About a month ago I was sitting at my desk at my home office in Boston when the phone rang. It was my insurance broker.
"Mr. Seglin," my broker said, "we just got a call that your parked car has been hit."
Not the kind of call that one enjoys getting, but this one could have been much worse.
It turned out that some fellow had lost control of his steering and rammed full speed into the back of my vehicle.
My insurance broker had been called by an officer of the Boston Police Department. She wanted to make sure that I got the note that the driver had left tucked in the driver's-side door of my car.
My broker e-mailed me an incident report, and I walked over to assess the damage and fill in the form.
Most of the right rear side had been crumpled, as had the back bumper, and the taillight was broken. But it was nothing that couldn't be repaired.
And indeed, as my broker had said, the young driver who had hit my car had left a note with his contact information and his insurance-company information tucked in the door. As I was filling in the report, an older gentleman came over and handed me a Post-it note with the police-cruiser number on it.
I was happy that the driver had left me a note, of course, because it meant that I could get the car repaired without having to pay the deductible on my insurance.
The appraiser for the insurance company came out the next morning to assess the damage. He observed the same damage I had noted, but also remarked that the front bumper seemed to be damaged as well. I hadn't noticed the front-bumper damage originally, but I did point it out when I spoke to the body shop about the repairs.
A few weeks passed, and all seemed to be going well with the repairs.
Then I got a call from the insurance adjustor, questioning whether the damage to the front bumper had happened in the original accident, noting that neither I nor the appraiser had reported it initially.
"Did the front-bumper damage happen as a result of this accident?," the adjustor asked.
It would have been easy to simply say that it did. I hadn't spotted it before, and it was consistent with the car having been pushed forward into another car by the impact from the rear. But the truth was that I didn't know. I hadn't noticed it in my own inspection of the car after the accident, and it was possible that this fairly minor damage had occurred sometime previously.
"I don't know," I told the adjustor. "But I only noticed it after your appraiser pointed it out to me."
After a few days of hemming and hawing from the insurance company, the appraiser went back out to the body shop to reassess the front-bumper damage. He gave the body-shop people no clue whether or not he had concluded that the damage was the result of the accident.
But a few days later the appraiser called.
"Good news," he said. "We're covering the damage to the front of your car."
Rather than respond smugly, I thanked him. It was, after all, a rare occasion in life in which everybody did the right thing.
The appraiser did the right thing in pointing out some damage that I had overlooked, though it would have saved his company money to keep quiet about it. I did the right thing, if I say it myself, in acknowledging that I had no idea if this damage was the result of this accident, though it would have been to my advantage to insist that it was. The adjustor did the right thing in having his appraiser reassess the damage to resolve the conflicting information, rather than simply using my uncertainty as an excuse not to pay.
I can only assume that the appraiser's failure to list that damage on his report was a simple oversight, but in the end nobody was hurt by it.
And, lest we forget, everybody else in this story - the driver who left me his information, the office who went the extra mile to make sure that the information got to me and even the bystander who jotted down the police-car number - did the right thing.
That's very gratifying, especially in a situation that often brings out the worst in people.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, November 15, 2009
SOUND OFF: OUT OF THE PAST
On Sept. 26 Swiss authorities arrested Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, a French citizen who was wanted in the United States on an old conviction for having sex with a 13-year-old girl: In 1978, in California, Polanski had pled guilty to one count of unlawful sex with a minor, but fled the country before being sentenced.
Of those readers responding to an unscientific poll on my column's blog, 88 percent believed that the nature of Polanski's crime requires that he pay the penalty, even 32 years after the fact and despite the fact that his victim has long since forgiven him and called for the dismissal of all remaining charges.
"He should finish whatever jail sentence he has," writes Carol Ludovise of Orange County, Calif. "He deserves no special treatment."
Mary Beth McCurdy of London, Ontario, agrees.
"American authorities should definitely pursue extradition of this predator," McCurdy writes. "The passage of time should in no way diminish the serious nature of this crime."
"The victim has publicly stated that she has forgiven Polanski," notes William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif., "not because he has done anything to deserve it - he hasn't - but rather because she didn't want this issue to destroy her. The public charges are not hers to forgive, though, and charges, once filed, have no statute of limitations and so will continue until justice is served."
"If Polanski were a poor, American black," Marilyn Johnson adds, "would we be asking this question?"
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Of those readers responding to an unscientific poll on my column's blog, 88 percent believed that the nature of Polanski's crime requires that he pay the penalty, even 32 years after the fact and despite the fact that his victim has long since forgiven him and called for the dismissal of all remaining charges.
"He should finish whatever jail sentence he has," writes Carol Ludovise of Orange County, Calif. "He deserves no special treatment."
Mary Beth McCurdy of London, Ontario, agrees.
"American authorities should definitely pursue extradition of this predator," McCurdy writes. "The passage of time should in no way diminish the serious nature of this crime."
"The victim has publicly stated that she has forgiven Polanski," notes William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif., "not because he has done anything to deserve it - he hasn't - but rather because she didn't want this issue to destroy her. The public charges are not hers to forgive, though, and charges, once filed, have no statute of limitations and so will continue until justice is served."
"If Polanski were a poor, American black," Marilyn Johnson adds, "would we be asking this question?"
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, November 08, 2009
SOUND OFF: NEWLY MINTED ETHICS
Disgraced former New York Times reporter Jayson Blair, whose fabrications and plagiarism wreaked havoc on his readers, on his colleagues and on the newspaper industry as a whole, has tried to shift careers to become a "life coach." Recently Washington and Lee University's Journalism Ethics Institute invited him to deliver a talk called "Lessons Learned" in which he would discuss his misdeeds and what he has learned from them. The university presents Blair's talk as an opportunity for students to hear from someone who can speak to the "pressures and temptations" that face young journalists.
Is it right to offer a forum to someone whose professional transgressions may serve as a life lesson to future journalists? Or is it wrong to give a platform to someone guilty of such misdeeds?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Is it right to offer a forum to someone whose professional transgressions may serve as a life lesson to future journalists? Or is it wrong to give a platform to someone guilty of such misdeeds?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: `HERE'S MONEY FOR X, BUT NOT FOR Y'
According to a survey conducted by The Chronicle of Philanthropy, the largest charitable organizations in the country are expecting their greatest drop in donations in the 17 years the journal has been collecting such data.
The expected drop for 2009 is 9 percent, after an uptick in contributions in 2008 of 1 percent, which itself was down from the 5-to-6-percent donation increases that these organizations had been experiencing for years. The latest data from Canada, collected in 2007, suggests that the Canadian rate of charitable giving was already flat even before the economy took its turn for the worse.
Not great news for organizations already pressed to continue to fulfill their charitable missions as funding gets scarcer.
It's reasonable to assume that donors, finding their own dollars stretched thinner, are looking longer and harder at the organizations to which they contribute. Issues of effective use of contributions come into play. Is an organization using too much of its money for overhead and not enough for the cause it was set up to champion? Is money going to efforts other than its primary mission? It's easier to check on such things nowadays with the help of Web sites such as www.charitynavigator.com, which evaluate how charities use their funds.
How much control, however, should you expect to have over your contribution once you give it to a charitable organization?
Sure, the money should never be used for a purpose that strays from the charity's stated mission. But what if only some parts of that mission are to your liking?
That's what's bothering a reader in Columbus, Ohio.
"Recently," she writes, "I found out that a charity I contribute to, which advertises itself as fighting a disease, gives some of the donations it receives to an organization which I do not want to support."
She e-mailed the organization to raise her concerns, but never received any response.
"If on future donations I include a request that any donations from me be used for the disease the group fights but not be donated to the other organization," she asks, "would the charity be obligated to honor my request?"
It's not unreasonable to hope that a charitable organization would take the time to respond to the concerns of its donors and indeed to honor any special requests that they may have. It's reasonable, but it's not mandatory.
A contribution made to the general funds of an organization can be spent as that organization sees fit. So long as that charity responsibly uses the money to champion its stated cause - rather than, say, funding terrorism or lavish lifestyles for its executives - it cannot be expected to wall off various parts of its activities because individual donors might favor one activity but not another. Given that different people have different likings, it could create an organizational and logistical nightmare.
This is a problem which has long vexed the federal government and, though individual taxpayers may ask that their money not be used to finance, say, wars or social programs with which they disagree, in reality all the money goes into one pot from which all federal programs are funded. Colleges face the same problem and often allow dedicated giving, especially to large donors.
In the case of charities, prospective donors are certainly within their rights to ask questions about how their money will be used, and the right thing for the charity to do is to respond to these queries - if not out of ethical concerns, at least because a donor who feels ignored is less likely to give again. My reader ought to have gotten a response to her e-mail, even if the answer wasn't what she wanted to hear.
The charity didn't ask me for advice, though, and my reader did.
The right thing for her to do is to donate her money to charitable organizations that do not spend money on things she finds distasteful. Rather than try to change the mission or practices of an organization that uses its funds in a way that she doesn't like, my reader would be better off investing her time and her funds in a charity that does.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, November 01, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: GRANDMA PUT ONE OVER ON HIM
America is aging, they tell us, and apparently so are its con artists.
