An ethical dilemma
While society sets a bad example, the Branson School sets a unique ethics program

BY JACOB SHAFER

The moment must have seemed strange—perhaps even surreal—to the young Marin minds watching, reading and listening; minds that had grown up believing in the oft-repeated saying “cheaters never prosper.”

There they were. A collection of Major League Baseball players scrubbed, shaved and stuffed into suits, lined up in front of a Senate panel to answer questions about the rampant use of illegal performance-enhancing drugs in their sport.

They were heroes, MVPs, symbols of our country’s National Pastime. And yet there they sat—humbled, humiliated, cut down to size. Some clenched their jaws and issued defensive, knee-jerk denials, sounding less like crusaders of truth and more like the kid who gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar and defiantly proclaims, “I didn’t do it!” Others were brought to the edge of tears, including uber-slugger Mark McGwire, whose all-American smile and broad-shouldered frame once earned him comparisons to Paul Bunyan. Now those shoulders, which helped McGwire slam a then record-setting 70 home runs in the summer of 1998, were slumped.

One player who wasn’t there was Barry Bonds, the San Francisco Giants’ left fielder, who broke McGwire’s home run mark in 2001 and shortly thereafter was called before a grand jury to testify about his relationship with the Bay Area Laboratory Cooperative (BALCO), a shady outfit run by known steroid dealers.

Baseball is supposed to be an innocent diversion, symbolic of the promise of spring and the lazy joy of summer. But with steroids on everyone’s mind—and apparently in more than one player’s bloodstream—the game seemed like nothing more than a haven for cheaters, a farce.

And the scandal wasn’t confined to baseball alone. Olympic Gold Medalists like track star Marion Jones were also accused of doping, as was Tour de France winner Floyd Landis, who tested positive for abnormally high levels of testosterone (and may soon be stripped of his title). Meanwhile, in the world of professional football, some NFL players whispered to reporters that more than half of the league’s muscle-bound tackling machines were running on unnatural fuel.

The message from our nation’s top athletes seemed to be: Cheat away—it’s the fastest route to the top.

Back in Washington, D.C., where numerous senators were wagging fingers and calling for the sports world to clean up its act, things looked equally grim. Sure, our elected officials weren’t injecting human growth hormone into their buttocks, but they were engaging in plenty of other ethically questionable activities.

In a town rife with corruption and cronyism, House Majority Leader Tom “The Hammer” DeLay became the poster boy for governmental malfeasance. Critics charged him with gerrymandering districts in his home state of Texas to maintain Republican control; accepting extravagant and wholly inappropriate gifts (read “bribes”); and cozying up to former lobbyist extraordinaire (and now convicted felon) Jack Abramoff. The sins credited to DeLay were as numerous as they were egregious.

But the problem went much deeper than DeLay, and spanned both sides of the aisle. While Republicans deservedly bore the brunt of the criticism for the Abramoff scandal, there were also Democrats with less-than-clean hands. Take, for example, Congressman William Jefferson, who allegedly accepted bribes from a tech company in exchange for influence. An FBI raid on Jefferson’s office reportedly uncovered $90,000 in cash, wrapped in tinfoil and stuffed into a freezer.

And of course we can’t forget the current presidential administration, one that has been surrounded by controversy—a hotly contested election; a pre-emptive war predicated on shoddy, misleading intelligence; unauthorized wire tapping of U.S. citizens; the alleged torturing of prisoners in direct violation of the Geneva Conventions—virtually since the day Bush and company arrived at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The culture of corruption didn’t end with pro athletes and politicos. In the private sector, an array of corporate scandals came to light. Enron, Tyco, WorldCom—these once benign names suddenly became tantamount to dirty words as newspapers ran photos of disgraced CEOs scowling in courtrooms, and printed the stories of investors and employees who had been robbed of their pensions and livelihoods by a small collection of greedy men.

What was going on? How had it possibly come to this? Was our collective moral compass broken beyond repair? Were lying, cheating and stealing now an indelible part of the social fabric?

These concerns have not gone away. In fact, they’ve only intensified in the wake of more and more large-scale scandals both public and private. As ethically vacant individuals and the transgressions they commit increasingly become more the rule than the exception, one has to wonder what our nation’s young people—the future leaders of America—are gleaning from all of this.

And if the answer is (as Wall Street’s Gordon Gecko so famously put it) that greed is good, then the more pressing question becomes: What are we going to do about it?

