It’s been almost two months since the Houston Astros bought out the naming rights to their home ballpark, bringing the era of Enron Field to a largely forgettable end.
However, the name of Enron’s former auditor still proudly shines in gold lettering on the doorway of the Andersen Interactive Classroom.
For better or worse, the two companies — or at least their reputations — shall be linked to each other for the foreseeable future because of what may very well be remembered as the most sever business scandal in American history. But Houston’s Major League Baseball franchise has had the sense to disassociate itself with the country’s two most unpopular corporate entities while Fairfield University has shown no sign of doing so, assuming that there still is an Arthur Andersen by the time The Mirror gets to press.
Read your favorite newspaper or take a look at any of thousands of websites and it’s hard not to be exposed to some sort of disparaging report about what was once the most respected accounting firm in the country. Whether it’s a federal indictment for obstruction of justice, Enron document shredding overseen by company executives or the payment of the second-largest litigation settlement ever by an accounting firm, the bad news is everywhere and it’s not hard to find.
If you’ve turned on CNN or CSPAN in the past few months, you’ve probably seen clips of fired Andersen accountant David Duncan invoking the Fifth Amendment after a Pennsylvania congressman made the statement that Andersen “drove the getaway car” enabling thousands of Enron workers to be robbed of their pensions. If not, you may have seen Andersen’s chief executive being told that “Your ship is going to go down and you’re going to be lashed to the mast unless you give us some answers” during testimony in the House Chamber.
The fact is that the Andersen name gleaming atop what may be Fairfield’s best-looking classroom is no longer a moral dilemma or question of fundraising and business ethics. It has become a calamitous embarrassment to any member of the university community who has any sort of belief that Fairfield should not operate in a “business as usual” manner.
Sure, Andersen has not been convicted of or sanctioned for a crime to this point, not one major financial-services firm has survived an indictment in over 200 years, according to The Wall Street Journal. But what is a young finance or accounting major to think a few years from now if Andersen is proven by a federal court to be the Bonnie to Enron’s Clyde?
One has to wonder, what would keep Fairfield out of a potentially entangling relationship with a potentially controversial company such as Andersen? And what would be the most painless way out of such a relationship be once a generous organization is found to have fallen from its ideals? Should Fairfield have the audacity, and the integrity, to reject contributions from such companies? In a word, yes.
At this university, students are required to take numerous classes on religion and ethics in the hope that we’ll leave here with more analytical consciences and greater appreciation for human dignity in the Jesuit tradition. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if the names we put in places of prominence did the same.
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