That's the word from a reader living outside Columbus, Ohio, who plaintively writes, "I was robbed by Grandma."
My reader and his wife held their first-ever yard sale in early September. The grandmother in question appeared as a customer, accompanied by her daughter and her grandson, who called himself "Blaze." Because the grandmother had selected several items for purchase, my reader gave her a discount on her purchases.
"I even threw in a couple of odd ball boxes to go with the items she was purchasing," he writes.
When the items were all gathered, the grandmother asked if she could pay with a check. My reader hesitated for a moment, but she assured him that she was local and so was her bank.
"So I trusted Grandma," he writes.
He helped Blaze, his mom and his grandmother load their items into their car, and they sped away.
Traffic was slow at the yard sale, so my reader decided to drive into town and cash Grandma's check, leaving his wife in charge at home. He pulled up to the bank's drive-through window, handed the endorsed check to the teller and, instead of the cash he expected, got a shock.
"Sorry," the teller told him. "There are no funds available for this account."
"You can imagine how I felt," he writes. "Talk about shock and awe. I just got hoodwinked by a grandma at our yard sale."
The teller gave back the check, and my reader noticed that there was a telephone number printed on it. When he called the number, however, he didn't get Grandma. The person who answered told him that the number had long since been reassigned, and added that she had received at least six calls that afternoon from people who had received bad checks.
When he returned home, red-faced, my reader got a scolding from his wife, who said that the experience was his own fault for accepting a personal check.
"Well, excuse me for trusting people," he writes. "Especially a grandma. I mean, she was with her daughter and grandson! What kind of example are you trying to set here, Grandma?"
Every day since the yard sale, my reader has called the bank to see if funds have been deposited to cover the check. Nothing.
He can't help wondering if his wife is right, that it's foolish to trust people, especially when it comes to taking personal checks.
"I mean, when you can't trust a grandma, whom can you trust?" he writes.
My reader's central issue here is not an ethical one. It may or may not be foolish to be scammed by a silver-haired grifter, but it's not unethical. She was the only unethical one in this story and, if she were to write for advice, I could certainly offer her a few pointers.
As far as my reader is concerned, his only ethical obligation is to report the incident to his local police. There's clearly the potential for widespread check kiting here, and other area residents should be alerted.
Personally, I don't think my reader's experience with this grandmother - if she really is one - should tarnish his trust in people. That one person took advantage of him does not mean that he should expect the same from all people or even most people. Every day millions of personal checks are cashed and clear.
That said, his wife has a point that accepting personal checks at yard sales from people he doesn't know is a risky business. Adopting a general policy of not accepting checks wouldn't be a declaration of distrust in humanity, merely a prudent precaution against the occasional bad apple.
Or he could continue to accept checks, realizing that now and then he'll probably get stung. There's no ethical mandate either way.
I myself would favor a no-checks policy, which doesn't have to be unduly harsh. The next time a grandma says that she doesn't have the cash for her purchases, he should offer to set aside her items for an hour or two while she goes home for the money or visits a bank.
And if he never sees her again, I doubt that would bother him much.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
That's the word from a reader living outside Columbus, Ohio, who plaintively writes, "I was robbed by Grandma."
My reader and his wife held their first-ever yard sale in early September. The grandmother in question appeared as a customer, accompanied by her daughter and her grandson, who called himself "Blaze." Because the grandmother had selected several items for purchase, my reader gave her a discount on her purchases.
"I even threw in a couple of odd ball boxes to go with the items she was purchasing," he writes.
When the items were all gathered, the grandmother asked if she could pay with a check. My reader hesitated for a moment, but she assured him that she was local and so was her bank.
"So I trusted Grandma," he writes.
He helped Blaze, his mom and his grandmother load their items into their car, and they sped away.
Traffic was slow at the yard sale, so my reader decided to drive into town and cash Grandma's check, leaving his wife in charge at home. He pulled up to the bank's drive-through window, handed the endorsed check to the teller and, instead of the cash he expected, got a shock.
"Sorry," the teller told him. "There are no funds available for this account."
"You can imagine how I felt," he writes. "Talk about shock and awe. I just got hoodwinked by a grandma at our yard sale."
The teller gave back the check, and my reader noticed that there was a telephone number printed on it. When he called the number, however, he didn't get Grandma. The person who answered told him that the number had long since been reassigned, and added that she had received at least six calls that afternoon from people who had received bad checks.
When he returned home, red-faced, my reader got a scolding from his wife, who said that the experience was his own fault for accepting a personal check.
"Well, excuse me for trusting people," he writes. "Especially a grandma. I mean, she was with her daughter and grandson! What kind of example are you trying to set here, Grandma?"
Every day since the yard sale, my reader has called the bank to see if funds have been deposited to cover the check. Nothing.
He can't help wondering if his wife is right, that it's foolish to trust people, especially when it comes to taking personal checks.
"I mean, when you can't trust a grandma, whom can you trust?" he writes.
My reader's central issue here is not an ethical one. It may or may not be foolish to be scammed by a silver-haired grifter, but it's not unethical. She was the only unethical one in this story and, if she were to write for advice, I could certainly offer her a few pointers.
As far as my reader is concerned, his only ethical obligation is to report the incident to his local police. There's clearly the potential for widespread check kiting here, and other area residents should be alerted.
Personally, I don't think my reader's experience with this grandmother - if she really is one - should tarnish his trust in people. That one person took advantage of him does not mean that he should expect the same from all people or even most people. Every day millions of personal checks are cashed and clear.
That said, his wife has a point that accepting personal checks at yard sales from people he doesn't know is a risky business. Adopting a general policy of not accepting checks wouldn't be a declaration of distrust in humanity, merely a prudent precaution against the occasional bad apple.
Or he could continue to accept checks, realizing that now and then he'll probably get stung. There's no ethical mandate either way.
I myself would favor a no-checks policy, which doesn't have to be unduly harsh. The next time a grandma says that she doesn't have the cash for her purchases, he should offer to set aside her items for an hour or two while she goes home for the money or visits a bank.
And if he never sees her again, I doubt that would bother him much.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: PANTS ON FIRE?
Of the readers responding to an unscientific poll on my column's blog, 81 percent believed that Rep. Joe Wilson (R.-S.C.) was wrong to shout "You lie!" when President Barack Obama recently addressed Congress on health care. Wilson later apologized to the president for his outburst.
"Rep. Wilson was wrong to make the outburst in the joint session of Congress," one reader writes. "That he was correct - the president did not tell the truth - does not make the impulse appropriate."
"Wilson's apology does not make right his wrong outburst," writes William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif. "It was a breach of decorum that was wholly uncalled for."
The final word belongs to editorial cartoonist Randy Bish of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, whose cartoon was sent to me by Max Maizels of Richmond, Va.: "If a man yells `You lie' in a room full of politicians, how do they know who he's talking to?"
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"Rep. Wilson was wrong to make the outburst in the joint session of Congress," one reader writes. "That he was correct - the president did not tell the truth - does not make the impulse appropriate."
"Wilson's apology does not make right his wrong outburst," writes William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif. "It was a breach of decorum that was wholly uncalled for."
The final word belongs to editorial cartoonist Randy Bish of The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review, whose cartoon was sent to me by Max Maizels of Richmond, Va.: "If a man yells `You lie' in a room full of politicians, how do they know who he's talking to?"
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, October 25, 2009
SOUND OFF: SHOULD `ZERO' MEAN ZERO?
After initially suspending a Delaware first grader and requiring him to spend 45 days at an alternative school, for having brought a camping knife to school in order to eat his lunch with the knife's fork and spoon, the school has re-evaluated its position. Now he will be suspended for three to five days and undergo counseling.
The original punishment reflected the school's zero-tolerance policy for students who come to school with weapons of any kind. The revised policy came about after widespread media attention prompted the school to decide that a child's "cognitive level" should be considered in determining punishment in such cases.
Given the student's age and innocent intent, was the school right to alter its stance? Or is the zero-tolerance policy best, given that the camping knife could still have caused serious harm?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: NOT RECOMMENDED
The honor code for the United States Military Academy is a model of clarity.
"A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do," it says.
When the lines are clearly drawn and it's simple to recognize lying, cheating or stealing, a West Point cadet should know what to do. But what about when the act in question falls into a decidedly gray area? How does a cadet make the call? And to what extent should a prospective cadet hold herself to the same standards?
One of my readers is the parent of a young woman in exactly that situation. My reader's daughter is a high-school senior applying for admission to four U.S. military service academies, for which purpose she has solicited letters of recommendation from a number of teachers she has had - necessary because each academy requires letters from both English and math teachers.
The daughter's junior-year math teacher recently retired, and the new math teacher deferred to her predecessor, rather than write a recommendation for a student whom she really hasn't had in class yet. That was fine ... at first.
The retired teacher wrote one hard-copy letter. The other institutions require electronic recommendations, however, so he is on the list to recommend her to the other three academies.
