A starter list from the last quarter-century:
- Financial, Investing: Bernie Madoff, 2008 (Ponzi scheme)
- Financial, Corporate: Enron, 2001 (Accounting cover-ups)
- Entrepreneurial: Elizabeth Holmes / Theranos 2013 (Misrepresentation)
- Sexual, individual: Jeffrey Epstein, 2019 (statutory rape, trafficking)
- Sexual, institution: Catholic Church, 2002 (statutory rape, cover-ups)
- Sports: Lance Armstrong, 2012 (doping)
- Sports: FIFA, 2015 (bribery, corruption)
- Academic: Harvard, 2023 (discrimination against Asian-Americans)
- Academic: Jason Arday / Cambridge, 2026 (plagiarism, lying, ignoring standards)
Some questions:
- Are the corruptions always concentrated in core human value pursuits: sex, money, prestige, …?
- Are there areas of core human value pursuit that are immune to cheating or less plagued by it?
- Are they concentrated in institutions of weak accountability?
- Is the lesson that there are always some individuals in any domain who will cheat?
- Any pattern of racial, sex/gender, ethnic, religious make-up of the perpetrators?
The initial list of scandals is open-ended, as is the list of questions.
