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After decades of domination on campus, college sports' supremacy has begun to weaken. "Enough, already!" detractors cry. College is about learning, not chasing a ball around to the whir of TV cameras.

In Intercollegiate Athletics and the American University James Duderstadt agrees, taking the view that the increased commercialization of intercollegiate athletics endangers our universities and their primary goal, academics. Calling it a "corrosive example of entertainment culture" during an interview with ESPN's Bob Ley, Duderstadt suggested that college basketball, for example, "imposes on the university an alien set of values, a culture that really is not conducive to the educational mission of university."

Duderstadt is part of a growing controversy. Recently, as reported in The New York Times, an alliance between university professors and college boards of trustees formed in reaction to the growth of college sports; it's the first organization with enough clout to challenge the culture of big-time university athletics.

This book is certainly part of that challenge, and is sure to influence this debate today and in the years to come.

James J. Duderstadt is President Emeritus and University Professor of Science and Engineering, University of Michigan.

"It's Legal but It Ain't Right chronicles the abuse of power and privilege by businesses that defy the strictures of law and limits of regulation. Contributors stretch the conceptual boundaries of corporate deviance across a wide range of industries at a time when standards of corporate social responsibility and good corporate citizenship are in flux."
--William S. Laufer, Professor, The Wharton School of Business

"This delightful and serious book involves a matter I have long felt of first importance. That is our tendency to make social truth and acceptance conform to personal or larger corporate interests. On this I have written , but gladly yield to this persuasive parallel. No one concerned with literate, informed, and relevant---as distinct from self-serving---truth should miss It's Legal but It Ain't Right."
--John Kenneth Galbraith

"This absorbing and well-written book of essays on the harmful consequences of legal industries skillfully illuminates the ways in which some corporate harms fail to be transformed into criminal law-making and enforcement, and offers cogent suggestions for better regulation in the public interest."
--Dr. Michael Levi, Professor of Criminology, Cardiff University


Many U.S. corporations and the goods they produce negatively impact our society without breaking any laws. We are all too familiar with the tobacco industry's effect on public health and health care costs for smokers and nonsmokers, as well as the role of profit in the pharmaceutical industry's research priorities. It's Legal but It Ain't Right tackles these issues, plus the ethical ambiguities of legalized gambling, the firearms trade, the fast food industry, the pesticide industry, private security companies, and more. Aiming to identify industries and goods that undermine our societal values and to hold them accountable for their actions, this collection makes a valuable contribution to the ongoing discussion of ethics in our time.

This accessible exploration of corporate legitimacy and crime will be important reading for advocates, journalists, students, and anyone interested in the dichotomy between law and legitimacy.