The Supreme Court makes almost all of its decisions on the 'shadow docket.' An author argues it should worry Americans more than luxury trips.; Insider, July 7, 2023

Erin Snodgrass, Insider; The Supreme Court makes almost all of its decisions on the 'shadow docket.' An author argues it should worry Americans more than luxury trips.

"The decisions made on the shadow docket are not inherently biased, Vladeck said, but the lack of transparency stokes legitimate concerns about the court's politicization and polarization, especially as the public's trust in the institution reaches an all-time low.

"Even judges and justices acting in good faith can leave the impression that their decisions are motivated by bias or bad faith — which is why judicial ethics standards, even those few that apply to the Supreme Court itself, worry about both bias and the appearance thereof," Vladeck writes.

The dangers posed by the shadow docket are more perilous than the wrongs of individual justices, Vladeck argues, because the shadow docket's ills are inherently institutional." 

APA names new chief of ethics; American Psychological Association (APA), June 29, 2023

American Psychological Association (APA); APA names new chief of ethics

"The American Psychological Association has named Lindsay Childress-Beatty, JD, PhD, as its new chief of ethics, recognizing her 20-plus years of ethics work at APA.

“Dr. Lindsay Childress-Beatty brings a wealth of experience to this position, having served as the head of the ethics adjudication team before becoming interim ethics director in 2017,” said APA CEO Arthur C. Evans Jr., PhD, in announcing the appointment. “She brings a future-oriented, strategic vision and strong leadership to move the association’s ethical work forward.”

Childress-Beatty provided strategic vision and leadership, administrative oversight and operational management of the Ethics Office as it underwent a period of transition. She has worked closely with the Ethics Committee and its ethics code task force, guiding the association through its most recent revision of its Ethical Principles of Psychologists and Code of Conduct, one of the most widely cited professional ethics codes among associations. She has presented on ethics at national and international psychology conferences, as well as association, medical and multidisciplinary legal conferences, and provides consultations on psychological and organizational ethics.

“I am gratified for the opportunity to be a part of this new era of ethics at APA,” Childress-Beatty said. “The pairing of psychology and ethics can provide meaningful guidance regarding the impact of new technologies on society, while a new ethics code will guide the future work of the discipline of psychology while ensuring that the public understands psychologists’ commitment to transparent, ethical behavior based on clear values.”

AI ethics toolkit updated to include more assessment components; ZDNet, June 27, 2023

 Eileen Yu, ZDNet ; AI ethics toolkit updated to include more assessment components

"A software toolkit has been updated to help financial institutions cover more areas in evaluating their "responsible" use of artificial intelligence (AI). 

First launched in February last year, the assessment toolkit focuses on four key principles around fairness, ethics, accountability, and transparency -- collectively called FEAT. It offers a checklist and methodologies for businesses in the financial sector to define the objectives of their AI and data analytics use and identify potential bias.

The toolkit was developed by a consortium led by the Monetary Authority of Singapore (MAS) that compromises 31 industry players, including Bank of China, BNY Mellon, Google Cloud, Microsoft, Goldman Sachs, Visa, OCBC Bank, Amazon Web Services, IBM, and Citibank."

Korea issues first AI ethics checklist; The Korea Times, June 14, 2023

Lee Kyung-min, The Korea Times; Korea issues first AI ethics checklist

"The government has outlined the first national standard on how to use artificial intelligence (AI) ethically, in a move to bolster the emerging industry's sustainability and enhance its global presence, the industry ministry said Wednesday.

Korea Agency for Technology and Standards (KATS), an organization affiliated with the Ministry of Trade, Industry and Energy, issued a checklist of possible ethical issues and reviewed factors to be referenced and considered by service developers, providers and users.

The considerations specified for report and review include ethical issues arising in the process of collecting and processing data, the designing and development of AI, and the provision of such services to customers. 

The guidelines contain considerations such as transparency, fairness, harmlessness, responsibility, privacy protection, convenience, autonomy, reliability, sustainability and solidarity-enhancing qualities."

Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire; ProPublica, April 6, 2023

Joshua Kaplan, Justin Elliott and Alex Mierjeski, ProPublica; Clarence Thomas and the Billionaire

"For more than two decades, Thomas has accepted luxury trips virtually every year from the Dallas businessman without disclosing them, documents and interviews show. A public servant who has a salary of $285,000, he has vacationed on Crow’s superyacht around the globe. He flies on Crow’s Bombardier Global 5000 jet. He has gone with Crow to the Bohemian Grove, the exclusive California all-male retreat, and to Crow’s sprawling ranch in East Texas. And Thomas typically spends about a week every summer at Crow’s private resort in the Adirondacks.

