Don't want to take this discussion too far off-topic, but I wanted to make a comment here, if I could... This sentiment is the one I've primarily held in my adult life...where I can't see far enough ahead of myself to compromise my "principles" on "fair treatment" of people in the public sectors of our American society, just to keep a job and a paycheck. I abhor that, for the past 25 or 30 years, more and more people are forced into that type of quandary. And it's only gotten worse, with technological innovations and globalization of workforces which have done more to threaten livelihoods than any foreign (or even a domestic) threat we've wasted countless amounts of taxpayer money on. I recently spoke with a guy at the plant I where I work. He's a manager with a great resume and advanced degrees in his field, yet he's been routinely passed over for promotions several times in the last half-dozen years for less-qualified and experienced persons. He believes it is because he is black, his supervisor is white, and that they both regularly "butt heads". I've learned to be a bit nuanced in my dealings with people...partly because I'm still fairly naïve and silly enough to believe in the inherent goodness of people winning out in the end. I don't know the other person in this story or have heard an opposing viewpoint from anybody else close enough to the situation, so I'm personally wary to reach for any racial undertones with this particular case as it's been presented to me. Part of the reason for this guy's lack of promotion could very well be that he doesn't get along with his boss. That, and nothing else, would make it a simple case of human nature forever being at the heart of ours never really being exclusively a society of merit and opportunity. At the end, I offered to this guy that, if he's feeling trapped or hemmed in or burdened by his current situation, he made be better served in looking for a better job. He even mentioned that he had friends and peers who had managed to succeed in the same area of expertise much faster than him in different companies. He may have to find the opportunity elsewhere that he may be denied here. He seemed to be open to that, but he did have a certain level of comfort with his job, and he had a family to think about. Principled departures for "stable" jobs, particularly in light of the last few years, are ominous propositions, to say the least. Also interestingly, he felt that he wanted to be part of "the best" company (which ours routinely ranks as one of), and didn't like to think that he should be denied an opportunity to succeed where he was, if he had the merits, based on any personal feelings. He got sold on merit, and wants to redeem the ticket, in essence. All in all, Deckard, I commend your stance in your example. I've made many decisions, professionally, that have perhaps cost me much in the way of personal gain, because I didn't feel that the ends justified the means. I've never regretted, ultimately, any of those decisions. But to say that they weren't difficult for me on a very real level to traverse and endure would be dishonest. I was always perhaps more troubled by the fact that "honor" and "character" and "loyalty", in our working worlds, don't have quite the same meaning as they may have had once upon a time. Or maybe they do, which is still the same problem, times about 100. I guess my point is this: ...if "...Corporations are people, my friend..."is going to be the company line (vis a vis Citizens United) for us for the next few years... ...it might do some good to focus on what kind of people are in these corporations. I'm a firm believer in trying most anything once (or twice, with feeling). But we've already done the whole "separate-but-equal" and "civil war' stuff here.... ...Seems like beating a four-day-old dead horse, to me (if you can stand the smell of it). That's my time. Back to the discussion now:grin:
I assume the NBA has a "code of conduct" that Sterling violated which makes this different than the Mozilla case. The NBA has one for the fans which can cause them to be ejected from stadiums for foul or abusive language. It would only make sense for the owners, management and players to have a similar code.
Ignoring any code of conduct rules that they have, do you think the players and coaches are justified in speaking out against their owner?
Um, that's how responsibility and discipline work; setting boundaries for yourself so others don't have to.
Let's not make assumptions. Corporations also have codes of conduct by the way. The NBA is just a business as the end of the day. And the Owners run the show, they are the bosses and may not be held to any kind of conduct code like employees are. I want to understand that since RJ feels it's wrong for society to put pressure on the CEO of a company to resign for being anti-gay if he also feels that it is wrong for the players and coach to want Sterling to resign for being anti-black. And for the record I am not advocating one way or the other, I am just trying to resolve what I see as inconsistencies in people's logic.
Innocent doe-eyed boy, I refer you to sweet lou's answer. I'd be surprised if they have a code of conduct other than "dont do something that *****s with the value of our asset or our revenue stream."
They likely have a "best interests of the game" clause of some sort. They do have some kind of conduct rules - that's how Cuban keeps getting fined for various things. That said, I think the more relevant question here is whether the employees are entitled to speak out against the owner's views. It seems in the Mozilla case, many felt that they should shut up.
If you read my response regarding Eich yes the NBA, the Clippers' organization have a right to try to force Sterling out and probably should because Sterling is very clearly negatively affecting the business. If I was a member of either of those organization I would agree with them. My own personal view still stands though in regard that if a CEO / business owner had views that I and most people don't agree with I don't think that automatically disqualifies them from running the business if they keep that to themselves and it isn't harming the business otherwise. As I stated before there are probably a lot of people who we work with who have views that we find abhorrent. As I've said before this is why it is important that laws are in place to combat discrimination. What Sterling, Eich or anyone else thinks is their own business (pun intended) as long as that doesn't become business practice. In the case of Sterling his own actions and comments show how hypocritical and pathetic his situation is. Here is a racist who is forced to hire and pay millions to people he hates. That says much more about where we are as a society than that there are old racists still like Sterling.
