast becomes a character study of the man who contacted Reed to tell him about the crime, John B. McLemore. After learning that McLemore committed suicide, Reed investigates some of the most intimate and personal aspects of McLemore's life—e.g., his sexuality, his mental health, and his romantic and familial relationships—and shares them with his listeners. This makes for an extremely compelling and unquestionably entertaining story, but many see it as inappropriately invasive, especially considering that McLemore never consented to his story being shared so broadly. One journalist described the story as "morally indefensible."128 But S-Town has also been described as "brilliant, meaningful, ambitious podcasting with the potential to elevate the medium."129 Because Reed approaches his subjects with respect and compassion, the intensely personal story humanizes McLemore instead of simply gawking at his private life.130 Indeed, as Reed himself has explained, his team's approach " is always to treat the people in our stories as three-dimensional people. We don’t do sound bites, we don’t do stereotypes."131

Reed has also clarified that the decisions to include delicate information in the podcast were not taken lightly: We think about every piece of sensitive information carefully. . . There are lots and lots that I learned in the reporting that I didn’t put in the story because we felt that what it added to the story wasn’t worth either the sensitive nature of it, or maybe it touched someone who was still alive, and we didn’t include it for that reason. But also I don’t believe that when a reporter is doing a story about someone who has died, that they can only include elements that the person consented to when they were alive. I don’t believe that’s an ethical problem.132

124 Serial Podcast Season 1, podcast audio, July 26, 2017, []. 125 Jessica Goldstein, "The Complicated Ethics of 'Serial,' The Most Popular Podcast of All Time," ThinkProgress, November 20, 2014, https://thinkprogress.org/the-complicated-ethics-of-serial-the-mostpopular- podcast-of-all-time-6f84043de9a9. 126 Ibid. 127 S-Town Podcast, podcast audio, July 26, 2017, []. 128 Gay Alcorn, "S-Town Never Justifies Its Voyeurism, and that Makes it Morally Indefensible," The Guardian, April 21, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/22/s-town-neverjustifies- its-voyeurism-and-that-makes-it-morally-indefensible. 129 Aja Romano, "S-Town is a Stunning Podcast. It Probably Shouldn't Have Been Made," Vox, April 1, 2017, https://www.vox.com/culture/2017/3/30/15084224/s-town-review-controversial-podcast-privacy. 130 Corey Atad, "How 'S-Town' Explores the Murky Ethics of Privacy," Vice, April 5, 2017, []. 131 Katie KilKenny, "Brian Reed on the Tough Reporting Decisions Behind 'S-Town,'” Pacific Standard, April 13, 2017, []. 132 Ibid.

Case 14: The Dakota Access Pipeline The Dakota Access Pipeline transports crude oil from North Dakota to a storage facility in Illinois.133 The portion of the pipeline that goes under the Missouri River in North Dakota has drawn large-scale protests from indigenous rights advocates and environmentalists.134 In light of these protests, President Obama halted the construction of the segment of the Dakota Access Pipeline that was deemed too close to the water supply of the Standing Rock Sioux tribe. In 2017, despite protests, Donald Trump changed his predecessor’s policies: construction resumed on the pipeline, and the transmission of oil began through the Great Plains.135 Advocates of the pipeline claim that focusing on domestic production of oil is in America's national interest, for the United States relies on foreign imports to meet its growing demand for fossil fuels.136 Sources of imported oil for domestic consumption include Venezuela, Saudi Arabia, and other OPEC nations. However, there may be moral benefits to minimizing trading with partners like Saudi Arabia. Put differently, by increasing North American oil independence, the pipeline might reduce complicity with and accommodation of foreign human rights violators. Moreover, transporting domestically produced oil by pipeline is “cost-effective, safer and more environmentally responsible…than other modes of transportation, including rail or truck.”137