• • • •

Situated on a sloping bit of real estate just off the quiet back streets of Ross—perhaps Marin’s wealthiest and most placid town—the Branson School seems far, far away from the world of doped up ballplayers, disgraced corporate executives and sleazy politicians. With its well-manicured grounds, stately old buildings and a student body of just 320, the campus induces an immediate sense of tranquility.

But it is here—at this tiny, tucked-away private institution—that something vital and unique is taking place. Students and teachers at Branson are engaging in a dialogue about the important ethical dilemmas of our time; seeking to establish a collective moral framework. This is the Branson School Ethics Initiative, a program that utilizes lectures, book clubs and campus-wide discussions to try to get kids (and adults) thinking about the big questions: How do I live a meaningful life? Where do our values come from? What is real happiness?

“One of our most important goals as a school is to care for our students outside the classroom, to help shape what kind of people they become,” says Steve Bileca, Branson’s dean of students. “We don’t want to tell kids what’s right and what’s wrong, so much as we’re looking to spur discussion about what it means to be good in the context of Marin County, 2006, United States, Planet Earth.”

Sound like a big subject to tackle? It is. But the reason it’s been successful (Bileca and other faculty members say the positive student response has far exceeded their initial expectations) is because the goal is merely to begin the process of exploration, to light the flame of ethical inquiry.

“We’re not trying to get kids to say explicitly, ‘This is right and this is wrong,’ “ says Bileca. “Rather, we’re trying to get them—and all of us—to think outside ourselves.”

Steve Henrikson, chair of Branson’s history department and an active participant in the Ethics Initiative, believes giving students the tools to access the questions “is very different than providing the answers.”

“It’s really about exploring,” says Henrikson. “We do it collectively, but this program’s very much an individual thing. During high school kids are moving away from a blind rejection or acceptance of their parents and into a phase of asking, What is it I really believe? What is it I care about? It’s during this period that we want to help them with the process, and help them to really own it.”

Margaret Cecchetti, who chairs the foreign-language department at Branson, sees the program as an important outlet for students who want to step back from their day-to-day concerns—grades, college, etc.—and assess who they are as burgeoning individuals. “These kids are very goal-oriented. I see this program as a way to say, ‘We’re all extremely privileged, extremely bright, we have a great life. Fine. But how do we get past that and look beyond yes or no answers?’ “

This emphasis on the subjective, complex aspects of ethics and morality seems to have struck a chord with students.

“I feel like the way ethics have been presented to me through my life up until now has been very simplistic, really condescending,” says Branson senior Flannery Berg. “As a teenager you have this deep desire to ask the unanswered questions; to have those conversations and be part of a group that fosters that kind of dialogue.”

Senior Caroline Gelber says she feels that in most daily-life situations, honest ethical discussions are “brushed aside.”

“I think it’s important to take the kind of ethical considerations that our group tries to bring up into daily life and into daily conversations,” Gelber says. “I don’t think most students get enough exposure to that type of thought.”

But, at a certain point, the study of ethics has to move past grandiose and esoteric notions and tread into the often sticky realm of real-life dilemmas, right?

Right. And the Branson program does not shy away from this fact.

Students recently read and discussed T.C. Boyle’s The Tortilla Curtain, a novel that deals with the hot-button issue of illegal immigration. Additionally, a group viewing of the Oscar-winning movie Crash—a pull-no-punches examination of race relations in Los Angeles—sparked lively and instructive debate.

To help lend credentials and a more nuanced perspective to the fledgling program, Branson has hosted an impressive collection of guest speakers, beginning with human rights researcher Peter Boukaert and journalist Mark Hertsgaard during the 2002-03 school year. More recently, John O’Connor, lawyer and representative for Mark “Deep Throat” Felt, gave a presentation.

Also, noted philosopher and author Jacob Needleman has been brought into the fold as an adjunct faculty member. Over the course of his career, Needleman has written on topics ranging from love to money to religion to the cosmos. His new book, due out next year, is titled Why Can’t We Be Good?

That’s a question kids (and teachers) at Branson are wrestling with. And they’re hoping the answer is: we can.

“I think now, more than in the past, our actions as individuals can have a great and immediate effect on the world around us,” says Berg. “The challenges of today are complicated, but we have the tools to make good choices and guide our actions toward positive change.”

