Governor Northam: Integrity is a Credibility Issue

It seems that Governor Northam will be a topic of interest for a while due to his recent political and integrity shortcomings. Last week I concluded that Northam's credibility as governor is irreparably damaged because he has no moral authority due to the racially offensive photos that surfaced and are on his 1984 medical school yearbook page. He is morally and politically challenged to promote the virtues, ideals, and principles of the US Constitution and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia. In essence, his presence is a calamity of contradictions: racial fairness vs racial mockery, Hippocratic Oath vs euthanasia hypocrite, Constitutional authority vs political power, moral authority vs moral ineptness, moral accountability vs moral duplicity, credibility vs compromise.

I was intrigued by the February 4 article, Virginia Governor Contradicts Oath of Hippocrates, States Association of American Physicians and Surgeons that appeared online at globalnewswire.com. The article highlights Northam's ghoulish defense of legislative infanticide, which was the beginning of his political decline.

My primary purpose for this writing is simply to bolster my argument from last week which asserts that Governor Northam's moral credibility is irreparably damaged thus making him unfit for the title of governor. The embattled governor has no moral voice on matters of race, the unborn, the public trust, or leadership integrity and, as the above article notes, he has willfully disregarded and exchanged his professional oath to save life for legislation that betrays this fundamental duty. This is moral compromise at its worst, and if he is willing to abandon his oath and thereby make a vulnerable newborn expendable, his conscience is seared beyond recognition. Northam's race revelation proves his character and moral constitution are lacking and unfit for high office. His defense of legislation that supports infanticide is unconscionable. Northam's integrity is a credibility issue that makes his political leadership morally hazardous and mute.

Governor Northam: Live by the Oath, Die by the Oath

Article 1, Section 11 of the Virginia Constitution states, "That no person shall be deprived of his life, liberty, or property without due process of law; that the General Assembly shall not pass any law impairing the obligation of contracts; and that the right to be free from any governmental discrimination upon the basis of religious conviction, race, color, sex, or national origin shall not be abridged, except that the mere separation of the sexes shall not be considered discrimination."

Over the past few weeks, Governor Northam has been the subject of much heated controversy and criticism from his 1984 medical school yearbook page, which featured an individual in black--face and another adorned from head to toe in KKK garb. No one knows who's who as Northam now denies that he is either individual pictured. Initially the governor apologized emphatically for the content on his yearbook page, but a day later he reversed course and called for an investigation into the who, what, when, where, and why of Mr. black--face and Mr. Klan Man pictured on the yearbook page bearing his name.

This is a baffling, incredulous, and shameful situation that most Americans find incompatible with post Jim Crow Virginia and America's contemporary mindset when it comes to race, equality, and today's cultural norms. The embattled governor's about-face lacks credibility, and his babbling explanation rings hollow, incoherent, tone deaf, and morally indefensible.

Northam obviously is attempting to exploit the fact that the identities of the individuals pictured cannot be determined and are therefore unknown. We have no knowledge of who is Mr black-face or who is the Klan man, and Northam uses this ready-made defense to claim innocence. Again, most reasonable persons find this maneuver implausible, deceptive, disturbing, and discrediting.

The governor's PR gambit is a futile attempt to somehow reclaim respect and restore his reputation nationally. The governor is also desperate to save his political soul from scandal and moral shame. Ethically speaking, however, Northam's ordeal raises provocative questions about past moral failures revealed in the present. Minus criminal wrongdoing, how can Northam be held accountable today for past wrongdoing? Does moral responsibility require Northam to resign from high office? Does one incident make Northam a racist? Given the past revelation, does Northam represent the character, ideals, and virtues called for and implied in the oath of office?

I began this conversation with a reference from the Virginia Constitution. I believe this citation has been overlooked in the public's haste to condemn, criticize, and repudiate Governor Northam, but I assert with confidence that accountability begins here because the oath of office presumes that in order to fulfill the requirements for justice, equality, fairness and the other constitutional mandates, integrity, character, and a shared commitment between the the governor and governed are required.

As the Virginia governor was sworn into office, he repeated the oath of office and swore to uphold the United States Constitution and the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia. Article 1, Section 11 explicitly prohibits racial discrimination, and Governor Northam swore to defend this principle for all citizens of Virginia without compromise. As governor, he repeated this oath and made these words his legal and moral duty. In other words, this was his promise, and with it accrues all the moral and legal expectations commensurate with high public office.

More than just ceremonial, oaths for elected officials are to be taken seriously because they establish standards of accountability, moral and legal expectations, and become the civic leader's promise and public profession to safeguard the public trust. To engage in conduct to the contrary is ruinous and does violence to one's moral, personal, and professional credibility.

In Northam's case, the moral defect occurred long before assuming public office so what dos this mean for his life as a public figure today? In my estimation, Governor Northam is morally compromised by his yearbook exposé and his awkward flip-flop from acceptance of responsibility to denial is a serious moral failure because his "leadership" cannot be trusted and his history creates doubt in matters of racial equality, fairness, and justice. Again, Northam has a serious credibility issue that impedes his ability to speak with authenticity and moral authority when race, prejudice, and discrimination are at issue.

As I have shown thus far, there is a serious conflict between his sworn duty to promote and defend racial fairness and the reality of his participation in racially intolerant images and stereotypes from nearly thirty-five years ago. The implicit attitudes and overt actions that the yearbook photos represent clearly undermine the ideals and aspirations of fairness, justice, equality, and civic integrity, which are all central to community, the common good, and the Constitutions governing authority. Northam's moral disconnect between what he says today versus what he did thirty-five years ago fails to reconcile with the values and virtues of the oath of office he took as a newly elected governor. By invoking the Constitution in his oath, he promised to defend and protect racial equality under the law as expressed in the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia and the US Constitution. Herein is Northam's foremost problem as Governor of Virginia and why he is unfit for office: his past is indicative of a man who does not embody the ideals and principles of equality and fairness thus rendering his moral authority mute, invalid, and without credibility.

