Media Mentions

Kansas Republican governor hopeful Ty Masterson has two jobs. He's currently President of the Kansas State Senate, and the Director of “GoCreate, a Koch Collaborative” at Wichita State University.

Masterson's primary rival in the gubernatorial primary is Republican entrepreneur Philip Sarnecki, who has raised the issue of Masterson's employment connections as a campaign concern.

Davina Hurt, director of government ethics says, Kansas voters deserve answers about Masterson’s two state paychecks and his relationship with the Kochs. “My question is whether a reasonable Kansas voter would remain confident that their decisions in Topeka are being made independently or wonder whether this decade-long relationship with a single donor network had some pull on them,” Hurt said. “Taking unpaid leave during a session is a real step, right? It deserves credit,” Hurt said. But it doesn’t answer questions about Masterson’s independence from political influence, she said.

“A decade of drawing a six-figure salary with a Koch-branded university program while also chairing a Koch-funded advocacy group nationally creates a pattern voters deserve to weigh as he asks them for the state’s highest office,” Hurt said. “It’s purely a public trust question.”

Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, quoted by The Wichita Eagle.

Irina Raicu, director, Internet Ethics, joins NBC Bay Area's Raj Mathai to discuss Waymo turning in teens who were drinking, and shooting Orbeez from a robotaxi, how the incident connects to multiple societal anxieties we face today.

Raicu calls attention to the rising concern about "young people having access to powerful technologies before they have access to maturity."

"There are so many things taping us and tracking us without what's called implicit notice, so we can't really tell when we're being tracked. If there's a driver in the car with you you know you're not in private, but if you're in a driverless car, even if you sort of know that's it's probably taping, you might tend to forget," said Raicu.

Irina Raicu, director, internet ethics, interviewed by NBC Bay Area.

Comcast is the second-most heavily traded name in Trump’s financial portfolio. Trump spent much of 2025 attacking the company, yet it’s the one he hasn’t said a word about this year, just as the company is positioned to be walking into a major regulatory moment.

“Does President Trump’s silence on Comcast mean anything in the context of the fact that his financial accounts traded their stock numerous times? Just the fact that you have to ask the question points to the problem,” Ann Skeet, the senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics, told Fortune. 

Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, quoted by Fortune.

High Country News reports that during the 2025 Eaton Fire in Altadena, California, while thousands of residents were losing their homes and the lives they'd created, others were engaging in an opportunity to make a profit.

Using the prediction market platform Polymarket, people made bets on the fires. Fire survivors say such actions are “morally reprehensible,” and experts worry such wagering could lead to arson.

“Imagine what a bad actor might do,” said Ann Skeet, senior director of leadership ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “A market that might support that kind of activity, I think, is a dangerous market.” Firefighters or land managers with exclusive information about a fire’s behavior or an agency’s firefighting plans could even be tempted to bet on a fire, which would be considered insider trading.

But the biggest dilemma is largely an ethical one. “When you start gambling on somebody’s potential death or harm, you’re really diminishing the value that you’re placing on human life,” Skeet said.

Ann Skeet, senior director, leadership ethics, quoted by High Country News.

The Sacramento Bee reports, a nonprofit operating on taxpayer funds to run homeless programs across California is paying $3 million to settle a state lawsuit that alleged fraud.

The settlement that Step Up did agree to pay is “significant,” for a nonprofit of its size and scope, said Joan Harrington, an expert in nonprofit governance at Santa Clara University’s Markkula Center for Applied Ethics. “$3 million is a significant charge and a significant resolution that merits attention,” Harrington said.

“If they’re getting negative feedback from their grantors, both the city and the state, you’d expect an improvement,” Harrington said. “They need to strengthen their internal financial controls ... I would expect dramatic changes.”

Joan Harrington, Ethics Center fellow, quoted by The Sacramento Bee.

Citybiz highlights Mike Markkula, co-founder of Apple Computer, for bringing experience and managerial vision into one of the world’s greatest companies.

Unlike many technology pioneers, Markkula never viewed wealth as the ultimate measure of success. Even while serving on Apple’s board, he became increasingly concerned that corporate America had produced what he described as “ethical agnostics”—leaders who were not necessarily dishonest but who rarely considered ethical questions when making important business decisions. In response, he established the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University in 1986, long before corporate ethics became a fashionable subject.

The center reflected Markkula’s belief that ethical reasoning should be practical rather than abstract. Instead of focusing exclusively on philosophy, it examined real-world dilemmas facing business executives, physicians, educators, public officials, and technology companies. Over time it became one of the world’s leading institutions devoted to applied ethics, extending its influence well beyond Silicon Valley.

Mike Markkula, co-founder, Apple Computer and original seed grantor for the Ethics Center, featured in CityBiz.

Self-improving AI systems could accelerate beyond human oversight, prompting renewed calls for stronger safeguards.

Brian Green, director of technology ethics, explains the acceleration as, "Rather than humans programming AI, AI becomes powerful enough to program itself."

"It is very important to get recursive self-improvement right, otherwise it could spiral out of control and create new versions of itself that are not friendly," Green said.

But regarding the June 12 intervention by the Trump administration to suspend foreign access to Anthropic's Fable 5 and Mythos 5 models, Green admitted that "in some ways, the restrictions might be too stringent in that even Anthropic's own non-U.S. citizen employees -- many of whom are from friendly nations like Canada, the U.K. and Germany -- are no longer allowed access."

That move signals "direct government interference with business activity, and should cause American businesses some concern about government overreach," said Green.

Brian Green, director, technology ethics, quoted by Union of Catholic Asian News.

The Los Angeles Times reports, "The amplification of election misinformation by users who had money staked on the mayoral race adds a new twist to evolving scrutiny of prediction markets, and scholars say the ability to bet on elections broadly raises questions about whether the exchanges could alter how Americans engage in democracy."

“Elections are not a game,” said Davina Hurt, director of government ethics at the Markkula Center for Applied Ethics at Santa Clara University. “[If market] probabilities begin influencing donor decisions, media attention, the energy around [campaign] volunteers — at that point, markets aren’t just observing the election. They’re a part of it.”

Davina Hurt, director, government ethics, quoted by the Los Angeles Times.