"Today she received an e-mail requesting a $20 check from this teacher who is not `agile' on the keyboard," my reader writes. "He asked that the check be made out to his daughter for formatting and writing the letter."
My reader feels that there is something amiss with his request, but she's wondering how to handle the situation ethically and, ideally, to make it a bona-fide "teachable moment" for her daughter.
Adding to the problem is that she has little time to ponder the issue: The deadline for recommendations is Nov. 1.
If he finds the technology too baffling, the former math teacher would be well within his rights to decline the request to write an online recommendation. No teacher is obligated to write a recommendation for a student. In fact, if a prospective recommender did not think highly of a student's academic work, she might be doing him a favor by declining - though that's not the case here.
Regardless of his intent, however, it is inappropriate for him to request any compensation for writing a recommendation for a former student. If my reader's daughter forks over the $20, whether to the former teacher or to his daughter, a reasonable observer might conclude that she was buying a recommendation, rather than receiving it on the merits of her work. My reader is right to be uncomfortable with the situation, and right to worry that it might not pass muster with any military academy's honor code if it were to come out.
The right thing for my reader and her daughter to do is to explain these concerns to the teacher and ask him to forgo the $20. If, out of concern for his daughter or for any other reason, he doesn't see it this way, they should thank him and find another teacher to write her math recommendation. Perhaps, under the circumstances, the new teacher would be willing to talk with her predecessor and write a recommendation combining both viewpoints.
It may be hard to find a new recommender on such short notice, but it's a worthwhile effort. It's not too soon for her daughter to be living up to the standards of the academies she seeks to join, and this experience should be helpful to her in considering future gray-area situations that may arise.
The retired teacher didn't ask me for advice. If he had, though, I'd have told him that, if he's having trouble with the online technology but wants to write the letter, the right thing for him to do would be to seek assistance from the school. Quite likely, someone in the guidance office would be willing to help him input his recommendation and/or give him a tutorial for future reference.
As for the school, the guidance office should make clear to all teachers that asking for compensation for recommendations, regardless of the rationale for the request, is unacceptable. A teacher asked for a recommendation can fairly say "Yes" or "No," but not "If ... "
Incidentally, speaking as one who has written his share of recommendations, it's perfectly all right for a student to pay for postage for a hard-copy recommendation, ideally by providing a stamped, addressed envelope for that purpose. Postage is steeper than it used to be, and some teachers end up writing dozens of recommendations. The commitment of time and attention is enough - no recommender should have to foot the bill to send a letter, although many of us end up doing so.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"A Cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do," it says.
When the lines are clearly drawn and it's simple to recognize lying, cheating or stealing, a West Point cadet should know what to do. But what about when the act in question falls into a decidedly gray area? How does a cadet make the call? And to what extent should a prospective cadet hold herself to the same standards?
One of my readers is the parent of a young woman in exactly that situation. My reader's daughter is a high-school senior applying for admission to four U.S. military service academies, for which purpose she has solicited letters of recommendation from a number of teachers she has had - necessary because each academy requires letters from both English and math teachers.
The daughter's junior-year math teacher recently retired, and the new math teacher deferred to her predecessor, rather than write a recommendation for a student whom she really hasn't had in class yet. That was fine ... at first.
The retired teacher wrote one hard-copy letter. The other institutions require electronic recommendations, however, so he is on the list to recommend her to the other three academies.
"Today she received an e-mail requesting a $20 check from this teacher who is not `agile' on the keyboard," my reader writes. "He asked that the check be made out to his daughter for formatting and writing the letter."
My reader feels that there is something amiss with his request, but she's wondering how to handle the situation ethically and, ideally, to make it a bona-fide "teachable moment" for her daughter.
Adding to the problem is that she has little time to ponder the issue: The deadline for recommendations is Nov. 1.
If he finds the technology too baffling, the former math teacher would be well within his rights to decline the request to write an online recommendation. No teacher is obligated to write a recommendation for a student. In fact, if a prospective recommender did not think highly of a student's academic work, she might be doing him a favor by declining - though that's not the case here.
Regardless of his intent, however, it is inappropriate for him to request any compensation for writing a recommendation for a former student. If my reader's daughter forks over the $20, whether to the former teacher or to his daughter, a reasonable observer might conclude that she was buying a recommendation, rather than receiving it on the merits of her work. My reader is right to be uncomfortable with the situation, and right to worry that it might not pass muster with any military academy's honor code if it were to come out.
The right thing for my reader and her daughter to do is to explain these concerns to the teacher and ask him to forgo the $20. If, out of concern for his daughter or for any other reason, he doesn't see it this way, they should thank him and find another teacher to write her math recommendation. Perhaps, under the circumstances, the new teacher would be willing to talk with her predecessor and write a recommendation combining both viewpoints.
It may be hard to find a new recommender on such short notice, but it's a worthwhile effort. It's not too soon for her daughter to be living up to the standards of the academies she seeks to join, and this experience should be helpful to her in considering future gray-area situations that may arise.
The retired teacher didn't ask me for advice. If he had, though, I'd have told him that, if he's having trouble with the online technology but wants to write the letter, the right thing for him to do would be to seek assistance from the school. Quite likely, someone in the guidance office would be willing to help him input his recommendation and/or give him a tutorial for future reference.
As for the school, the guidance office should make clear to all teachers that asking for compensation for recommendations, regardless of the rationale for the request, is unacceptable. A teacher asked for a recommendation can fairly say "Yes" or "No," but not "If ... "
Incidentally, speaking as one who has written his share of recommendations, it's perfectly all right for a student to pay for postage for a hard-copy recommendation, ideally by providing a stamped, addressed envelope for that purpose. Postage is steeper than it used to be, and some teachers end up writing dozens of recommendations. The commitment of time and attention is enough - no recommender should have to foot the bill to send a letter, although many of us end up doing so.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, October 18, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: THE RIGHT CANDIDATE WITH THE WRONG IDEAS
How many of you, I wonder, deplore the state of education in your country ... but adore the teachers who work with your kids at your local school?
How about politicians? As a group they rank low in positive ratings, but as individuals they keep getting re-elected. Do you hate politicians ... but love your local representative?
Years ago, when I was dissecting the results of a poll about workers' attitudes toward work, the findings suggested a similar disconnect: Workers thought that workers' situations were miserable ... but the majority of them were satisfied with their own jobs.
Benjamin R. Barber, a political scientist whom I interviewed at the time, referred to this phenomena as a "halo effect."
"You know," he said, "people hate Congress except for their own congressperson."
Barber's observation came to mind when I received an e-mail from a reader asking me a question about a friend whom he described as "very conservative" in his politics.
"My friend can't stand the politics of his liberal U.S. senator," my reader writes, nothing that he's particularly unsympathetic to the senator's stance on gay rights.
Years ago, however, when the friend faced a lawsuit that threatened to make him responsible for a deceased family member's debts, he turned to his senator for help after exhausting all other resources. The Senator quickly intervened, and the suit was settled in the friend's favor - "for which," my reader writes, "he is very grateful."
As a result the friend continues to vote for this senator every time she's on the ballot, even though he dislikes everything she stands for.
My reader understands that his friend might see voting against this particular senator as "biting the hand that feeds you," he writes. "But who's to say that another senator might not have been able to accomplish the same thing?"
Wouldn't it have been better, he wonders, for his friend simply to tell others about how his senator had helped him out and write her a sincere note of thanks - but nevertheless to vote in accordance with his conscience?
My reader suggests his friend should write something along these lines: "I appreciate that you, like all good members of Congress, serve your constituents regardless of their political positions, but since I am diametrically opposed to virtually everything you stand for, I'm sorry that I cannot in good conscience vote for you in the next election."
"Where should the line be drawn between standing by values central to your very being and ignoring them in gratitude for a moneysaving favor provided by a big shot that you otherwise regard with contempt?" he asks. "What's the right thing to do?"
My reader makes a good point. If you believe that an elected official in no way reflects your personal values, you shouldn't vote for him or her.
That's not really the case with his friend, though. Political beliefs reflect values, but they aren't the only values out there. Americans have a long history of voting for candidates whom they admire as people, even if they are unaware of the candidates' positions on particular issues or are opposed to those positions. Sometimes one set of values trumps another.
Clearly his friend places a higher priority than does my reader on the values reflected in his senator's effort to help him. Gratitude and loyalty weigh more heavily for him, and political compatibility less heavily, than they do for my reader.
Our values are shaped early in life. While the priorities we place on our values may change, depending on where we are in our lives, the values themselves hold pretty steady throughout. My reader's friend hasn't changed his principles as a result of the favor his senator did for him _ he's simply revealed them.
My reader's friend didn't ask me how to vote, and if he did I would never try to tell him. If he's decided that the help he got from his senator makes her worthy of his vote, then voting for her is the right thing for him to do.
As to my reader, I'd advise him to lighten up on this. We all cast our votes for a variety of reasons, and those reasons are our own. The important thing is to vote, not to vote for any particular candidate or for any particular reason.