Supporters also point out that the construction and maintenance of the pipeline has created thousands of jobs, and “has brought hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in heavy equipment” to North Dakota.138 Unfortunately, the construction of the Dakota Access Pipeline may itself have occasioned human rights violations. The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe maintains that the land through which the Dakota Access Pipeline passes was included in an 1853 treaty between several tribes and the U.S. Federal Government. According to Standing Rock spokesperson Joye Braun, “[w]e have never ceded this land. If the Dakota Access Pipeline can go through and claim eminent domain on landowners and Native peoples on their own land, then we as sovereign nations can then declare eminent domain on our own aboriginal homeland."139 In addition to their property rights claim, the Standing Rock Sioux have joined with environmental activist groups to oppose the pipeline based on the risks it poses to the land and its inhabitants. All oil pipelines have the potential for leaks, and during the past two decades, millions of gallons of oil have spilled from such pipelines.140 According to Standing Rock spokesperson David Archambault, “[o]ur tribe is actively working to move away from fossil fuels and we continue to battle those who disregard our efforts to protect our water and lands.”141

133 “Dakota Access Pipeline Facts,” Dakota Access Pipeline Facts, September 8, 2017, []. 134 Rebecca Hersher, “Trump's Move on Keystone XL, Dakota Access Outrages Activists,” NPR, January 24, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/01/24/511411653/trumps-move-on-keystonexl- dakota-access-outrages-activists. 135 Chelsea Watkins, "Standing Rock Sioux Tribe Chairman Responds to Oil in DAPL,” Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, March 27, 2017, [man_responds_to_oil_in_dapl.pdf] 136 Craig Stevens, “On the Dakota Access Pipeline, Let’s Stick to the Facts,” The Hill, September 21, 2016, http://thehill.com/blogs/congress-blog/energy-environment/296926-on-the-dakota-accesspipeline- lets-stick-to-the-facts.  137 “Dakota Access Pipeline Facts.”  138 Ibid.  139 Terry Wade and Ernest Scheyder, "Dakota Access Pipeline Opponents Occupy Land, Citing 1851 Treaty," Reuters, October 24, 2016, [].  140 “Pipeline Accident Reports,” National Transportation Safety Board, August 9, 2017, []. 141 "Native Nations Standing Together for the Paris Climate Change Agreement," Standing Rock Sioux Tribe, June 3, 2017, https://www.standingrock.org/content/native-nations-standing-together-parisclimate- change-agreement.

Case 15: Rivers Are People Too On March 15th, 2017, New Zealand passed a law declaring the Whanganui River a legal person. The Whanganui is the first river to gain legal personhood, but India quickly followed suit and granted personhood to both the Ganges and Yamuna rivers.142 Court-appointed guardians are now responsible for being trustees of the rivers' rights. These rivers cannot vote or buy beer, but they now have legal standing in national courts. Maori spokesperson Gerrard Albert says of the legal recognition: We have fought to find an approximation in law so that all others can understand that from our perspective treating the river as a living entity is the correct way to approach it, as in [sic] indivisible whole, instead of the traditional model for the last 100 years of treating it from a perspective of ownership and management.143 In addition to reflecting an ancestral view of personhood, there are practical advantages to the new legal status of the Whanganui and Ganges.

Each day, around two billion liters of waste are deposited in the Ganges alone. No longer will attempts to protect the river's health be required to show harm to people, because the rivers themselves will have rights. According to one source, "[t]he decision, which was welcomed by environmentalists, means that polluting or damaging the rivers will be legally equivalent to harming a person."144 However, these new protections have some people worried about the possible effects of protecting rivers on the local human populations. For instance, city sewage, farming pesticides, and industrial waste are all currently dumped into the Yamuna, and these waste products are, to some extent, an unavoidable aspect of urban development, farming practices, and industry. An immediate cessation of dumping this waste would adversely affect the people living in the area and benefiting from these industries. Others critics worry about ascribing rights to apparently non-moral "agents." Micaiah Bilger noted that "[u]nder the law, 'persons' quickly are becoming whatever society wants them to be – or not to be."145 But, as Chris Finlayson, New Zealand Minister for Treaty of Waitangi Negotiations, suggested, "the initial inclination of some people will say it's pretty strange to give a natural resource a legal personality…but it's no stranger than family trusts, or companies or incorporated societies."146

142 Michael Safi, "Ganges and Yamuna Rivers Granted Same Legal Rights as Human Beings," The Guardian, March 21, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/21/ganges-and-yamunarivers- granted-same-legal-rights-as-human-beings. 143 Eleanor Ainge Roy, "New Zealand River Granted Same Legal Rights as Human Being" The Guardian March 16, 2017, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/16/new-zealand-river-granted-samelegal- rights-as-human-being. 144 Safi. 145 Micaiah Bilger, "Two Countries Grant Legal Personhood to Rivers, but Not Unborn Babies" Life News, April 10, 2017, [not-unborn-babies/]. 146 Colin Dwyer, "A New Zealand River Now Has the Legal Rights of a Human" NPR, March 16, 2017, http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/03/16/520414763/a-new-zealand-river-now-has-the-legalrights- of-a-human.