The extent and frequency of Crow’s apparent gifts to Thomas have no known precedent in the modern history of the U.S. Supreme Court.

These trips appeared nowhere on Thomas’ financial disclosures. His failure to report the flights appears to violate a law passed after Watergate that requires justices, judges, members of Congress and federal officials to disclose most gifts, two ethics law experts said. He also should have disclosed his trips on the yacht, these experts said."

The Supreme Court Needs Real Oversight; The Atlantic, December 5, 2022

Glenn Fine, The Atlantic; The Supreme Court Needs Real Oversight

"A series of recent events at the Supreme Court threatens to undermine trust and confidence in the institution and demonstrates the need for it to have a code of ethics and for better oversight within the judiciary...

First, a code of judicial ethics should apply to Supreme Court justices. The Supreme Court should explicitly state that the Judicial Code of Conduct applies to it, or implement a modified code that does.

Second, the justices should be more transparent about their recusal decisions. They should explain the reasoning for their decisions to recuse, or not to recuse, themselves in significant cases.

Third, the judiciary as a whole should be subject to inspector-general oversight—to investigate alleged misconduct and to promote efficiency throughout the judiciary’s administrative operations, not to second-guess any judicial opinion. An experienced, permanent, internal judiciary inspector general, potentially reporting to the chief justice, could be structured to ensure that the judiciary maintains its institutional independence but employs more effective oversight.

In short, the Court needs to assure the public that it is governed by ethical rules and that each justice is not voluntarily judging his or her own compliance with ethical requirements. Supreme Court justices are not above the law or ethical rules. The Court’s failure to adopt an ethical code and its resistance to oversight risk further decline in public trust and confidence."

Our Values; Georgia Tech

Georgia Tech; Our Values

"Our Strategy Guided by Values, Reinforced Through Culture

Our values are foundational in everything we do. They are our lodestar. Values define who we are and who we aspire to be as a community. They help us make decisions. They refer to an inclusive “we” and apply to every member of the Georgia Tech community — student, faculty, staff, alumni, and affiliate. No matter the role, the values are meant to guide our priorities every day, to help us focus on our important, shared mission.

Students are our top priority. 

We are educators first and foremost, committed to developing leaders who advance technology and improve the human condition. We measure our success by the achievements of our students and the impact of our graduates in improving the lives of others.

We strive for excellence. 

We strive to be among the best at what we do and to set high expectations for each of us individually and for our community as a whole. The expectation of excellence, which is instrumental to our ability to have a meaningful impact in the world, extends to our teaching, our research and creative endeavors, our athletic programs, and our operations.   

We thrive on diversity. 

We see diversity of backgrounds and perspectives as essential to learning, discovery, and creation. We strive to remove barriers to access and success, and to build an inclusive community where people of all backgrounds have the opportunity to learn and contribute to our mission.  

We celebrate collaboration. 

We enable and celebrate collaboration across disciplines and perspectives, between units and departments, and with other organizations at home and around the world. We value the contributions of all members of our community, promote civil and respectful discourse, and help one another succeed.  

We champion innovation. 

We inspire, empower, and provide the resources and environment for innovative ideas and solutions to flourish. We welcome new concepts and approaches that lead to creative ideas and solutions.  

We safeguard freedom of inquiry and expression. 

We protect the freedom of all members of our community to ask questions, seek truth, and express their views. We cherish diversity of ideas as necessary for learning, discovery, scholarship, and creativity.  

We nurture the well-being of our community.

We strive to build a healthy and vibrant environment that helps our students and every member of our community grow holistically and develop the self-awareness, knowledge, and practices necessary to pursue healthy, purposeful, fulfilling lives.

We act ethically.

We hold one another to the highest standards of professional and ethical conduct. We are transparent and accountable, and strive to earn and maintain the public trust.

We are responsible stewards.

We are careful stewards of the resources we are entrusted with and strive to be an example of sustainability, efficiency, respect, and responsibility."

Atmospheric scientist loses honor, membership over ethics violation; The Washington Post, April 8, 2022

Kay Nolan, The Washington Post; Atmospheric scientist loses honor, membership over ethics violation

American Meteorological Society expels physicist Timothy Dunkerton after offensive tweet as professional science groups grapple with how to confront harassment, discrimination

"The Post obtained a copy of an email sent privately by AMS Associate Executive Director Stephanie Armstrong to society members who had filed a formal complaint about the physicist’s behavior.