My reader's friend is meeting his societal obligation, and my reader should leave it there.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
How about politicians? As a group they rank low in positive ratings, but as individuals they keep getting re-elected. Do you hate politicians ... but love your local representative?
Years ago, when I was dissecting the results of a poll about workers' attitudes toward work, the findings suggested a similar disconnect: Workers thought that workers' situations were miserable ... but the majority of them were satisfied with their own jobs.
Benjamin R. Barber, a political scientist whom I interviewed at the time, referred to this phenomena as a "halo effect."
"You know," he said, "people hate Congress except for their own congressperson."
Barber's observation came to mind when I received an e-mail from a reader asking me a question about a friend whom he described as "very conservative" in his politics.
"My friend can't stand the politics of his liberal U.S. senator," my reader writes, nothing that he's particularly unsympathetic to the senator's stance on gay rights.
Years ago, however, when the friend faced a lawsuit that threatened to make him responsible for a deceased family member's debts, he turned to his senator for help after exhausting all other resources. The Senator quickly intervened, and the suit was settled in the friend's favor - "for which," my reader writes, "he is very grateful."
As a result the friend continues to vote for this senator every time she's on the ballot, even though he dislikes everything she stands for.
My reader understands that his friend might see voting against this particular senator as "biting the hand that feeds you," he writes. "But who's to say that another senator might not have been able to accomplish the same thing?"
Wouldn't it have been better, he wonders, for his friend simply to tell others about how his senator had helped him out and write her a sincere note of thanks - but nevertheless to vote in accordance with his conscience?
My reader suggests his friend should write something along these lines: "I appreciate that you, like all good members of Congress, serve your constituents regardless of their political positions, but since I am diametrically opposed to virtually everything you stand for, I'm sorry that I cannot in good conscience vote for you in the next election."
"Where should the line be drawn between standing by values central to your very being and ignoring them in gratitude for a moneysaving favor provided by a big shot that you otherwise regard with contempt?" he asks. "What's the right thing to do?"
My reader makes a good point. If you believe that an elected official in no way reflects your personal values, you shouldn't vote for him or her.
That's not really the case with his friend, though. Political beliefs reflect values, but they aren't the only values out there. Americans have a long history of voting for candidates whom they admire as people, even if they are unaware of the candidates' positions on particular issues or are opposed to those positions. Sometimes one set of values trumps another.
Clearly his friend places a higher priority than does my reader on the values reflected in his senator's effort to help him. Gratitude and loyalty weigh more heavily for him, and political compatibility less heavily, than they do for my reader.
Our values are shaped early in life. While the priorities we place on our values may change, depending on where we are in our lives, the values themselves hold pretty steady throughout. My reader's friend hasn't changed his principles as a result of the favor his senator did for him _ he's simply revealed them.
My reader's friend didn't ask me how to vote, and if he did I would never try to tell him. If he's decided that the help he got from his senator makes her worthy of his vote, then voting for her is the right thing for him to do.
As to my reader, I'd advise him to lighten up on this. We all cast our votes for a variety of reasons, and those reasons are our own. The important thing is to vote, not to vote for any particular candidate or for any particular reason.
My reader's friend is meeting his societal obligation, and my reader should leave it there.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: LYING ON BLOGS
Of those readers responding to an unscientific poll on my column's blog, 36 percent believed that was OK for Julie Powell, the based-on-fact character in the movie Julie and Julia, to make up anything she wants on her blog. It is her personal expression, they said, and is read only by those who choose to read it.
Most of the respondents - 63 percent, to be exact - disagreed.
"I don't know which is sillier, the premise for the movie or the attempt to cover up the recipe failure and the machinations with the spouse and her boss using the supposed personal nature of a personal blog," writes Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C.
Dagmar Roman of New Windsor, N.Y., agrees.
"A lie is a lie is a lie," Roman writes. "No matter if it's to your boss or in a blog. Once I find that someone has lied, for whatever reason, I can never entirely trust them again."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, October 11, 2009
SOUND OFF: THE LONG MEMORY OF THE LAW
On Sept. 26 Swiss authorities arrested Oscar-winning director Roman Polanski, a French citizen who was wanted in the United States for having sex with a 13-year-old girl. In 1978 Polanski pleaded guilty to one count of unlawful sex with a minor in California, but fled the country before being sentenced. Given that the victim of his crime has publicly forgiven Polanski, is it wrong for American prosecutors to continue to pursue his extradition? Or does the nature of his crime require that he pay the penalty, even 32 years after the fact?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: LABELED A TARGET
Several years ago, when I was an editor for a magazine, a photographer who worked there gave me an old-fashioned, oversized mailbox that he had spray-painted gray for a photo shoot that had accompanied a column I wrote. It's the type of mailbox you attach to a stake in the ground, and it came complete with a red flag for the mail carrier to raise when making a delivery.
I thought it would be nice to attach the mailbox to my house, even though that wasn't its intended purpose, so I drilled a few holes in its side and screwed the box into the shingles to the left of the top step of my front stoop.
The problem is that, when a great deal of mail is stuffed into the box, the screws sometime pull away from the house and the box falls onto the concrete step below.
This is particularly annoying to me when unsolicited mail is the culprit, so I have no fondness for all of those tokens sent by charities in an effort to entice you to contribute, including greeting cards and personalized mailing labels.
A reader from Calgary, Alberta, probably has a different kind of mailbox, but has the same kind of question: If an unsolicited charity sends you "a nice packet" of personalized address labels to convince you to donate, but you don't donate, is it legitimate to keep and use the labels? Or, he asks, "Do you have to throw them in the trash?"
Given their tendency to overtax my mailbox, I wouldn't use the word "nice" to describe any of these unsolicited items. Clearly, however, my reader has no such aversion and would like to use the labels, if he can do so without stepping over the ethical line.
"Part of me says that, whether or not I donate, the company would figure this into their marketing strategy," he writes. "The other part of me says, `Donate or deep-six it.'"
The charitable organization sending those lovely labels obviously would appreciate his donating if he's going to use them, but he's under no obligation to do so. Obligations are assumed through mutual consent, not imposed, and there's no such agreement here. The labels came unsolicited and without any way to return them if he chooses not to donate. Moreover, the charity that sent the labels, like most such charities, in no way suggests that a donation is essential to keep the labels. They are a gift _ a gift made in the hope of prompting a gift in return, but nonetheless a gift.
Some such labels bear an inscription implying that the sender has given to the charity, which would send an insincere message if used by a non-donor. That's not the case here, however. The labels simply feature his name and address.
When I told my reader that it is perfectly OK for him to use the labels, whether or not he donates, he added an extra question: "What do you do, if I might ask?"
Sorry, I have no Solomonic solution to offer.
"I can't stand those labels and never use them," I told him, "so I throw them out whether I donate to the charity or not."
The right thing for him to do is to use the labels if he wants to and to donate to whatever charities he finds worthy. The two have nothing to do with each other, whether or not the charity in question wants him to think so.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
I thought it would be nice to attach the mailbox to my house, even though that wasn't its intended purpose, so I drilled a few holes in its side and screwed the box into the shingles to the left of the top step of my front stoop.
The problem is that, when a great deal of mail is stuffed into the box, the screws sometime pull away from the house and the box falls onto the concrete step below.
This is particularly annoying to me when unsolicited mail is the culprit, so I have no fondness for all of those tokens sent by charities in an effort to entice you to contribute, including greeting cards and personalized mailing labels.
A reader from Calgary, Alberta, probably has a different kind of mailbox, but has the same kind of question: If an unsolicited charity sends you "a nice packet" of personalized address labels to convince you to donate, but you don't donate, is it legitimate to keep and use the labels? Or, he asks, "Do you have to throw them in the trash?"
Given their tendency to overtax my mailbox, I wouldn't use the word "nice" to describe any of these unsolicited items. Clearly, however, my reader has no such aversion and would like to use the labels, if he can do so without stepping over the ethical line.
"Part of me says that, whether or not I donate, the company would figure this into their marketing strategy," he writes. "The other part of me says, `Donate or deep-six it.'"
The charitable organization sending those lovely labels obviously would appreciate his donating if he's going to use them, but he's under no obligation to do so. Obligations are assumed through mutual consent, not imposed, and there's no such agreement here. The labels came unsolicited and without any way to return them if he chooses not to donate. Moreover, the charity that sent the labels, like most such charities, in no way suggests that a donation is essential to keep the labels. They are a gift _ a gift made in the hope of prompting a gift in return, but nonetheless a gift.
Some such labels bear an inscription implying that the sender has given to the charity, which would send an insincere message if used by a non-donor. That's not the case here, however. The labels simply feature his name and address.
When I told my reader that it is perfectly OK for him to use the labels, whether or not he donates, he added an extra question: "What do you do, if I might ask?"
Sorry, I have no Solomonic solution to offer.
"I can't stand those labels and never use them," I told him, "so I throw them out whether I donate to the charity or not."