From: TWENTY-FIRST INTERCOLLEGIATE ETHICS BOWL NATIONAL CHAMPIONSHIP DALLAS, TEXAS — SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 26, 2017

Case 16: Drinking for Two The New York City Commission on Human Rights released guidelines on May 6, 2016, that state, "Any policy that singles out pregnant individuals is unlawful." Thus, bars and restaurants cannot refuse to serve alcohol to women solely on the basis of pregnancy or perceived pregnancy. Other jurisdictions treat the issue of alcohol use by pregnant women differently. According to ProPublica, pregnant women who use alcohol may be charged with child abuse in at least eighteen states. Wisconsin, for example, has prosecuted women who admit to their doctors that they used alcohol while pregnant. These women were charged with violating 1997 Wisconsin Act 292 that protects “unborn children who are at substantial risk of serious physical injury due to the habitual lack of self-control of their expectant mothers in the use of alcohol beverages…” Several states have adopted fetal rights laws. Some of these statutes provide special protection for pregnant women, by imposing harsher penalties for violence against them, for example. Other fetal rights laws focus particularly on the unborn child by granting legal status to the fetus. Even if the intent of the law is to protect both mother and child, these very laws have been used against women who drink during pregnancy. A number of concerns have been raised about the rights of pregnant women and the health of their fetuses. Society’s interest in protecting the health of the unborn has led some to question an expectant mother’s right to engage in activities potentially harmful to the fetus. People disagree about where to draw the line between the health of the fetus and the rights of the mother. Some would like to prohibit pregnant women from extreme activities such as white-water rafting, bungee jumping, and scuba diving. Others argue that expectant mothers should not even exercise vigorously or eat brie cheese. Some object to judging or sanctioning the behavior of pregnant women because it infantilizes and devalues them. They claim that passing laws that criminalize otherwise legal behavior, only because of the condition of pregnancy, discriminates specifically against women in a way that endangers their civil and human rights. They further contend that such restrictions give equal or greater consideration to the rights and interests of the fetus over those of the mother. There are compelling moral and social interests in protecting the health of unborn children. There seems to be little consensus, however, on the appropriate means to do so, particularly when the rights of the mother appear to compromise the health of the fetus.

Case 17: Pay to Play College football is expected to generate almost $500 million a year for institutions and yet the NCAA continues to prohibit colleges from paying the athletes who make this windfall possible. A 2014 court ruling found the NCAA to be in restraint of trade and mandated cost-of-attendance compensation for Division I athletes, which supplements ordinary athletic scholarships. Many observers still decry the unfairness of expecting scholarship athletes to work full-time for the college to generate revenue they do not share and to complete degree requirements in the usual four years, despite this work requirement. Further, these athletes are prohibited from receiving benefit from endorsements and autographs and from controlling use of their own image. Critics of the current regimen claim that the NCAA and the college sports establishment exploit players. They point out that the few colleges that actually make money on athletics pay coaches and athletic directors large salaries, build lavish facilities to lure athletes, and then pocket what is left. Those schools that lose money on their athletic programs still pay for those large salaries and the athletic scholarships with money intended for the academic mission. One proposed solution is to adopt a free market system in which institutions bid for players. Such a scheme would require a third party association representing players to negotiate salary caps and minimums with the NCAA in order to avoid antitrust violations. The rationale given for adopting a free market arrangement is that schools that can afford it can bid up to get desired players. Schools unwilling or unable to spend so much may opt for the less expensive candidates or may decide to join a different division. Other potential provisions of a free market approach include capping coach and athletic director salaries, granting players more time to complete their college education, allowing players to benefit from endorsements, providing athletes extra benefits like health insurance, and using written contracts. Supporters of the status quo say that a free college education is pay enough for athletes.