So basically what you are saying is that since racism is a lot more controversial and upsetting to people, it hurts business and therefore it's ok for people to want him fired. But if it comes to light that a CEO is anti-gay or has homophobic views, it is not ok to want him fired because being anti-gay may be ok and since the jury is out on whether or not being homophobic is really wrong, people should be ok working for an anti-gay CEO - since it won't negatively affect business that much either? Because that is what it sounds like you are saying.
I think we can all agree that Sterling's comments are despicable but let me ask a question back. How far should unpopular views go to forcing CEO's / Business owners out. GW Bush is no longer popular among both Democrats and Republicans. Should business owners who were strong supporters of GW Bush and still friends with him be forced out? Should devout Muslims be forced out of business leadership positions because they follow a religion that most Americans are suspicious about and have cultural practices that many find abhorrent? These are the type of things that we deal with all the time in a diverse society.
Not exactly. If you reread what I wrote I said that if Eich was hurting Mozilla's business they should remove him and I would agree with that if I was a Mozilla employee, shareholder or otherwise. Eich was starting to hurt Mozilla's business so forcing him out was probably the right thing. My own personal views is that if a business owner has abhorrent views as long as they don't bring that to their business and it doesn't affect their business otherwise then they should be allowed to run their business. I directly answered the question regarding racism early to a hypothetical brought up. Now let me ask you the question I just proposed above. Islam isn't very popular in the US and a lot of people find cultural practices of devout Muslims abhorrent should devout Muslims be forced out of CEO positions? Where is the line that you draw regarding when personal views of a CEO should cost them their job?
Not to get off track from the Mozilla topic here, but apparently Silver can boot Sterling from the league with a 75% vote from the owners. No idea if that many owners would support that extreme a measure though.
I'm going to ask another hypothetical since this was brought up that while Eich's views maybe shared by many in the Bay Area and in the IT industries such views are not acceptable. In the case of Sterling much of the NBA is African-American including the coach of the Clippers and so is most of the fan base. Would you agree that it would be right then for a company located in the Bible Belt with employees who were mostly Christian to force out a CEO who was atheist and had privately made disparaging marks about Christianity?
If the employees found out and were angry and didn't feel they could work for the CEO, then the company has a difficult decision to make. You seem to focused on the idea of some "right" or "wrong" action by the business here - but there's not necessarily one. The CEO should continue to be CEO if the owners of the company want him or her as CEO. If the owners want to keep him as CEO, great. If the owners decide he or she can't be an effective leader, then letting them go is an option to consider. The "effective leader" is the key point here with Mozilla - you go back to the fact that he's a perfectly good CEO deserving of his job. But that's an entirely subjective idea when it comes to CEOs - you can't measure their job performance entirely by concrete metrics. In this case, Mozilla had a disagreement between the CEO and a chunk of employees and the owners had to resolve it in the best interests of the company. They could have fired the CEO, fired the employees, kept them all and forced them to work together or figured out some other solution - any would have been valid options.
I am a bit confused to be honest. Because I feel there is a bit of contradiction here. So I agree the basis should be business-oriented regarding the executives making a decision. But there is also the workers and general population. My understanding is that you said it was wrong for the workers or for people to force Eich out because that represented intolerance of view points in a pluralistic society. Do you still hold that true? So I am trying to understand why it's ok to have discriminatory views about sexual orientation but not race. You are countering that it is harmful to the NBA business. Why? Because fans, coaches, and players are going to throw a fit, right? And it will cost them money. So can't you say by the Eich logic, that the fans and coaches and players are being intolerant in a pluralistic society? You say Christians should be able to force out an atheist CEO by this logic. Which logic? Because you could make the same case if it was Eich or Sterling. And he answer to both of your questions is absolutely NO! A muslim or an atheist shouldn't be thrown out. You are confusing having views that are different than someone elses versus having views that are anti-thesis to living in a pluralistic society, and that's the irony here. Being an atheist or a Muslim maybe be offensive to some people, but there is not a history of systematic hate and discrimination that has been used to prosecute a people. That's the line I draw. In both cases, the CEO manages people he is discriminating against. You could argue Eich is actually the worse case since he is actually taking action that limits the rights of some of his employees and customers. Sterling is just an idiot from a bygone era. Eich should be removed for the very same reasons as Sterling. Both of them had their private views made public. Neither has committed a crime. Both are held in contempt of minority groups who have faced discrimination and persecution. Both are on the "moral" wrong side of the general direction society is heading, and both are hurting their businesses by tarnishing its brand. I think it's pretty clear to me.
Sterling should go, not because of his alleged racial views, but because he doesn't care about the NBA.
What are you defining as fan base? By shear numbers, blacks make up less than 14% of the U.S. population, so I think it can be safely assumed that most of the fan base is white.