The right thing for him to do is to use the labels if he wants to and to donate to whatever charities he finds worthy. The two have nothing to do with each other, whether or not the charity in question wants him to think so.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, October 04, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: ONE PRICE FOR ALL...EXCEPT SOMETIMES
"I'm hoping you can resolve a dispute my boss and I are having," a reader from southern California writes.
Some background: Customer A contacted my reader's company months ago. He ordered, purchased and installed equipment, spending a considerable amount of money in the process.
"He has been a loyal customer for many years," my reader writes, "and spends a great deal of money with our company."
Customer B, on the other hand, is relatively new and has purchased very little from the company. Recently Customer B wanted to buy equipment similar to that which Customer A had purchased. He asked for and received an estimate from my reader's company, but found it a bit high for his taste. He asked my reader to consider giving him a better price on the equipment he wanted to purchase.
My reader and her boss agreed that Customer B should not get a better price than Customer A. After this initial agreement, however, they found themselves at loggerheads.
"My boss believes that both customers should receive the same price," my reader writes. "I believe that Customer A has been loyal to us, has money and time invested with us, came to us first and should get a better price."
Now she wants to know, from an ethical point of view, whether she or her boss is off base.
I contacted my reader for further information, and learned that the company has no policy, formal or informal, suggesting that regular customers should get a break on prices. Nor does it tell customers that, if they spend a cumulative dollar amount, the company's appreciation will be reflected in better pricing.
There would be nothing wrong in having such policies, assuming that the company wasn't violating any pricing regulations, but there's no ethical problem with not having such policies. Obviously there's no ethical issue in not honoring a policy that doesn't exist.
If the boss decides that all current and prospective customers will be treated the same when it comes to pricing, there's no ethical flaw in that approach. It doesn't reward loyalty, as my reader thinks the company should, but it does ensure consistent treatment of all customers, which is not a bad thing. There's something to be said for either approach, from an ethical point of view, and neither one is in any sense wrong.
The right thing for the boss and his managers to do is to decide what the company's policy will be in this area, then to make sure that all current and future customers know the policy. If it's even-steven across the board, fine. If it rewards longer-standing customers, that's fine too - so long as the rationale is made clear, so that my reader and her colleagues don't end up trying to placate angry customers who think that they're being discriminated against.
"I guess the boss wins this battle," my reader told me when we discussed the issue.
That's as it should be, because within certain limits a company is free to determine its own prices and pricing policies. She and her boss did agree, however, that it would help avoid future questions of this nature if the company established a written policy.
On that they both agreed, and so do I.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Some background: Customer A contacted my reader's company months ago. He ordered, purchased and installed equipment, spending a considerable amount of money in the process.
"He has been a loyal customer for many years," my reader writes, "and spends a great deal of money with our company."
Customer B, on the other hand, is relatively new and has purchased very little from the company. Recently Customer B wanted to buy equipment similar to that which Customer A had purchased. He asked for and received an estimate from my reader's company, but found it a bit high for his taste. He asked my reader to consider giving him a better price on the equipment he wanted to purchase.
My reader and her boss agreed that Customer B should not get a better price than Customer A. After this initial agreement, however, they found themselves at loggerheads.
"My boss believes that both customers should receive the same price," my reader writes. "I believe that Customer A has been loyal to us, has money and time invested with us, came to us first and should get a better price."
Now she wants to know, from an ethical point of view, whether she or her boss is off base.
I contacted my reader for further information, and learned that the company has no policy, formal or informal, suggesting that regular customers should get a break on prices. Nor does it tell customers that, if they spend a cumulative dollar amount, the company's appreciation will be reflected in better pricing.
There would be nothing wrong in having such policies, assuming that the company wasn't violating any pricing regulations, but there's no ethical problem with not having such policies. Obviously there's no ethical issue in not honoring a policy that doesn't exist.
If the boss decides that all current and prospective customers will be treated the same when it comes to pricing, there's no ethical flaw in that approach. It doesn't reward loyalty, as my reader thinks the company should, but it does ensure consistent treatment of all customers, which is not a bad thing. There's something to be said for either approach, from an ethical point of view, and neither one is in any sense wrong.
The right thing for the boss and his managers to do is to decide what the company's policy will be in this area, then to make sure that all current and future customers know the policy. If it's even-steven across the board, fine. If it rewards longer-standing customers, that's fine too - so long as the rationale is made clear, so that my reader and her colleagues don't end up trying to placate angry customers who think that they're being discriminated against.
"I guess the boss wins this battle," my reader told me when we discussed the issue.
That's as it should be, because within certain limits a company is free to determine its own prices and pricing policies. She and her boss did agree, however, that it would help avoid future questions of this nature if the company established a written policy.
On that they both agreed, and so do I.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: A DOG IN THE FIGHT
Quarterback Michael Vick, formerly of the Atlanta Falcons, now plays for the Philadelphia Eagles. As any sports fan knows, Vick was released by the Falcons after being convicted of involvement in illegal dogfighting. He served a 23-month prison sentence, and will remain on probation for three years.
In an informal poll on my column's blog, 46 percent of respondents argued that Vick's crime was heinous enough that he should not be allowed to play professional football again. Another 53 percent felt that, since he's done his time for the crime, there's nothing wrong with him signing with any team that will have him.
"Since Vick's release and the NFL commissioner's approval of his transition to active NFL status," writes Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C., "the criers and haters who constantly bombard Vick with unforgiving taunts should be ignored and Vick should be left in peace."
James Z. of Connecticut disagrees.
"It's unfortunate that those with the resources and the money get second chances like the one Michael Vick is getting with the Eagles," he writes. "A job applicant with a history as a convicted felon rarely, if at all, gets a job ... Celebrities that get in trouble with the law should struggle the same way as people who don't have the money. If that were the case, Vick would be lucky to be working at the local dump. Really, that's where he belongs."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
In an informal poll on my column's blog, 46 percent of respondents argued that Vick's crime was heinous enough that he should not be allowed to play professional football again. Another 53 percent felt that, since he's done his time for the crime, there's nothing wrong with him signing with any team that will have him.
"Since Vick's release and the NFL commissioner's approval of his transition to active NFL status," writes Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C., "the criers and haters who constantly bombard Vick with unforgiving taunts should be ignored and Vick should be left in peace."
James Z. of Connecticut disagrees.
"It's unfortunate that those with the resources and the money get second chances like the one Michael Vick is getting with the Eagles," he writes. "A job applicant with a history as a convicted felon rarely, if at all, gets a job ... Celebrities that get in trouble with the law should struggle the same way as people who don't have the money. If that were the case, Vick would be lucky to be working at the local dump. Really, that's where he belongs."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, September 27, 2009
SOUND OFF: SHOUTING `LIAR' IN A CROWDED CONGRESS
When President Barack Obama recently addressed the Congress on health care, Rep. Joe Wilson (R.-S.Car.) thought the president was being untruthful about whether or not his plan would extend health coverage to illegal immigrants. He interrupted the speech, shouting "You lie!"
The etiquette of the situation is clear: Wilson's outcry was a breach of Congressional protocol, and he later apologized to Obama. Voting largely along party lines, the House of Representatives passed a resolution disapproving of Wilson's comment.
What about the ethics, though? Assuming that Wilson truly believed Obama to be lying, was he wrong to call the president on it? Or did he have an obligation to contradict him immediately, given that no subsequent correction would reach so wide an audience?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: THE DISAPPEARING REBATE
A couple of Christmases ago, the husband of a reader from Ontario bought her a Blackberry telephone as a gift. Because her husband wanted to make sure that my reader got the telephone she wanted, she came along when he made the purchase at the store.
"As part of the price, we were told, we were entitled to a $250 rebate," she writes.
When they got home, however, my reader looked through the packaging for a mail-in rebate card and couldn't find one.
She returned to the store to ask about the rebate card, but this time she spoke to the store's owner rather than to the sales clerk with whom she and her husband had originally dealt.
The owner proceeded to tell her that the clerk had "messed up" the original transaction. The rebate wasn't really a rebate, he said, but instead a $250 credit toward monthly bill payments, something my reader and her husband had never been told. And here's the kicker: The owner insisted that the sales clerk had taken an extra $250 off the Blackberry's price when they purchased it.
"Essentially he said that we owed him $250," my reader writes.
The owner told her that he would make sure that the credit toward monthly charges would be applied, and my reader left the store. She did end up receiving the $250 credit to her bills, and eventually forgot about the owner having said that they owed him an additional $250.
Several months later the husband returned to the store to buy something else. He was confronted by the store's owner, who told him that they still owed him $250.
"We are of the feeling that we paid for what we were expecting to get," my reader writes, "and it is not our fault that the clerk messed up. Is the owner right that we owe him money, or should he just bite the bullet?"
My reader works in retail herself, so she has seen this sort of scenario from both sides.
"If I make a mistake in a transaction, even if it means I lose money, I stand by it," she writes. "That said, I also refund money if the mistake goes the other way."
As regular readers know, I believe that it is ethically wrong to take advantage of a mistake by a shopkeeper or clerk. If you are given too much change, or if a clerk rings up your $500 purchase as $50, you are ethically obligated to point out the error and not to capitalize on it for your own advantage.
