The United States has an ethics problem.

The evidence is in television programming, sports scandals, business fraud — even the classroom, said Michael Josephson, the founder of a character education program who will speak Nov. 8 in Lawrence.

“We have a culture of cheating,” Josephson said, “a gaping hole in our moral ozone.”

The Lawrence Journal-World, Sunflower Broadband and World Online are bringing Josephson to the city for a pair of programs intended to raise the level of discourse about ethics, honesty and character.

Journal-World editor Dolph C. Simons Jr. said he had known of Josephson and his “Character Counts!” education program for years and was excited at the opportunity to bring him to Lawrence.

“The idea is to get people thinking more about ethics,” Simons said. “I just think it’s a good thing for Lawrence. I’m very enthused about it.”

During his visit, Josephson will lead ethics discussions with two panels. Panelists include Gov. Kathleen Sebelius, Kansas University men’s basketball coach Bill Self and KU Chancellor Robert Hemenway.

Josephson is founder and president of the Los Angeles-based Josephson Institute of Ethics and an award-winning radio commentator, author and ethics consultant. He founded the education program “Character Counts!”

In a telephone interview last week, Josephson lamented what he called an “ongoing degradation” of integrity in the United States, with problems like cheating and disrespect growing more common.

“‘You’re fired!’ is a phrase — who in their right mind would ever terminate someone like that?” Josephson said, referring to a catchphrase from the popular television series “The Apprentice.” “If you compare any decade to the last, it’s worse. We’re so coarsened.”

He said he didn’t know exactly when the downward slide began but said it had been noticeable since the early 1980s.

And his evidence is more than anecdotal.

According to a new national survey of high school students conducted by the Josephson Institute, 62 percent admitted cheating on exams in the past 12 months, 27 percent stole something from a store during that period and 40 percent admit they “sometimes lie to save money.”

Nearly a third didn’t even tell the truth on the integrity survey; 29 percent of the students polled admitted they lied in their answers to one or two of the more than 60 questions.

Josephson said he deplored reality TV shows, where duplicity and deception often are rewarded.

In “Temptation Island,” for example, dating couples travel to an exotic locale, go on dates with sexy singles and are separated from their significant others until the final day of their stay.

“Most of these reality TV shows are about winning by hook or crook,” he said. “I’m not a prude. I have four little girls. I don’t think it will make them better people or better mothers or better wives or better employees.”

Josephson also mentioned athletic scandals at major universities, including the story of Iowa State basketball coach Larry Eustachy, who resigned last year after photos showed him partying with young women in Columbia, Mo.

At another Big 12 school, the University of Colorado’s legal fees in its football recruiting and sex scandal have exceeded $1 million.

Coach Gary Barnett was suspended during the off-season amid allegations the program used sex and alcohol to lure recruits. He later was reinstated. The troubles began earlier this year with a scandal that painted Colorado as an out-of-control campus where women get raped by football players and sex and alcohol are part of the recruiting process.

“If you had a daughter in college and she called home and said, ‘Dad I’m dating someone on the football team,’ would your heart soar or sink?” Josephson asked. “I would worry more, not less, if my daughter were dating a Division 1 athlete.”

He stressed that he did not want to overgeneralize and that he did not think all athletes were bad.

“The primary role of universities is not to produce winning sports teams,” Josephson said. “When the obsession with winning becomes so great that other duties are sacrificed– building character, modeling of highest integrity … then the university is betraying its responsibility.”

And then there are the numerous and increasing examples of business fraud.

Belo Corp. announced recently it had overstated circulation numbers at The Dallas Morning News. The Chicago Sun-Times’ parent announced it inflated the paper’s circulation figures for several years. Chicago-based Tribune Co. said circulation had been inflated at Newsday, its New York tabloid, and Hoy, a Spanish-language daily in New York.

With inflated circulation, the newspapers were “charging more money for their advertising than they had the right to,” Josephson said.

“When money’s at stake, it seems like a lot of people throw their morality out the window,” he said. “If it even pervades our watchdogs, we’ve got to be concerned.”

— Journal-World wire services contributed information to this story.