That email names Dunkerton and says he “violated two components of the AMS Code of Conduct: 1) Members shall carry out their activities with integrity and the highest ethical standards. 2) Members must treat all individuals with respect. Members must refrain from all forms of discrimination, harassment, and bullying in their professional encounters.”...

Erika Marín-Spiotta, a University of Wisconsin geography professor who holds “bystander training” workshops — which teach people ways to intervene when they see harassment or bullying — stressed the importance of disclosing incidents of misconduct to the broader community.

It “is important so that the community is aware that these behaviors are happening, they are unacceptable and will not be tolerated,” she said.

Oltman-Shay, Dunkerton’s former boss, said this week: “I applaud the AMS for continuing to review their code of ethics. … It’s my hope that this will become an example to serve as caution to those who bully.”"

Names on a list: Fleeing Mariupol, one checkpoint at a time; Associated Press, March 21, 2022

MSTYSLAV CHERNOV, Associated Press; Names on a list: Fleeing Mariupol, one checkpoint at a time

"The absence of information in a blockade accomplishes two goals.

Chaos is the first. People don’t know what’s going on, and they panic. At first I couldn’t understand why Mariupol fell apart so quickly. Now I know it was because of the lack of communication. 

Impunity is the second goal. With no information coming out of a city, no pictures of demolished buildings and dying children, the Russian forces could do whatever they wanted. If not for us, there would be nothing.

That’s why we took such risks to be able to send the world what we saw, and that’s what made Russia angry enough to hunt us down. 

I have never, ever felt that breaking the silence was so important."

David J. Hickton: Report for region: People must have voice, stake in algorithms; The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, March 10, 2022

David J. Hickton, The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette; David J. Hickton: Report for region: People must have voice, stake in algorithms

"The institute that I lead — the University of Pittsburgh’s Institute for Cyber Law, Policy and Security, or simply Pitt Cyber — formed the Pittsburgh Task Force on Public Algorithms to do precisely that for our region.

We brought together a diverse group of experts and leaders from across the region and the country to study how our local governments are using algorithms and the state of public participation and oversight of these systems.

Our findings should be no surprise: Public algorithms are on the rise. And the openness of and public participation in the development and deployment of those systems varies considerably across local governments and agencies...

Our Task Force’s report — the product of our two-year effort — offers concrete recommendations to policymakers. For example, we encourage independent reviews and public involvement in the development of algorithmic systems commensurate with their risks: higher-risk systems, like those involved in decisions affecting liberty, require more public buy-in and examination."

Holocaust Denial Materials and Other Fascist Content Removed from Library Ebook Platforms; Library Journal, March 7, 2022

 Matt Enis , Library Journal; Holocaust Denial Materials and Other Fascist Content Removed from Library Ebook Platforms

"In February, collection development librarians from U.S. public libraries pointed out on listservs and social media that several fascist ebooks—including ebooks that deny the Holocaust, a sympathetic biography of Hitler, and a new English translation of a title written by Nazi officer—were available for patrons to download on hoopla and were surfacing in searches alongside other nonfiction content. One of the titles was also available for libraries to license via OverDrive Marketplace. On February 22, the Library Freedom Project (LFP) and Library Futures (LF) released a joint statement demanding “full accountability for how these materials were selected for inclusion on the platforms and more transparency in the companies’ material selection processes going forward” along with a form letter template for concerned librarians to email the leaders of both companies...

Citing the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s collection of antisemitic content as an example, Potash argued that there are legitimate uses for this content, such as the study of propaganda or the history of the Holocaust. He emphasized that context-free antisemitic or Holocaust denial ebooks surfacing in a library’s popular history collection was highly unlikely to happen on OverDrive’s patron-facing platform.

“We are strong advocates of freedom of speech and First Amendment rights, and we also believe in trusting librarians,” Potash said. “So, every aspect of what gets added or discovered in a patron-facing site is because a librarian made that judgement call or selected the title.”...

Macrina contends that the current climate makes the removal of fascist propaganda even more important. “My view of free speech has an analysis of power in it,” she said. “Who is really at risk of being silenced? Who is really under threat for their speech? [Currently] it’s queer people, it’s Black people, it’s people of color in general…. Trans children right now have just become criminalized in Texas. So, the context of the book bannings that we’re seeing are part of a bigger issue that we are facing as a society that is challenging the very humanity of some of the most marginalized people…. Nazis went after those people. Nazis burned books.”"

Ronn Torossian Admits To "Ethical Lapses" Amid News Site Controversy; PRovokeMedia, February 23, 2022

Diana Marszalek, PRovokeMedia ; Ronn Torossian Admits To "Ethical Lapses" Amid News Site Controversy

"After finally admitting to owning Everything-PR, 5WPR founder and CEO Ronn Torossian apologized for his lack of transparency on the issue, acknowledging making “missteps including ethical lapses and errors in judgment” during the 20-year history of his firm...