That would be the case here, if the higher price had been agreed upon between the sales clerk and my reader's husband and the clerk had then mistakenly entered the lower price at his register. In that case, error or no error, the right thing would be for my reader's husband to pay what he had agreed to pay.
That isn't the case here, though. As a representative of the store, the clerk quoted a price to his customer. The customer agreed to the price and payment was made. There was no deception on the part of my reader's husband, nor any error on the part of the clerk. He charged them exactly what he intended to charge them and they paid that amount, so the right thing for the store owner to do is to honor that sale.
If the store owner has an issue with anyone, it should be with his clerk. If indeed the clerk sold the Blackberry at a price lower than he was supposed to, the owner is fully entitled to be angry with him and even to fire him, if he considers the breach serious enough.
It's wrong for him to go after the customer, though. My reader and her husband did nothing wrong, and are in no way to blame for the store's internal problems with this transaction.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"As part of the price, we were told, we were entitled to a $250 rebate," she writes.
When they got home, however, my reader looked through the packaging for a mail-in rebate card and couldn't find one.
She returned to the store to ask about the rebate card, but this time she spoke to the store's owner rather than to the sales clerk with whom she and her husband had originally dealt.
The owner proceeded to tell her that the clerk had "messed up" the original transaction. The rebate wasn't really a rebate, he said, but instead a $250 credit toward monthly bill payments, something my reader and her husband had never been told. And here's the kicker: The owner insisted that the sales clerk had taken an extra $250 off the Blackberry's price when they purchased it.
"Essentially he said that we owed him $250," my reader writes.
The owner told her that he would make sure that the credit toward monthly charges would be applied, and my reader left the store. She did end up receiving the $250 credit to her bills, and eventually forgot about the owner having said that they owed him an additional $250.
Several months later the husband returned to the store to buy something else. He was confronted by the store's owner, who told him that they still owed him $250.
"We are of the feeling that we paid for what we were expecting to get," my reader writes, "and it is not our fault that the clerk messed up. Is the owner right that we owe him money, or should he just bite the bullet?"
My reader works in retail herself, so she has seen this sort of scenario from both sides.
"If I make a mistake in a transaction, even if it means I lose money, I stand by it," she writes. "That said, I also refund money if the mistake goes the other way."
As regular readers know, I believe that it is ethically wrong to take advantage of a mistake by a shopkeeper or clerk. If you are given too much change, or if a clerk rings up your $500 purchase as $50, you are ethically obligated to point out the error and not to capitalize on it for your own advantage.
That would be the case here, if the higher price had been agreed upon between the sales clerk and my reader's husband and the clerk had then mistakenly entered the lower price at his register. In that case, error or no error, the right thing would be for my reader's husband to pay what he had agreed to pay.
That isn't the case here, though. As a representative of the store, the clerk quoted a price to his customer. The customer agreed to the price and payment was made. There was no deception on the part of my reader's husband, nor any error on the part of the clerk. He charged them exactly what he intended to charge them and they paid that amount, so the right thing for the store owner to do is to honor that sale.
If the store owner has an issue with anyone, it should be with his clerk. If indeed the clerk sold the Blackberry at a price lower than he was supposed to, the owner is fully entitled to be angry with him and even to fire him, if he considers the breach serious enough.
It's wrong for him to go after the customer, though. My reader and her husband did nothing wrong, and are in no way to blame for the store's internal problems with this transaction.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, September 20, 2009
THE RIGHT THING: TO WARN A THIEF
The start of a new school year always seems to raise some ethical issues for teachers, myself included.
One such teacher is a reader of mine from Pittsburgh, who is starting a new teaching job at a college. Like most colleges, his takes a strong stance against plagiarism. Its written policy makes clear, among other things, that stealing words from the Internet will not be tolerated.
That policy is one which my reader has no problem supporting, but he's troubled by some advice he's been receiving from colleagues.
"I have been encouraged not to tell my students that I'll be checking their written work through an online program that detects plagiarism," he writes.
These programs highlight portions of a student's writing and automatically search published databases to see if the student has "borrowed" too aggressively and without attribution from another source. My reader has little problem with the use of such programs, but feels that many of his colleagues seem "too excited" about the prospect of catching unsuspecting plagiarists.
He wonders if "we should be out to `catch' people in such instances where, instead, we might be able to pre-empt their poor choices by more clearly showing them that they're unlikely to get away with it."
In other words, why not tell your students ahead of time that you will be using the anti-plagiarism software, giving them a disincentive to cheat?
Ultimately, my reader writes, it's up to him whether or not to disclose the truth. But he wonders if it's inappropriate to be more interested in catching someone doing something wrong than in guiding them to do what's right.
Are my reader's colleagues wrong not to disclose to their students that they will be using plagiarism-detection software? No.
The existence of a written policy against plagiarism implies enforcement of that policy, so students should expect their professors to use any reasonable means at their disposal to detect violations. The use of anti-plagiarism software in no way violates students' privacy or other rights, so it's a perfectly legitimate tool for the college to use to ensure the authenticity of its students' work.
All the same, that it isn't wrong doesn't make it the right choice. I believe my reader's concerns are legitimate, not because using undisclosed software is unethical but because it's not the best way for the college to educate its students and promote their welfare.
The college's primary interest is not in collecting the "scalps" of plagiarists, but in preventing plagiarism. It also presumably aims to help students learn to make critical decisions for themselves, and both interests are better served by advance disclosure of the use of the anti-plagiarism software.
With the consequences of getting caught made clear to them, students have everything they need to make a choice about plagiarism. Hopefully most of them will make the right choice and the anti-plagiarism software will work well ... and bag few plagiarists.
A recurring theme in my column, through the years, has been that it isn't the stark right-and-wrong ethical choices that are difficult to make. Not everything that passes the "ethical or unethical" test is equally desirable, however, and the real challenge comes when we face a situation that presents us with a number of right choices.
Our goal should be not simply to avoid the wrong choices, but to choose the best of the right choices. The way to that choice involves weighing the potential consequences of our actions.
In this case, the right thing for my colleague to do is to focus on teaching his students the reasons not to plagiarize, rather than to work to catch them in the act. He's right in thinking that the goal is to teach a lesson through teaching, rather than through punishing.
If his colleagues are on the ball, they'll follow his example.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
One such teacher is a reader of mine from Pittsburgh, who is starting a new teaching job at a college. Like most colleges, his takes a strong stance against plagiarism. Its written policy makes clear, among other things, that stealing words from the Internet will not be tolerated.
That policy is one which my reader has no problem supporting, but he's troubled by some advice he's been receiving from colleagues.
"I have been encouraged not to tell my students that I'll be checking their written work through an online program that detects plagiarism," he writes.
These programs highlight portions of a student's writing and automatically search published databases to see if the student has "borrowed" too aggressively and without attribution from another source. My reader has little problem with the use of such programs, but feels that many of his colleagues seem "too excited" about the prospect of catching unsuspecting plagiarists.
He wonders if "we should be out to `catch' people in such instances where, instead, we might be able to pre-empt their poor choices by more clearly showing them that they're unlikely to get away with it."
In other words, why not tell your students ahead of time that you will be using the anti-plagiarism software, giving them a disincentive to cheat?
Ultimately, my reader writes, it's up to him whether or not to disclose the truth. But he wonders if it's inappropriate to be more interested in catching someone doing something wrong than in guiding them to do what's right.
Are my reader's colleagues wrong not to disclose to their students that they will be using plagiarism-detection software? No.
The existence of a written policy against plagiarism implies enforcement of that policy, so students should expect their professors to use any reasonable means at their disposal to detect violations. The use of anti-plagiarism software in no way violates students' privacy or other rights, so it's a perfectly legitimate tool for the college to use to ensure the authenticity of its students' work.
All the same, that it isn't wrong doesn't make it the right choice. I believe my reader's concerns are legitimate, not because using undisclosed software is unethical but because it's not the best way for the college to educate its students and promote their welfare.
The college's primary interest is not in collecting the "scalps" of plagiarists, but in preventing plagiarism. It also presumably aims to help students learn to make critical decisions for themselves, and both interests are better served by advance disclosure of the use of the anti-plagiarism software.
With the consequences of getting caught made clear to them, students have everything they need to make a choice about plagiarism. Hopefully most of them will make the right choice and the anti-plagiarism software will work well ... and bag few plagiarists.
A recurring theme in my column, through the years, has been that it isn't the stark right-and-wrong ethical choices that are difficult to make. Not everything that passes the "ethical or unethical" test is equally desirable, however, and the real challenge comes when we face a situation that presents us with a number of right choices.
Our goal should be not simply to avoid the wrong choices, but to choose the best of the right choices. The way to that choice involves weighing the potential consequences of our actions.
In this case, the right thing for my colleague to do is to focus on teaching his students the reasons not to plagiarize, rather than to work to catch them in the act. He's right in thinking that the goal is to teach a lesson through teaching, rather than through punishing.
