Big Cheats on Campus and Ethics 101

In the news this week is a story that concerns the undergraduate students at USC. ABC broke the story concerning the Wallmart heiress Elizabeth Paige Laurie and her roommate at USC. Evidently, the struggling Hispanic roommate did all of the heiress's papers for her during her 4 years at USC. What a shame!
In a related story USA Today reports that Elizabeth Paige's name has been taken off of a brand new sports arena in Missouri. Too bad Liz.

College removes name of Wal-Mart heiress on arena
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo (AP) The University of Missouri is removing the name of a 22-year-old Wal-Mart heiress from its brand-new sports arena, a week after she was accused of cheating her way through college.



Here is the story posted at ABC online concerning the scandle at USC and the Walmart heiress. What a black eye for all of us.

By JOHN STOSSEL
Nov. 19, 2004 The old saying that "winners never cheat and cheaters never win" doesn't carry much weight on college campuses. Surveys of high school and college students show that most of them, when asked anonymously, admit they have cheated at least once. Why? And how do they get away with it?
Go to a campus, and many students will tell you cheating's a bad thing. But others admit to it openly without a hint of remorse.



To read the rest of the story from ABC News go to Big Cheats on Camus

A related story from the Josephson Institute here in Los Angeles. He is the "Character Counts" guy. You can subscribe to his column through email.

The Ethics of American Youth

New Study of 25,000 High School Students Reveals High Levels of Cheating, Theft and Cynicism Despite Stated Convictions and High Self-Esteem Concerning Ethics, Character and Trust

According to a just-released study by the Josephson Institute of Ethics based on a national survey of 24,763 high school students, nearly two-thirds (62%) cheated on exams and more than one in four (27%) stole from a store within the past 12 months. Additionally, 40% admit they "sometimes lie to save money."

Despite these admissions, the majority of students reported high self-appraisals of their character (74% rated their own ethics higher than those of their peers) and stated their convictions that honesty, ethics and good character are very important (almost all, 98%, said it is important for them to be a person of good character). What's more, most have unrealistically high self-images when it comes to ethics. Asked "if people you know were asked to list the most ethical people they know, how many would put you on their lists?" 83% said at least half the people they know would list them. Additionally, 92% said they were satisfied with their ethics and character.

To read the rest of the story go to Ethics 101