• • • •

Do we live in an ethically challenged society (and world)? The evidence appears to point fairly conclusively in that direction. But are things any worse than in the past, or does it merely seem that way because of a globe-spanning mass-media apparatus capable of disseminating information like never before? That question is a bit more difficult to answer.
Steve Sanderson has taught ethics at various colleges and universities across the country, and served for several years as a political consultant. He is now retired and lives in San Francisco, where he says he is glad to be “far, far away from the cesspool that is Washington.” (Meaning, he adds wryly, the district that’s home to the White House and the Pentagon and not “our drizzly neighbor to the north.”)

Asked whether the ethical problems of today are any worse than those of the past, Sanderson is hesitant to give a definitive answer.

“If you’re asking are there more problems, are the problems more complex in a sociopolitical context, then the answer is, probably, yes. Because we have more people and less resources. But if you’re talking about degree, about just how bad and morally reprehensible these contemporary things are, then I’d have to remind you about the enslavement of the African population, the Holocaust, the Inquisition, every war ever fought. Human history is a series of ethical dilemmas; sometimes we’ve passed the test and, more often, we haven’t.”

When the question of the media is raised, Sanderson is rather disdainful. “There are a few good sources out there, good reporters and editors and even TV personalities. But the overall context they’re working in is not one where the goal is to present the whole story, but rather bits and pieces of it to suit certain interests. So I agree that the volume of information has increased and therefore people may have more awareness. But it’s a stunted awareness, an incomplete awareness. People have some facts, but not necessarily the right ones or the most pertinent ones.”

Sanderson believes that corporate scandals like Enron, as well as the use of performance-enhancing drugs in professional sports, are symptoms of a more serious disease. “Success in this country and around the world has come to be narrowly defined as having lots of money—and maybe that’s been the case for a long time now, but I think things are getting worse, or at least more exaggerated. Money equals power and prestige. So of course some people, many people, are going to do whatever it takes to obtain money, to obtain that power. If you need to steal or cheat or step on somebody, so be it.”

But isn’t there a gray area? What if a person needs to steal or cheat to feed his or her family?

“Sure, there’s always a gray area,” Sanderson quickly concedes. “Some ethicists will tell you that there’s a set of unchangeable universal rules—and it’s airtight, so there is very little room for ‘what-ifs.’ But I’d contend that these people don’t live in the real world, where every day we’re confronted with a hundred questions that don’t have easy answers. That’s why most people just kind of make it up as they go along. But when they do that often greed, or maybe just an innate sense of self-preservation that says, ‘I have to look out for number one,’ takes over. So this is where we have to try to insert some sort of code of conduct, each of us as individuals, where we can make choices based on something other than impulse or fear or self-gratification. Compassion and ethics are closely tied in this way.”

At the end of the day, is there hope for the human species? Can we, as individuals and as a collective, become more ethical?

“Yes, hope springs eternal as they say,” Sanderson offers, cracking a small but face-brightening smile. “If you look around, all the time you can see examples of people choosing the moral or ethical path. Being kind, being compassionate, subordinating their base desires in the interest of social harmony. There are a lot of forces holding that part of our psychology down, and it’s difficult to not get swept away by the dog-eat-dog mentality. But it can be done. It’s always there, that ethical part of us. We just have to learn to access it, to utilize it and to make it flourish.”

• • • •

Since the Senate hearings and the flap that surrounded them, Major League Baseball has instituted a tougher steroid testing policy, under which several players have been suspended.

Kenneth Lay, CEO of Enron, was convicted on 10 counts of securities fraud and other related charges. Before spending a day in prison, he died of an apparent heart attack.

Tom DeLay has vacated his office and now faces criminal charges.

Does this mean the forces of good have won out? Certainly not. Critics say that MLB’s testing policy is still far too lax and that new, undetectable designer drugs continue to flow through the veins of the nation’s top athletes. While Lay and a handful of other prominent executives were brought to justice, few claim that the corporate world has rid itself of corruption. Nor has Washington, D.C., where the arrest of Jack Abramoff certainly did not put an end to the practice of influencing morally flexible public servants with trips and gifts and cold hard cash.

But there are at least signs that we may have turned a corner; that there is a renewed push to bring ethics back to the forefront of the public debate—a debate that must ultimately be taken up by the nation’s youth. They are the ones who will have to steer the ship, sooner than later.

Back at Branson, motivated, idealistic and open-minded young people are doing their part—reading, discussing and growing by leaps and bounds.

Dean Bileca looks toward the future with optimism. “These kids have shown me, and continue to show me, that they are capable of great things, of pushing themselves to become better and better people. They’re examining their lives, their place in the world, and they’re planting the seeds for tomorrow.”

ILLUSTRATION BY JING JING TSONG

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