If his colleagues are on the ball, they'll follow his example.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
SOUND OFF: SECONDHAND INSPIRATION
Of the readers who responded to an unscientific survey on my column's blog, 61 percent believed that it was OK for ministers to use previously written sermons downloaded from online sources only if they acknowledge to their flocks that the sermons are partially or entirely someone else's work. Only 23 percent believed that it is OK to deliver the sermons as their own, assuming that the original writers have given permission for their work to be used in this way, while 15 percent said that it is never OK to deliver someone else's sermon as your own, with or without credit.
Kristie Rutzel, director of marketing for sermonsearch.com, one of the sites that provides sermons, writes that the goal of her company is to "provide inspiration" for pastors, not to rip anyone off. Most of my respondents agreed with her perspective.
"Congregations do not expect original thought as much as truth - the same truth that was taught 50, 100, 1,000 years ago," writes William Jacobson of Cypress, Calif. "So why shouldn't the pastor `stand on the shoulders of giants' in constructing his sermons?"
"It is definitely OK to surf for inspiration," Sean Chang writes, "and I believe that God can speak to us through many channels, including the materials provided online."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, September 13, 2009
SOUND OFF: BUTTERING UP THE BOSS
The current movie Julie and Julia recounts the true story of Julie Powell, a blogger who decided to spend a year cooking every recipe in Julia Child's Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Well into her effort Powell (Amy Adams) runs into a problem: The night before a dinner with an important editor, she sleeps through the timer and her main dish is ruined. The following day she calls in sick to work, in order to remake the meal. At her husband's suggestion, she writes in her blog that she has been laid low by a cold, so as to avoid having her bosses find out the truth from her blog.
Independent of the ethics of calling in sick when you're not sick, which have been thoroughly explored in this column, is it wrong to lie about this sort of thing in a personal blog? Or, because the blog is the writer's personal expression and is read only by those who choose to, can the blogger make up anything he or she likes?
Independent of the ethics of calling in sick when you're not sick, which have been thoroughly explored in this column, is it wrong to lie about this sort of thing in a personal blog? Or, because the blog is the writer's personal expression and is read only by those who choose to, can the blogger make up anything he or she likes?
Post your thoughts here by clicking on "comments" or "post a comment" below. Please include your name, hometown, and state, province, or country. Readers' comments may appear in an upcoming column. Or e-mail your comments to me at rightthing@nytimes.com.
You can also respond to the poll with this question that will appear on the right-hand side of the blog until polling is closed.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business (Smith Kerr, 2006), is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: COLLECTION IN THE CLASSROOM
Several years ago, after retiring from a long career as a human-resources professional, a reader from New York accepted a position teaching graduate-level human-resources courses as an adjunct professor at a nearby college.
Adjunct professors are traditionally hired on a course-by-course basis by colleges or universities that need to find instructors to teach courses that their full-time faculty cannot cover. As such, adjuncts often serve on a temporary basis and may find themselves without a teaching assignment if their services aren't needed in a particular semester.
In the past few years my reader has taught roughly 35 courses in labor relations, staffing and recruiting, employee benefits and other human-resources-related courses. Generally he has been pleased with his work, and the college has been pleased with him.
All that changed, however, when he received an e-mail from the college administration saying that some students in his class were behind in tuition payments. Representatives from the purser's office might come to his classroom, the e-mail added, to deliver letters to any students who owed money.
My reader objected to this, and sent back an e-mail saying so. It could prove embarrassing to any students who were singled out, he argued, and it was not directly related to the instruction taking place in his classroom.
He also gave his students a heads-up, reading them the e-mail from the college and letting them know that, if anyone came into their classroom to deliver such letters, he would excuse all his students from the class. He also let a representative from the purser's office know of his plan.
The provost of the college, who serves as its chief academic official, interceded at this point, calling my reader to discuss the matter. He said that visits to the classroom were the best way the administration had to collect past-due tuition payments.
"I voiced my objections to the method chosen," my reader writes.
My reader believes that the college would be better advised to send letters or e-mails to students in arrears, informing them that they could no longer attend classes until their tuition was paid.
"If they had chosen this option, and advised me," he writes, "I could have discreetly taken any students aside privately and suggested that they contact the purser's office, without embarrassing the student. Instead they proposed sending `bill collectors' into classrooms to present `collection letters.'"
Since my reader took his stand, no purser's representatives have shown up at his classroom door. However, he has not been invited back to teach any future course or courses. No reason was given, and of course the college is not obligated to give one, regardless of his successful service as an adjunct professor.
It's hard to see how singling out students in front of their classmates would solve the issue facing the college. Clearly there was no expectation that the students would get out their checkbooks and pay up on the spot. If hand-delivering the letters to students during class was an attempt to shame them in front of their peers and pressure them into paying up, it was the wrong thing to do.
Obviously the students are responsible for paying what they owe, and the college is entitled to seek payment. The right thing for the college to do, however, was exactly what my reader suggests: Let the students know directly, outside the classroom, that they would not be able to attend classes or receive grades until their tuition was up to date. It would also be entirely appropriate for the college to require faculty members, including my reader, to cooperate with this effort.
My reader was correct to disagree with the collection ploy, and to tell the college that he would not cooperate with it. However, I think he was wrong to convey his feelings to the students before he had discussed it with the provost.
A teacher is a representative of the college, and it's legitimate for the college to feel that its representatives should keep disagreements in house for as long as possible, rather than immediately broadcast them to the students and, by extension, to the general public.
Both sides in this dispute have done the wrong thing, and both need to make amends.
Most colleges and universities make it a point of pride to support their instructors, even when they question the status quo. It's more awkward when it's the status quo at the college itself that is being challenged, but the principle should be the same. Whether or not it is required by policy, the college owes my reader an explanation for his suddenly being frozen out.
If, as seems likely, it's because of this disagreement, the college should make a good-faith attempt to find common ground for the future and, if that can be done, should invite this teacher back into the classroom.
My reader should admit that, while his opinion of the college's collection policies has not changed, he was wrong to go public with his objections without a more substantial attempt to settle things with the college behind closed doors.
It would be no compromise of his principles to agree to discuss any future issues of this nature with the administration before airing them to his students.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Adjunct professors are traditionally hired on a course-by-course basis by colleges or universities that need to find instructors to teach courses that their full-time faculty cannot cover. As such, adjuncts often serve on a temporary basis and may find themselves without a teaching assignment if their services aren't needed in a particular semester.
In the past few years my reader has taught roughly 35 courses in labor relations, staffing and recruiting, employee benefits and other human-resources-related courses. Generally he has been pleased with his work, and the college has been pleased with him.
All that changed, however, when he received an e-mail from the college administration saying that some students in his class were behind in tuition payments. Representatives from the purser's office might come to his classroom, the e-mail added, to deliver letters to any students who owed money.
My reader objected to this, and sent back an e-mail saying so. It could prove embarrassing to any students who were singled out, he argued, and it was not directly related to the instruction taking place in his classroom.
He also gave his students a heads-up, reading them the e-mail from the college and letting them know that, if anyone came into their classroom to deliver such letters, he would excuse all his students from the class. He also let a representative from the purser's office know of his plan.
The provost of the college, who serves as its chief academic official, interceded at this point, calling my reader to discuss the matter. He said that visits to the classroom were the best way the administration had to collect past-due tuition payments.
"I voiced my objections to the method chosen," my reader writes.
My reader believes that the college would be better advised to send letters or e-mails to students in arrears, informing them that they could no longer attend classes until their tuition was paid.
"If they had chosen this option, and advised me," he writes, "I could have discreetly taken any students aside privately and suggested that they contact the purser's office, without embarrassing the student. Instead they proposed sending `bill collectors' into classrooms to present `collection letters.'"
Since my reader took his stand, no purser's representatives have shown up at his classroom door. However, he has not been invited back to teach any future course or courses. No reason was given, and of course the college is not obligated to give one, regardless of his successful service as an adjunct professor.
It's hard to see how singling out students in front of their classmates would solve the issue facing the college. Clearly there was no expectation that the students would get out their checkbooks and pay up on the spot. If hand-delivering the letters to students during class was an attempt to shame them in front of their peers and pressure them into paying up, it was the wrong thing to do.
Obviously the students are responsible for paying what they owe, and the college is entitled to seek payment. The right thing for the college to do, however, was exactly what my reader suggests: Let the students know directly, outside the classroom, that they would not be able to attend classes or receive grades until their tuition was up to date. It would also be entirely appropriate for the college to require faculty members, including my reader, to cooperate with this effort.
My reader was correct to disagree with the collection ploy, and to tell the college that he would not cooperate with it. However, I think he was wrong to convey his feelings to the students before he had discussed it with the provost.
A teacher is a representative of the college, and it's legitimate for the college to feel that its representatives should keep disagreements in house for as long as possible, rather than immediately broadcast them to the students and, by extension, to the general public.
Both sides in this dispute have done the wrong thing, and both need to make amends.