In a wonderfully prescient Northwestern University Law Review article by Richard M. Re titled Promising the Constitution (2016), Re convincingly captures much of what I have said about the relationship between the oath and the public trust, moral obligations, and a wide range of other themes that are relevant to my discussion and the controversy surrounding Northam. As I close, the following re-emphasizes why I believe the Northram revelation retroactively invalidates his oath and thus makes him morally unfit and lacking constitutional credibility to remain as governor. His racial offense was so egregious that it does not enable him to promote core American ideals that are central to our democratic way of life and meaningful to "diversity" in spirit and in truth.

"Besides offering a rejoinder to those who are skeptical that officials have a general moral duty to follow law at all, the oath provides a powerful moral reason that must at the very least be considered in tandem with rival moral considerations. Indeed, anyone who cares about officials’ moral responsibilities must reckon with the oath.

"...An official who takes the oath has made a voluntary and intentional expression of commitment, and at least a large part of the public knows about and desires that commitment. In addition, the oath is part of a conditional exchange, as officeholders may assume their posts only if they commit to constitutionalism. And official defiance of the oath would violate the public’s trust, reliance, and expectations."

Chaos or Civility?

Where Do We Go From Here: Chaos or Community? by Martin Luther King Jr. was written during the heights of the Civil Rights era and is one of my favorite works. Personally, I don't think this gem gets the attention it truly deserves. Many of the themes King addresses are timeless, philosophically rich, and much too important to the issues of race, class, community relations, and society's overall response to poverty to limit and confine it to the Civil Rights era exclusively. Just as King's prescient work sought to provide healing and direction to America during very turbulent times, Chaos or Community speaks to 21st century America and the incivility we are witnessing from the public square to debates about public policy.

With rising poverty, accelerating racial conflict, war, protests, and volatile police-community relations, society was unraveling despite the presence of strong and established social institutions like the family and church. Without question, society was heavily influenced by the role each played in the creation and promotion of norms and values in the community. This was especially true for the Black community, where faith, patriarchy, and matriarchy were the primary conduits for stability, responsibility, and the prevailing community ethos at all levels.

Chaos or Community unapologetically targets poverty and systemic white racism as the primary causes for social and economic instability. From voting rights to economic opportunity, justice and equality were the required goals to undo the damage in order to move society forward. Ultimately, for King, the Federal Government had an inherent moral duty to intervene on behalf of the American Negro because change would not occur without the full might and authority of the government.

The chaos captured in the title was not limited to the above conditions. The Black Power Movement rose to prominence as its signature chant began to echo louder and louder from the ghettos in Watts to Washington, DC's Capitol Hill and all throughout the south. Yes, these two words rallied a dispirited and disempowered people to a renewed sense of power, force, resourcefulness, assertiveness, and collective self-defense. King acknowledged this, but he had his reservations about what the semantics of Black Power would do to the unity of Civil Rights Movement, both philosophically and demographically. As King stated earlier, Black Power was a "slogan without a program" and later he goes on to say the following...

"Like life, racial understanding is not something that we find but something that we must create. What we find when we enter those mortal plains is existence, but existence is the raw material out of which all life must be created. A productive and happy life is not something that you find: it is something that you make. And so the ability of Negroes and whites to work together, to understand each other, will not be found ready made; it must be created by the fact of contact."

The statement above was expressed in opposition to the idea that whites would not be permitted to participate in an upcoming march. True to colorblind principles, King remained adamant in his defense for interracial marches.

Consciences must be enlisted in our movement, I said, not merely racial groups. I reminded them of the dedicated whites who suffered, bled and died in the cause of racial justice and suggested that to reject white participation now would be a shameful repudiation of all for which they had sacrificed.

Finally, I said that the formidable foe we now faced demanded more unity than ever before and that I would stretch every point to maintain this unity, but that I could not in good conscience agree to continue my personal involvement and that of SCLC in the march if it were not publicly affirmed that it was based on nonviolence and the participation of both black and white.

Over fifty years later, Harvard Law Professor Dr. Noah Feldman gave a speech to George Washington University business students at the fourth annual Richard W. Blackburn Endowed Lecture on Civility and Integrity. One of the major takeaways from his speech was the statement, “Our entire capacity as a republic now depends, in a genuinely future-oriented way, on whether we are, in fact, truly capable of continuing the process of civic engagement, civil conversation, even at a moment when the country is deeply polarized.”

Just as King stressed civil civic engagement in both word and deed in his 1967 classic, Feldman shares similarly during his 2017 lecture on civility and integrity and at a time when racial, social, and political tension are on the rise.

From King to Feldman, civility and integrity are core requirements for successful civic engagement. King would not compromise these principles even when confronted with competing ideals like "Black Power". Unity, community, and interracial cooperation were too important to surrender to the internal pressures of "Black Power" and the external threat from whites, particularly white southern racists, who'd be quick to expose the Civil Rights Movement for being hypocritical and incapable of practicing what it preaches.

Civility and integrity are mutually inclusive of one another and are best applied and understood together to truly promote human flourishing in the complexity of today's sociopolitical world. Like King and Feldman, our leaders today must be uncompromising, outspoken, and principled if they are to represent the virtues and values of civility and integrity in order to move us far away from self-inflicted chaos and closer to the thriving civil community that we all want today and for a better tomorrow.