While everybody is posting their own end-of-the-year list, here’s my selection of ethical stand-outs. Mike Carey – Carey is the first African-American to referee the Super Bowl and has been honored as one of the best in the game in 2008. While honesty and fairness are critical to his job, so is respect. So, in 2006 Carey quietly requested that...

During the past several weeks, protest marches have spread from Ferguson to Washington D.C. Is it all about the police-involved deaths of two unarmed black men, or have these events uncovered a long simmering flaw in the criminal justice system – a system that appears to side with police and against the citizens they’re supposed to protect and serve? John...

I never became aware of the racial tension that had existed for decades until the evening of August 11, 1965. The Watts Riots continued for six, agonizing days and resulted in 34 deaths and $40 million in property damage. The last two weeks have seen protests spread from Ferguson, Missouri to New York, Seattle, Washington, and Los Angeles. Last Thursday...

Beginning with last week’s grand jury decision not to charge Officer Darren Wilson in the shooting death of Michael Brown, and continuing to Wednesday night, protesters calling for fundamental change in the way police operate have gained significant momentum in major cities across the country. #CrimingWhileWhite became the unifying Twitter hashtag widely circulated since Wednesday’s decision by a New York...

“I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand.” – Atticus Finch, “To Kill a Mockingbird” There’s a moment in the film, To Kill a Mockingbird that’s particularly compelling. Tom Robinson, a black man falsely accused of raping a white woman in a small...

After learning of the death of Jo Ann Harris yesterday, I felt a great sense of loss at someone who was the definition of integrity. A former assistant attorney general for the Department of Justice’s Criminal Division under then-Attorney General Janet Reno, Harris was not only the first woman to head that post, she was also an uncompromising fighter to...

In 1938, the United States House of Representatives authorized the formation of a Special House Committee on Un-American Activities, (HUAC). The committee was charged with investigating whether there existed communists in positions of power and/or influence, not only in the government, but in American society. The long-term consequences of what has been described as a “witch hunt” have sharply divided...

In my book, What Do You Stand For?, former U.S. Ambassador to Spain and Assistant Secretary of Defense Dick Capen puts forth his own code which he calls his “Higher Ground Check List.” I asked my New Hampshire students to compose their own higher ground check list. Here’s a composite: – First, forgive yourself; you can’t start with too much baggage. –...

It’s nice to know that I’m not the only one pointing out the lack of a clearly defined ethical code followed by justices on the Supreme Court. “Chief Justice John Roberts Jr.,” the NEW YORK TIMES writes in an editorial (Judicial Ethics and the Supreme Court, Jan. 5) “skirted the heart of the problem: the justices are the only American...

A few years ago, I was called for jury duty. After being selected as a finalist, the judge explained that the case we would be deciding had to do with spousal abuse. He asked if we, as potential jurors, had anything in our personal lives that might cause us not to be impartial in this case, to speak up. I...