Word: overstep
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Secretary of Health and Human Services. To avoid possible confirmation complications, Sullivan renounced all claims to nearly $500,000 in severance pay and deferred compensation legally owed him by the Morehouse School of Medicine. Even Senate Democrats wondered aloud if Sullivan's excessive concern with appearances did not overstep the bounds of financial prudence. Meanwhile, George Bush's ethics commission solemnly debated whether a top Government official should be entitled to royalties if he composed a hit song in his spare time...
...suicide is shown on the news that night, a grisly reminder of the Philadelphia station that broadcast the public suicide of the Pennsylvania treasurer (who was under indictment) a couple of years ago. In that particular case, televison clearly did overstep an unspoken boundary by showing one of life's truly, indisputably private moments...
STILL, we get atomized by giving too much importance to the peculiarities of others. Minor personal characteristics may be quite important aesthetically--you couldn't have a description without the details--but surely they overstep their purpose when they become a basis for moral judgement. Instead of looking at people, we often sniff out characteristics, representatives of certain stereotypes (usually bad ones...
...began to fear for the future of the Fourth Amendment. In its last session, the Court carved out an exception to the so-called exclusionary rule which maintained that illegally obtained evidence could not be used in a criminal trail. Now, the Justices say if police officers happen to overstep the boundries of their search warrant but were neverthelss acting in good faith, the evidence may be used in trial. If any more such whittling occurs, lawyers warn, that precious article which guards against arbitrary searches and seizures many be come an artifact in legal history...
...There's a fine line between interesting and pressuring a prospective athlete. We try to avoid the tendency to overstep that line." James W. Stoeckel '74, admissions athletics liaison...