Lawrence Morahan, CNSNews.com
Tuesday, July 9, 2002

Only about a quarter of 400 college seniors randomly selected from campuses around the country said their professors taught the traditional view that "there are clear and uniform standards of right and wrong by which everyone should be judged."

The poll was conducted in April by Zogby International, and has a sampling error of plus or minus 5 percent.

'Progressive' to Whom?

A large majority of students also report that they've been taught that corporate policies furthering "progressive" social and political goals are more important than those ensuring that stockholders and creditors receive accurate accounts of a company's finances, the study said.

When respondents were given a list of business practices and asked, based on what they've been taught at college, which of the practices rank as the most important, 38 percent chose "recruiting a diverse workforce in which women and minorities are advanced and promoted."

Eighteen percent chose "minimizing environmental pollution," and another 18 percent chose "avoiding layoffs by not exporting jobs or moving plants from one area to another."

Only 23 percent said "providing clear and accurate business statements to stockholders and creditors" is the most important business practice.

However, 97 percent of all seniors believe college has equipped them to perform ethically in their future professional lives, the study found.

Based on what they learned, the seniors were more cynical about business ethics than those of other professions. Twenty-eight percent chose business as the profession where an "anything goes" attitude most likely leads to success; 20 percent chose journalism, and 16 percent chose law.

Moreover, 56 percent of college seniors agreed that the only real difference between executives at Enron and those at most other big companies is that Enron executives "got caught."

'Disturbing'

Stephen H. Balch, president of National Association of Scholars, said in a statement that the results "have disturbing implications both for America's economy and its institutions of higher education.

"They suggest that our colleges and universities, however unwittingly, are contributing to, and perpetuating, the ethical laxness behind the recent scandals at Enron, Worldcom and other major American firms," Balch said.

The foundations of ethical education are laid in the home and school, Balch noted.

"At best, universities can only confirm the lessons taught there," he said. "But they can also undermine these lessons by providing sophisticated excuses for succumbing to the temptations of greed and power.

"The revitalization and politicization of ethical standards, plus cynicism about business in general, opens the way for such excuse making," he said.

The study concluded there were "significant reasons" to be concerned by the results.

"First, it seems reasonable to believe that when students leave college convinced that ethical standards are simply a matter of individual choice, they are less likely to be reliably ethical in their subsequent careers," the study said.

"Unfortunately, three-quarters of our respondents report that this was the relativistic view of ethics they received from their professors," the study concluded.

NAS, based at Princeton, N.J., counts more than 4,000 professors, graduate students, administrators and trustees as members at its 46 state affiliates.

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