Most colleges and universities make it a point of pride to support their instructors, even when they question the status quo. It's more awkward when it's the status quo at the college itself that is being challenged, but the principle should be the same. Whether or not it is required by policy, the college owes my reader an explanation for his suddenly being frozen out.
If, as seems likely, it's because of this disagreement, the college should make a good-faith attempt to find common ground for the future and, if that can be done, should invite this teacher back into the classroom.
My reader should admit that, while his opinion of the college's collection policies has not changed, he was wrong to go public with his objections without a more substantial attempt to settle things with the college behind closed doors.
It would be no compromise of his principles to agree to discuss any future issues of this nature with the administration before airing them to his students.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Sunday, September 06, 2009
SOUND OFF: WHERE'D YOU GET THAT MONEY?
Financier Bernard Madoff has been sentenced to 150 years in prison for swindling billions from investors, millions of which he gave to various charities. Of readers responding to an unscientific poll on my column's blog, 52 percent believed that unsuspecting charities that benefited from Madoff's crimes but had no knowledge of his misdeeds should keep every cent they received. It was one of my most closely divided surveys, however, with 47 percent feeling that the charities have a moral obligation to give back the money.
"Unless the charities had reason to suspect that the money was tainted," writes Phil Clutts of Harrisburg, N.C., "they don't `owe' it to the deceived Madoff investors, many if not most of whom, after all, were seeking almost unconscionable profits."
"The charities had no way of knowing the circumstances of how the funds were earned," agrees Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C., "so the charities don't owe the Madoff investors anything. We seem to have, as a society, reached the point where anyone who has ever suffered a reversal in fortunes, for whatever reason, feels that they must be made whole."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"Unless the charities had reason to suspect that the money was tainted," writes Phil Clutts of Harrisburg, N.C., "they don't `owe' it to the deceived Madoff investors, many if not most of whom, after all, were seeking almost unconscionable profits."
"The charities had no way of knowing the circumstances of how the funds were earned," agrees Charlie Seng of Lancaster, S.C., "so the charities don't owe the Madoff investors anything. We seem to have, as a society, reached the point where anyone who has ever suffered a reversal in fortunes, for whatever reason, feels that they must be made whole."
Check out other opinions here, or post your own by clicking on "Comments" or "Post a comment" below.
Jeffrey L. Seglin, author of The Right Thing: Conscience, Profit and Personal Responsibility in Today's Business and The Good, the Bad, and Your Business: Choosing Right When Ethical Dilemmas Pull You Apart, is an associate professor at Emerson College in Boston, where he teaches writing and ethics. He is also the administrator of The Right Thing, a Web log focused on ethical issues.
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@nytimes.com or to "The Right Thing," The New York Times Syndicate, 500 Seventh Avenue, 8th floor, New York, NY 10018. Please remember to tell me who you are, where you're from, as well as where you read the column.
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
THE RIGHT THING: SHOWERS LIKELY
Twice this year an Ohio reader's company has decided to throw a wedding or baby shower in the middle of a business meeting at the company's main office. My reader works remotely for this small company, but was required to attend these meetings.
"Quite a few of us were vocal about not wanting to participate in the showers," she writes, "mostly because we don't even know these people, except for seeing them at an annual meeting."
The company's manager told them that they didn't have to participate, and gave them permission to leave during the showers and return when the fun was over and work resumed.
"Of course," she adds, "we were told that we were still expected to contribute to the shower gifts."
My reader and some of her colleagues believe that, if others want to host a shower for a colleague, it should not be on company time and attendance should not be mandatory. She worries that, as more young women become engaged or pregnant, more and more showers will be planned for company time.
"We are told we are not `team players' when we don't want to participate," she writes, adding that, if she takes a strong stance on the matter, her image as a team player stands to get even worse.
"What is the right thing to do when my company arranges wedding and baby showers in the middle of a business meeting?" she asks. "Are we wrong in not wanting to be a part of this?"
To answer the second question first, there's no right or wrong about wanting to be part of such celebrations. We feel the way we feel. Ethics doesn't tell us how to feel, only what to do about those feelings.
Going back to the first question, there's nothing wrong with having a wedding or baby shower on company time. Obviously the company feels that, in the interest of employee morale, this is a worthwhile use of the company's time. If management is happy with the practice, as apparently it is, it's fine.
The sticking point, obviously, is the idea of mandatory participation, particularly when there's a cost involved. An employee celebration of a private milestone isn't the same as an organized work session, and for those who don't feel comfortable participating _ because, as in my reader's case, they don't know the honoree or for any other reason _ discreetly opting out should be an option.
Whatever benefits the showers may have for employee morale are at least partially offset if some of those present resent being there and/or feel that they've been forced to contribute to a gift they wouldn't otherwise support.
To require any employee to donate to a group gift is plain wrong. If the company believes that it's good for morale or otherwise important for a shower recipient to get a gift on such an occasion, let the company pay for it.
And the company should consider scheduling these showers as voluntary events, scheduled after work or at least outside of official meetings. Not as many people may attend, but the honoree won't miss a few strangers - and, after all, what does it say about you anyway if people have to be forced to attend your party?
Unfortunately it wasn't company management that wrote to me for advice. My reader isn't in a position to personally change the policy, so her situation is different.
She and like-minded employees should sit down with the appropriate manager, explain the issues I've outlined above and request that the company change its employee-party policy to be more friendly to all the employees, especially those who aren't usually in the office and don't know most of the other employees.
This may inspire a change, or it may not. If it doesn't, my reader has every right to politely decline to contribute to a gift - "I'm sorry, but I don't really know her" - and then to step out of the room as the celebration begins, as her manager suggests. It would be wrong to refuse to ante up and then stay for the festivities.
If this won't fly with management, she'll have to literally grin and bear it, making the best of a party she'd rather not be at and writing off an occasional shower-gift contribution as part of the cost of doing business with this company.
I hope it won't come to that, though. "Mandatory gift" and "compulsory celebration" are both contradictions in terms, and a smart manager wouldn't mind letting her sit out the party on her own terms.¶
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
"Quite a few of us were vocal about not wanting to participate in the showers," she writes, "mostly because we don't even know these people, except for seeing them at an annual meeting."
The company's manager told them that they didn't have to participate, and gave them permission to leave during the showers and return when the fun was over and work resumed.
"Of course," she adds, "we were told that we were still expected to contribute to the shower gifts."
My reader and some of her colleagues believe that, if others want to host a shower for a colleague, it should not be on company time and attendance should not be mandatory. She worries that, as more young women become engaged or pregnant, more and more showers will be planned for company time.
"We are told we are not `team players' when we don't want to participate," she writes, adding that, if she takes a strong stance on the matter, her image as a team player stands to get even worse.
"What is the right thing to do when my company arranges wedding and baby showers in the middle of a business meeting?" she asks. "Are we wrong in not wanting to be a part of this?"
To answer the second question first, there's no right or wrong about wanting to be part of such celebrations. We feel the way we feel. Ethics doesn't tell us how to feel, only what to do about those feelings.
Going back to the first question, there's nothing wrong with having a wedding or baby shower on company time. Obviously the company feels that, in the interest of employee morale, this is a worthwhile use of the company's time. If management is happy with the practice, as apparently it is, it's fine.
The sticking point, obviously, is the idea of mandatory participation, particularly when there's a cost involved. An employee celebration of a private milestone isn't the same as an organized work session, and for those who don't feel comfortable participating _ because, as in my reader's case, they don't know the honoree or for any other reason _ discreetly opting out should be an option.
Whatever benefits the showers may have for employee morale are at least partially offset if some of those present resent being there and/or feel that they've been forced to contribute to a gift they wouldn't otherwise support.
To require any employee to donate to a group gift is plain wrong. If the company believes that it's good for morale or otherwise important for a shower recipient to get a gift on such an occasion, let the company pay for it.
And the company should consider scheduling these showers as voluntary events, scheduled after work or at least outside of official meetings. Not as many people may attend, but the honoree won't miss a few strangers - and, after all, what does it say about you anyway if people have to be forced to attend your party?
Unfortunately it wasn't company management that wrote to me for advice. My reader isn't in a position to personally change the policy, so her situation is different.
She and like-minded employees should sit down with the appropriate manager, explain the issues I've outlined above and request that the company change its employee-party policy to be more friendly to all the employees, especially those who aren't usually in the office and don't know most of the other employees.
This may inspire a change, or it may not. If it doesn't, my reader has every right to politely decline to contribute to a gift - "I'm sorry, but I don't really know her" - and then to step out of the room as the celebration begins, as her manager suggests. It would be wrong to refuse to ante up and then stay for the festivities.
If this won't fly with management, she'll have to literally grin and bear it, making the best of a party she'd rather not be at and writing off an occasional shower-gift contribution as part of the cost of doing business with this company.
I hope it won't come to that, though. "Mandatory gift" and "compulsory celebration" are both contradictions in terms, and a smart manager wouldn't mind letting her sit out the party on her own terms.¶
c.2009 The New York Times Syndicate (Distributed by The New York Times Syndicate)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)