Torossian’s apology comes following Crain’s New York Business’s report last week that he does indeed own Everything-PR, despite years of denial, and used the site to boost his own firm while slamming other agencies...

“In addition to being a cowardly and blatant violation of PRSA's Code of Ethics, Ronn’s actions are a stain on our profession and undermine our role as guardians of facts and integrity for those we serve. We strongly condemn his and his firm’s direct role in perpetrating disinformation while pretending to be a legitimate industry news site," said PRSA-NY's board said in a statement."

A New Code for Ethical Collecting Calls on the Art Market to Do Better by Transparently Working with Dealers; ART News, March 1, 2022

Tessa Solomon , ART News; A New Code for Ethical Collecting Calls on the Art Market to Do Better by Transparently Working with Dealers

"In 2020, Pepe gathered a group of like-minded collectors from around the world—Pedro Barbosa, Iordanis Kerenidis, Andre Zivanari, Sandra Terdjman, Haro Cumbusyan, and Jessica and Evrim Oralkan—to form a think tank dedicated to tackling the problem. The collective, working with an advisory team of 15 curators and artists, spent over a year drafting a set of principles and standards using “the language of professionals,” or what other industries use as a means of heading off power imbalances, according to Pepe. The draft is a living document, continually open to edits and additions as deeper dimensions of the issue reveal themselves.

Last week, the collective released the text of their efforts at the ARCO Madrid art fair. Titled Code of Conduct for Contemporary Art Collectors, the 11-page manual provides a template for collectors of all levels for ethically acquiring, exhibiting, and donating art, which was also reviewed by the group’s advisory team.

The code includes how to interact with dealers responsibly and transparently, how to support institutions and serve on their governing boards, and how to build and maintain collections. Each bullet point is broken down into several subcategories—the section on dealing with dealers, for example, covers “holding dealers accountable to pay artist[s] promptly,” and “not requesting artworks below fair market price,” such as asking for a discount...

This isn’t the first of ethical guideline introduced for the art world, though it is the most comprehensive. Previous attempts include the Basel Art Trade Guidelines, published by the Basel Institute on Governance, and the American Alliance of Museums’s Code of Ethics for Museums, but enforcement of either is uneven and the scope of their concerns is significantly narrower...

The group plans to update the code yearly, adding new concerns as they arise and other recommendations crowdsourced from a survey on the website. Oralkan added, “It’s a good thing—living documents shouldn’t have an end.”"

Head of nation’s largest 4-year university system resigns under fire; Politico, February 17, 2022

CHRIS RAMIREZ, Politico; Head of nation’s largest 4-year university system resigns under fire

"Three weeks before Castro was named chancellor in September 2020, Castro and Lamas entered a settlement agreement that barred Lamas from working for CSU. In return, Lamas was guaranteed $260,000, full benefits and a letter of recommendation from Castro to any other college jobs Lamas applied for, USA Today reported.

Castro apologized in an open letter to students and faculty at Cal State, saying he regretted offering Lamas the letter of recommendation. He added that Lamas was removed from campus immediately after a formal Title IX claim was filed against Lamas in 2019.

A growing number of faculty and state lawmakers had been calling for an investigation, outraged at the report. 

Such behavior happens “all the time,” CFA North Associate Vice President Meghan O’Donnell said in an interview Thursday. “It’s important for us to recognize that this is systemic,” she said, “and part of the problem is the fact that we have very little transparency or public input into the hiring of these senior level administrators.”...

The CSU also announced it will begin an initiative to “bring CSU to the forefront of Title IX innovation, accountability and response.”"

The government dropped its case against Gang Chen. Scientists still see damage done; WBUR, February 16, 2022

Max Larkin, WBUR ; The government dropped its case against Gang Chen. Scientists still see damage done

"When federal prosecutors dropped all charges against MIT professor Gang Chen in late January, many researchers rejoiced in Greater Boston and beyond.

Chen had spent the previous year fighting charges that he had lied and omitted information on U.S. federal grant applications. His vindication was a setback for the "China Initiative," a controversial Trump-era legal campaign aimed at cracking down on the theft of American research and intellectual property by the Chinese government.

Researchers working in the United States say the China Initiative has harmed both their fellow scientists and science itself — as a global cooperative endeavor. But as U.S.-China tensions remain high, the initiative remains in place." 

