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In the business classes I took, teachers were reluctant to teach about ethics at all, especially if they had strong views of their own. This tells me they've been stung by the "everything is relative" crowd.

As for the politically correct diversity and environmental concerns, I've seen those openly promoted in business and accounting textbooks. Usually the business oriented teachers tend to downplay them.

OTOH, Those who teach things like English and Sociology - which are generally required for almost any major, including business - push that stuff very hard.

I've taken some interesting classes in business ethics, including a truly great course from Nobel laureate economist and historian Robert Fogel.

However, when it comes right down to it, it is not the job of a B-school faculty to teach you what your momma should have taught you before you were old enough to drool over sorority girls.

Are there some complex ethical issues, that present dilemmas to business people. Probably, on occasion. Were Enron or WorldCom among them? Not by a long shot.

I didn't need a class in B-school to teach me that setting up a Potemkin Village energy trading operation for the benefit of visiting securities analysts and the business press is wrong. Nor did I need a class to teach me that screwing the stockholders by enriching myself, when I'm supposed to be working for them, is wrong.

Call me idealistic, perhaps - But blaming this on anything but the avarice of people who should have known better is just plain BS.