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Monday, March 01, 2004

TEACHING TODAY

Second in a series highlighting notable teachers on America’s campuses.

"Kozlowski also used Tyco's extraordinarily generous bonus system to co-opt many key executives at headquarters and in the field. In effect, he twice bought the loyalty of the most strategically positioned employees, cutting at least 50 of them in on his under-the- table largesse. It is not clear how many of them understood that their relocation perks and "special bonuses" may not have been approved by the board. But Mark Belnick, a respected New York lawyer whom Kozlowski lured to Tyco in 1998 to serve as general counsel, allegedly signed a secret employment contract tying his compensation to the CEO's. According to Tyco, Belnick was paid a staggering $20 million in 2000 and also dipped into the covert New York relocation loan program for $10 million to buy and renovate a home in Park City, Utah, for his wife and son. Belnick was indicted along with Kozlowski and Swartz but charged only with falsifying business records. He has pleaded not guilty." Business Week Online December 23 2002


Professor Mark Belnick has, since 1999, directed and lectured in Cornell University’s pre-law summer program. He has also, for the last couple of years, stood handcuffed in a variety of courtrooms, under indictment for defrauding Tyco shareholders of millions of dollars through, in the words of the SEC, “egregious self-dealing transactions.” Belnick, whose trial gets underway this month, seems to have been paid tens of millions of dollars to fiddle with Tyco’s books in order to cover up the spectacular malfeasance of its executives. (He’s also accused - more conventionally - of misusing company funds for multiple luxury residences.)

Despite Belnick’s highly publicized likely involvement in a raft of unethical and illegal activities, Cornell is standing by its man, affirming in its defense of him America’s commitment to the presumption of innocence. And while some might claim that keeping an indicted former executive of one of the dirtiest of criminally run corporations on the faculty is unwise - particularly when the professor is preparing students for the field of law - others might point out that effective pedagogical use might be made of such a person.

For instance, Gerald Graff of the University of Illinois has argued that rather than isolate themselves in their classrooms with their own set of ideas - ideas often interestingly at odds with those of some of their colleagues - university professors should “teach the conflicts.” That is, they should stand up together in front of classes and air their intellectual differences.

I can imagine a kind of dream instructional scenario in which Professor Belnick might be paired with one of Cornell’s distinguished moral philosophers to duke it out on the subjects of good and evil, distributive justice and personal greed. One of America’s greatest philosophers of justice, the late John Rawls, once taught on the faculty of Cornell, and it would have been enormously enlightening, I think, for philosophy, political science, law, and accounting students to witness the two of them in mental combat:

Professor Belnick: Twisting the law to enrich oneself at the cost of others, and then twisting it again to avoid jail time for what you’ve done, is a perfectly legitimate activity.

Professor Rawls: Let’s twist again, eh? Don’t you think that people so grasping and arrogant as to destroy hundreds of peoples’ livelihoods as well as the public’s trust in the commercial sector deserve on the contrary to twist slowly, slowly in the wind?

Professor Belnick: Not at all. Extremely rich and powerful people who’ve gotten to the top through brilliance and amorality have demonstrated their superiority to ordinary drudges. They live by different rules, in a deluxe realm of which the drudges know nothing. Drudge laws do not apply to people like me.

Professor Rawls: Civil society is founded upon a shared instinct toward fairness, equality, tolerance, and the rule of law.

Professor Belnick: But why stop once society is civil? Once things are pretty civil, it’s time to take advantage of all the affluence, good will, and stable institutions out there.

Professor Rawls: No, once you’ve achieved a civil society, it’s time to pay attention to its weakest and neediest members.

Professor Belnick: I don’t do weak and needy. I don’t see weak and needy. I see penthouses, Ivy League students, ski chalets, and fantastic restaurants. What do you want? [gestures to students in audience] Do you want to ride in crowded subway cars or in your own big Escalade? Do you want $50,000 to work with hopelessly weak and needy people, or five million dollars to do what rich people tell you to do? It’s your choice. [officer of the court arrives; places cuffs on Belnick] I’m about to pay one million dollars - a sum I can well afford - to bail myself out of this. I’m not going to spend even one night in jail. Then my legal team will get all my charges dropped. After that I’m undergoing a religious conversion to get my good name back. A bientot! Don’t forget to fill out the teaching evaluation form.

UPDATE: March 16 04: From today's Cornell Daily Sun: "The School for Continuing Education and Summer Sessions [has been] notified that [Belnick is] not available to teach this year, said Glenn Altschuler, the school's dean.