Educators' Obligation to Follow Government Ethics Rules or Argue Against Them

In <a href="http://www.cityethics.org/content/waivers-and-ironies&quot; target="”_blank”">a
recent blog post</a>, I wrote about how the mayor's selection for New
York City schools chancellor needed to get a waiver from the state
department of education because she lacked an educational background,
and that she resigned corporate board positions to make it clear she
was serious about taking the job, even though there were, in some
cases, no clear conflict.<br>
<br>
Unfortunately, the state education commissioner is not such a stickler
when it comes to conflicts. According to <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2010/11/23/nyregion/23panel.html&quot; target="”_blank”">an article in today's New York
<i>Times</i></a>, he did not look into the possible conflicts of the members of
the panel evaluating the chancellor candidate. The department's
spokesman said, “He asked each member if they felt they could be
independent and offer critical confidential advice as to Ms. Black’s
qualifications.”<br>
<br>

What is it about conflicts that confuses even educators like the
education commissioner and a panel member who was vice chancellor for
academic affairs at the City University of New
York? The panel member is now head of the city's historical
society, to which the mayor gave $475,000, and the chair of an academy
for which the mayor raised millions of dollars. Does she have a
conflict? “If I had something I thought I should disclose, I would have
disclosed it,” she is quoted as saying.<br>
<br>
Do these highly intelligent people really not get it that dealing
responsibly with a conflict is not an admission that you cannot think
independently or that you are somehow a bad person? Do they really not
get it that <i>not</i> dealing responsibly with a conflict is at the very
least highly unprofessional? Or do they feel they are simply above such
petty things, people who know their own integrity so well, they are not
required to display it for others?<br>
<br>
This issue has actually led to people getting 13,000 New Yorkers to
sign a petition opposing a waiver from the state, and some people to
protest outside the education commissioner's home. The commissioner's
response? Tell the panel members not to talk to the press. Talk about
responsibly dealing with conflicts . . .<br>
<br>
As usual, Susan Lerner, executive director of <a href="http://www.commoncause.org/site/pp.asp?c=dkLNK1MQIwG&b=4847595&quot; target="”_blank”">Common
Cause New York</a>, says it best:  “There are real questions about
whether this is an objective process, or whether it has been
compromised by the selection process. Is it legitimate to say, is this
tilted, is there a thumb on the scale — not a super heavy one, but a
thumb on the scale? Yes."<br>
<p>The thumb is getting heavier every day the education commissioner
and the panel members refuse to deal responsibly with the relationships
between panel members and the individual who solely selected the person
they are evaluating. Educators owe it to the rest of us to set an
example when it comes to government ethics. If they refuse to apply the
rules to themselves, then they should at least have the intellectual
integrity to make cogent arguments against government ethics. Until
they do so, they should follow the rules and their spirit.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
<br>
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