Case 18: Tsk Tsk, Tusk Tusk The World Wide Fund for Nature estimates that poachers kill 100,000 elephants each year for the tusks, one African elephant being killed every fifteen minutes. International criminal syndicates carry out much of this poaching, using sophisticated military equipment, which makes the problem nearly impossible to solve by simply cutting off the supply of ivory. Another approach is to dry up the demand. In 1990, the government of Kenya tried to persuade the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species (CITES) to add elephants to its list of protected species. To illustrate their message, Kenya set twelve tons of ivory on fire. Whereas a single large tusk can burn for a week, a pyre of tusks burns longer and can billow black smoke nearly the entire time. The dramatic blaze succeeded in its purpose: CITES added elephants to the list of protected species, thereby prohibiting trade in ivory except under special circumstances. Further, officials claimed that the blaze significantly reduced the level of poaching in Kenya by showing that elephant tusks have no monetary value; the only real value of elephant tusks is to the elephant. Other countries followed Kenya’s strategy of attacking the market by destroying the ivory. In 2012, Gabon burned its entire stockpile. In 2013, the Philippines became the first non-African country to burn its stockpile, thereby ensuring that their ivory couldn’t re-enter the market through governmental corruption or lax oversight. Even the United States joined suit in 2015 when conservation groups organized a public burning of one ton of ivory items in Times Square, donated by people who no longer felt comfortable owning ivory. Kenya followed up its first burning with other such displays, and in April 2016, it conducted its fourth and largest public burning of ivory. It stacked 105 tons of ivory worth more than $100 million on the black market into mounds ten feet high and twenty feet wide. This dollar figure is more than Kenya spends in a year on its entire environmental and natural resources agency. The Kenyan strategy has met with some criticism. Destroying so much ivory only makes it more scarce, which is likely to increase both its value and the motivation for further poaching. The fires themselves consume much fuel and produce much pollution, which leads some critics to say that simply crushing the ivory would be better, though less spectacular. Some critics say that tracking down the traders would be wiser, perhaps by introducing into the market artificial but realistic tusks containing implanted GPS chips. After all, it makes little sense to destroy something as beautiful as ivory when not all of it comes from poaching; some comes from elephants that die naturally. Other African countries have adopted very different strategies to protect their elephants. In 2008, South Africa, Zimbabwe, Namibia, and Botswana together raised $15 million by auctioning off 102 tons of ivory. They then used the money for elephant conservation. Furthermore, instead of following Kenya’s approach of denying any economic value to the ivory, these countries focus on the high economic value of the living animals. The government of Botswana, in particular, launched a campaign to convince its citizens that elephants are more valuable alive than dead. A single elephant is worth approximately $1.6 million in tourism over its lifetime, which is  seventy-six times more than the tusks would fetch on the black market.

Case 19: We’re a Little Short on Death Today Ohio reprieved all prisoners on death row for 2016 and early 2017 due to the inability to replenish supplies of execution drugs. Thus, without the law being changed, it has become temporarily unenforceable. As reported in a recent newsletter from the Council of State Governments, “A nationwide shortage of sodium thiopental … has thrown capital punishment in the United States into disarray, delaying executions and forcing the change of execution protocols in several states.” While other drugs might serve the same purposes, state or federal laws specify exactly which drugs must be used and how lethal injections must be performed. Any changes in the required protocols will take a long time to go into effect. Sodium thiopental, pancuronium bromide, and potassium chloride comprise the lethal drug combination most commonly required by law in the United States. They are administered sequentially in that order. Sodium thiopental is a fast-acting barbiturate that brings on unconsciousness in less than thirty seconds. Pancuronium bromide is a muscle relaxant that paralyzes, among other things, the diaphragm and other respiratory muscles, which would cause death by asphyxiation should the third drug fail. Finally, potassium chloride is an electrolyte that, when injected in a large dose, will stop the heart. At least thirty states in the United States, as well as the US government itself and the US military, permit courts to sentence convicted criminals to death, and lethal injection is the most common form of execution. Even though execution is legal in the United States, a number of professional organizations have taken a stand against the death penalty and what they consider to  be inhumane treatment of prisoners, such as solitary confinement and torture. The American Medical Association, the American Pharmacists Association, and the International Academy of Compounding Pharmacists have taken stands against some or all of these practices. Besides professional organizations, individual companies have weighed in. The only US producer of sodium thiopental, Hospira, announced in 2011 that it will cease production of the drug. It had halted production the previous year because of difficulty in acquiring the raw materials, but it had stated the intention of resuming production at a facility in Italy. The Italian government, however, had demanded that Hospira guarantee that the drug (which is also used to induce general anaesthesia) never be used for lethal injection. Hospira never endorsed the use of the drug for executions, but had no way of preventing it, and since it could not control how the drug would be used, it chose instead to cease production altogether. In a statement issued on March 28, 2016, Pfizer prohibited the use of seven of its products for the purpose of lethal injection. It will continue to manufacture the products, which have important, life-saving uses; however, there are conditions. They will limit distribution to a handful of warehouses that have agreed not to sell to correctional facilities; they will require government purchasers to certify the drugs will not be used for penal purposes; and they will further require that government purchasers not resell or otherwise provide the drugs to any other party.