Opinion: A lawsuit against Google points out a much bigger privacy problem; The Washington Post, February 14, 2022

Editorial Board, The Washington Post; Opinion: A lawsuit against Google points out a much bigger privacy problem

"The phenomenon the recent suits describe, after all, is not particular to Google but rather endemic to almost the entirety of the Web: Companies get to set all the rules, as long as they run those rules by consumers in convoluted terms of service that even those capable of decoding the legalistic language rarely bother to read. Other mechanisms for notice and consent, such as opt-outs and opt-ins, create similar problems. Control for the consumer is mostly an illusion. The federal privacy law the country has sorely needed for decades would replace this old regime with meaningful limitations on what data companies can collect and in what contexts, so that the burden would be on them not to violate the reasonable expectations of their users, rather than placing the burden on the users to spell out what information they will and will not allow the tech firms to have.

The question shouldn’t be whether companies gather unnecessary amounts of sensitive information about their users sneakily — it should be whether companies amass these troves at all. Until Congress ensures that’s true for the whole country, Americans will be clicking through policies and prompts that do little to protect them."

Congress approves bill to end forced arbitration in sexual assault cases; NPR, February 10, 2022

Deirdre Walsh, NPR ; Congress approves bill to end forced arbitration in sexual assault cases

"The Senate approved legislation banning the practice of using clauses in employment contracts that force victims of sexual assault and harassment to pursue their cases in forced arbitration, which shields accused perpetrators.

Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., introduced the bill five years ago and lawmakers negotiated with business leaders to get support for the bill. In a sign of the overwhelming support for the measure, it was approved by voice vote in the chamber.

The bill, called the Ending Forced Arbitration of Sexual Assault and Sexual Harassment Act, was passed with a large bipartisan vote by the House of Representatives on Monday and heads to President Biden's desk for his signature.

The bill gives individuals a choice between going to court or going to arbitration to resolve allegations in cases related to sexual harassment or assault. The measure is also retroactive — invalidating any existing forced arbitration clauses in ongoing cases that could make it difficult for any survivors to litigate cases against their employers.""

The Supreme Court needs a code of ethics; The Hill, February 10, 2022

STEVEN LUBET, The Hill; The Supreme Court needs a code of ethics

"A Supreme Court ethics code could delineate the circumstances in which a justice may address an overtly political audience, as well as the appropriateness of making secret speeches at all. 

The specific provisions of a Supreme Court ethics code would be up to the justices, whose public approval has been plummeting in recent years. As my colleagues and I wrote in our open letter, “even if primarily aspirational [a code] would have a broad salutary impact, assisting current and future members of the Court to transparently address potential conflicts and other issues in a way that builds public trust in the institution.” Supreme Court ethics should not be a black box."

TikTok bans misgendering, deadnaming from its content; NPR, February 9, 2022

RINA TORCHINSKY , NPR; TikTok bans misgendering, deadnaming from its content

"TikTok is updating its community guidelines to ban deadnaming, misgendering and misogyny.

The changes, announced Tuesday, are a part of a broader update designed to promote safety and security on the platform. The app will also remove content that promotes disordered eating and further restrict content related to dangerous acts. 

Last year, a report by GLAAD said TikTok and other top social media sites are all "effectively unsafe for LGBTQ users...

Along with the new guidelines, TikTok published its most recent quarterly Community Guidelines Enforcement Report. More than 91 million videos — about 1% of all uploaded videos — were removed during the third quarter of 2021 because they violated the guidelines. 

Of all videos removed from July to September 2021, about 1.5% were removed due to hateful behavior, which includes hate speech on the basis of race, sexual orientation and gender, among other attributes."

Legal Scholars Push For Supreme Court Ethics Code As Gorsuch And Thomas Come Under Fire; Forbes, February 4, 2022

 Alison Durkee, Forbes; Legal Scholars Push For Supreme Court Ethics Code As Gorsuch And Thomas Come Under Fire

"More than two dozen legal ethics scholars asked Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts Thursday to impose a code of conduct for the court’s judges, as the conservative-leaning court faces declining public trust and Justices Neil Gorsuch and Clarence Thomas spark new ethics concerns...

A code of conduct would help the Supreme Court “transparently address potential conflicts and other issues in a way that builds public trust in the institution,” the 25 scholars wrote in their letter to Roberts, which was released through activist group Fix the Court.

The scholars said their request wasn’t in response to any particular concern, and they “do not question the integrity of any justice,” but it comes amid concern about ethical conflicts.

Gorsuch will speak Friday evening at a conference in Walt Disney World for the conservative Federalist Society, drawing criticism because of the event’s overt political nature—other speakers include Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, Vice President Mike Pence and Trump White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany—and because it’s closed to the press."