Editorial: Enron generation’s ethics

Monday, June 19, 2006 | 7:03 a.m.

Armed with examples of corporate scandals at Enron, Worldcom Inc. and other recent cases, professors at colleges and universities have plenty of real-life material to bolster their ethics classes.

But a recent story by the Associated Press suggests that such cases may not provide the intended lesson. For example, a Bentley College business professor found that after a semester of studying cases involving Enron, Worldcom, Tyco and Shell, the number of students nabbed for insider trading and other misconduct while working in a mock trading room was significantly higher than it was at the beginning of the semester. The students' response: "You taught us how to do it."

It seems harder and harder to teach that you shouldn't cheat, professors told the AP, even as more fields of study add ethics classes to their core curriculum. Corporate and political ethics violations are fodder for jokes, rather than shame. "Students need to be inspired ... (by) the possibilities of not doing harm," one University of Northern Iowa professor said.

Such inspiration seems doubtful in coming, if it hasn't already occurred to these men and women of 18 and older that cheating in business, politics and elsewhere is wrong. But it is hard to teach children to be ethical when they are bombarded almost daily by reports of well-heeled business people, respected politicians and community leaders who have raided someone else's cookie jar.

Successful leaders whose work in business, politics and community service has brought them respect and status should realize that the accolades come with a responsibility to use that power ethically. Children are watching and learning - not so much from the successes but, increasingly, from the failures.