Case 20: To Leak or Not to Leak Exposing government information, secret or otherwise, through leaks to the news media or other channels, goes back to the birth of the United States. Whistleblowers usually act out of a sense of duty to their conscience and to the American public. The reward for their efforts, however, is seldom positive. A whistleblower often risks losing a job, financial ruin, or being labeled a traitor to his or her country. Samuel Shaw and Richard Marven were America’s first whistleblowers. In 1777, during the American Revolution, Ensign Shaw and Lieutenant Marven accused the Continental Navy’s commander-in-chief of ordering the torture of British prisoners of war. They were discharged and then sued for libel by Commodore Esek Hopkins. Luckily for Shaw and Marven, the scandal prompted the Continental Congress to pass the first whistleblower protection law and to pay for the men’s legal expenses. Commodore Hopkins was stripped of his command and his commission. Had Shaw and Marven miraculously lived another 238 years, they would have, no doubt, been pleased when the US Congress dedicated the first National Whistleblower Appreciation Day, July 30, 2015, in their honor. Ironically, the US government was, at the same time, conducting the most aggressive prosecution of whistleblowers since the administration of President Richard Nixon. The Department of Justice, using the 1917 Espionage Act, prosecuted six government employees and two contractors for leaking classified information to the news media. That surpassed the total number of all such cases going back to the Warren Harding administration. The most prominent of those being prosecuted were, like Shaw and Marven, serving in national defense related roles when they became whistleblowers. One, Chelsea Manning, was enlisted in the US Army and the other, Edward Snowden, worked as a contractor with the National Security Agency. Unlike Shaw and Marven, they are unlikely to receive any declaration of praise on National Whistleblower Appreciation Day, at least not anytime soon. Private Chelsea Manning released thousands of secret documents related to the US war in Iraq to the news media through the Wikileaks website. In a 35-page statement she read at her trial, she says she did what she did because she saw the US military committing illegal and unconscionable acts in Iraq and in the war in Afghanistan. Among the material she uncovered was a video of a US Army helicopter gunship firing on an Al Jazeera TV news crew and other reporters who were clearly not a threat to American forces on the ground. Manning pleaded guilty to a number of the charges against her and received a 35-year sentence with the possibility of parole after eight years. Meanwhile, the US Department of Justice is pursuing an active and long-term investigation of WikiLeaks. Edward Snowden, now living in exile in Russia, stunned the world when he released over a million documents revealing the vast extent of Internet and telephone surveillance being conducted by the US government, not only on people in other countries but also illegally on American citizens. Snowden said he was disturbed by the brazen disregard for privacy and the law. The US government responded by indicting Snowden on numerous counts of espionage. Without the information leaked by Manning and Snowden to the news media, it is unlikely the American public would have found out about the issues they raised or, at least, not in as timely a fashion. And yet, there are those who call both traitors to their country. The US government certainly seems to think so. One wonders what Samuel Shaw and Richard Marven would have to say about these modernday whistleblowers.

Case 21 Driverless Driving media type="youtube" key="ixIoDYVfKA0" width="560" height="315"

Case 22 Your Mind I added this from video from the World Science Festival. It can be used as the basis for your paper. View and speak to the whole of it, with specific attention to the section on ethics (about 39 minutes in). media type="youtube" key="yfYOkvQNpsA" width="560" height="315"