There seem to be a lot of moral midgets, "just following orders" (policies).
TOPAZ.
There was a small nuclear reactor on a campus, ostensibly for physics research, but then the administration heard Liza Minnelli singing "Money, money, money ....".
It seems that there are two types of topaz, a clear and thus valuable gemstone, and a cloudy variety that has much less value. Somehow it was found that irradiating the cloudy stone in the reactor clarified it and greatly increased its value. (The scene this conjures is amazing: grown men putting various items in the reactor late at night to see what happens -- topaz, spam, frogs, Barney dolls, Barbie dolls, etc.!)
Well, money makes the world go around. The physics faculty soon began to have trouble finding time to schedule for reactor use, because the reactor manager was being directed to buy cloudy topaz, zap it, and then sell it at a profit for the university.
Not to miss an opportunity, the reactor manager went into business for himself at the same time. He began to buy topaz with his own money, zap it, and sell it along with the university's stones. Then he progressed to doing it in a way that passed along the costs to the university (oops, that's the taxpayer).
He was eventually detected, because he used campus phones to check his off-shore bank accounts for deposits, charged customs fees to the university, and other brazen actions.
This was called to the attention of the university, but nothing happened -- the old under-the-rug strategy (or is that, ahem, "silence is golden"?). Then a local newspaper learned of it a couple of years later. The man was still working as manager, all was as before.
Confronted with the flagrant abuse, the university president said, "We do not have a policy against that." No, sir, we just have laws and centuries of morality to suggest that theft is (at least) inappropriate! Leadership indeed.
Of course, while all this was going on, no doubt the bean counters were diligently tracking wayward petty cash expenditures by secretaries, travel claims by faculty, and so forth.
Far be it from me to suggest putting some heads in the reactor, to see if we could clarify some values for these folks. But please, maybe at least a Singapore caning?
I would like to tell you that this chief executive of his university was summarily sacked and sent to walking the streets forever. Alas, it doesn't work that way: he left to take a step up the career ladder elsewhere. Shifting to a new portfolio to cover up a mess is not a strategy employed only by politicians.