Jeffrey L. Seglin's Blog, page 61

How far must we go to report sexual assault or harassment?

There's been a lot of press lately on the U.S. Department of Education's Office for Civil Right's decision to release the names of 55 colleges and universities being investigated for possible violations of federal law in how they handled sexual violence and harassment complaints. In a pressrelease issued May 1, the OCR made clear that such investigations are initiated "to ensure that the campus is in compliance with federal law."
In other words, the schools cited might or might not be out of compliance when it comes to handling sexual violence or harassment complaints.
Almost as soon as the list was released, people took to social media with posts about whether or not their alma mater was on the list. If the OCR's intent was to draw attention to the issue of sexual assault and harassment on campus, releasing the names of these 55 schools did the trick.
Taking this step also raises the issue of how knowledgeable people at those institutions -- or any institution -- are about how they should act if they hear of or witness sexual assault. The first impulse might be to search the Internet for resources on the reporting of such incidents or what responsibility an employee has if a college student or business colleague tells reports that he or she has been the victim of sexual assault or sexual harassment.
Many colleges and businesses have posted information online about proper procedures. But what's the right thing to do if you go to a campus or company website and find that the information is clearly outdated, with contact for people who no longer work there or dead links?
Is the fact that you tried to hunt down the information enough? Once you find yourself directed to a "Not Found" page, does your obligation end?
Without doubt, the right thing is for institutions to make sure their informational pages about procedures to resolve sexual harassment issues are regularly checked to make sure they contain the most up-to-date information. Institutions should also do a more thorough job of instructing each employee on what to do if they witness or hear of such acts. Even if this amounts to only a list of steps to take and up-to-date phone numbers to call, that's a start.
But if an institution doesn't do these things, someone seeking information should not use this failure as an excuse to not try to help right what may turn out to be a terrible wrong.
The right thing for any employee who witnesses or learns of an incident of sexual harassment or assault is to do whatever it takes to learn the procedures for reporting the problem at his or her institution, then do whatever possible to lessen the chance such an incident will occur again. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications programat  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is moonlighting on company time ever OK?

Years ago, a former colleague at a magazine left to take a job at another publication. He was a star writer on our staff, one of the most productive, and left on great terms. He also moonlighted while on the job, something he made public in an article he wrote for his new publication.
At first, he noted, he relegated his moonlighting to times when he was away from the office. Soon, however, he started using downtime at work for some moonlighting, utilizing company supplies and equipment, He always made the deadlines for our publication, but he made clear in the article that the money he earned moonlighting soon surpassed what he made from his full-time job.
While this writer reported his moonlighting income to the IRS, and his outside client wasn't in the same business as that covered by our magazine, he never told his boss that he was essentially working a side job while on the clock. Clearing his moonlighting activities with the boss always struck me as something he should have done. The boss didn't find out until he read the article in our former colleague's new magazine.
I was reminded of the moonlighting escapade when a graduate student -- whose job it was to man a desk for several hours in case students came seeking outside help for a course -- asked me recently if it was OK for him to do other work while he waited for students to show up. Often, no one visited him throughout his shift. When students did seek help, they never took up all of the hours the grad student had available.
Still, the grad student felt that somehow there might be something wrong with doing other work while he waited.
He could have dissuaded himself of any guilt by simply asking the professor for whom he worked if it was OK for him to complete other tasks as he waited for students. But the burden of doing so was not as great for him as it was for my former colleague.
The grad student was hired for one specific task: to be in the office ready to help students if they needed assistance. My magazine colleague, on the other hand, was hired as a full-time contributor to the publication. Even though he met his deadlines and was productive, had the boss known that my colleague had a significant amount of downtime, it would have been perfectly appropriate for the boss to ask him to take on more during the workday. He was being paid to do more than sit at a desk waiting for students to come by.
As long as the grad student fulfilled the function for which he was hired -- and dropped everything whenever a student showed up for assistance -- he could rest easy knowing he was doing the right thing and not taking advantage of his boss. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

How much do we owe our bosses before we move on?

A reader from the Midwest is looking to move on from the first job she took after completing her education. She describes the managers at her current job as wonderful for hiring her fresh out of school and training her.
But since the beginning of the year, she's been considering a move, mostly because she's no longer happy in the position, partly due to the fact that some of the skills she brought to the job have been ignored "to the extent where I must turn away and shut my mouth in situations where I could potentially be of use."
She also believes it's simply time to experience other aspects of her profession in different areas of the country.
No one at the company (to her knowledge) knows she's considering a move. She hopes to leave on good terms by giving appropriate notice once she finds a new job. However, her search "pretty much ground to a halt" when she learned a co-worker was pregnant.
"What are the ethics of finding a new job and leaving as the company is now starting to develop a plan to cover six to eight weeks of maternity leave, including possible overtime opportunities?" she asks.
Giving notice and then forcing her employers to hire someone new who'd need to be trained and ready to work independently by the time the co-worker started maternity leave was not the way she wanted to end her relationship with the company.
"We don't have a large pool of staff from which to pull when someone is out, and even a week-long vacation almost inevitably results in overtime and mild burnout for some people due to the long hours we maintain," she writes.
She's now looking at job postings only halfheartedly, since "I know it's decidedly not the right thing to saddle my employers with this burden."
Now, she wonders if she's obligated to continue working in a place where she believes she's overstayed her welcome until her co-worker returns from maternity leave.
While the reader shows a great deal of appreciation and loyalty for the job and training her employers gave her, she's under no obligation to cut her own job-hunting plans short based on the effect her co-worker's leave will have on the business. For one thing, she has no idea if other situations will arise that place pressure on her employers before the co-worker returns. For another, as long as she's worked hard and well at her current position and treated co-workers with respect, she can leave knowing she gave the current job her all.
The right thing, if the reader is ready to move on to new challenges, is to continue her job search, find a new position, and give her employers a reasonable amount of notice so they can prepare to hire a replacement. When she gives notice, the right thing for her employers to do is to congratulate her, thank her for her good work, and wish her well. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Rudeness makes dinner invite tasteless

What's the right thing to do when someone insults you, but then asks you to dinner?
Years ago, I was researching an article about whether companies that offered employee stock ownership plans (ESOPs) -- a mechanism by which employees own shares in their own company -- outperformed companies that did not. I'd read up on the topic and drawn up a list of experts I could talk to who'd reportedly studied the issue.
What I was trying to figure out was whether anyone had specifically studied and documented whether ESOP companies outperformed non-ESOP companies, and if they had, if they would share specifics with me. On what basis was performance being measured? How much exactly did the ESOP companies outperform or underperform?
I was given the name of a fellow I was told had researched the topic and might have the kind of information I was looking for, so I emailed him and set up a time to talk by phone.
He was clearly enthusiastic about the topic, reminding me how intuitive it was to believe that ESOPs improved a company's performance. It only makes sense, he said, to think that employees who own part of a company would be more inclined to want to see it perform well than those who did not.
I agreed that intuitively it made sense. But I had told him in my email that I was looking for someone with solid evidence that ESOP companies actually did better, someone who had specifically researched ESOP-company financial performance and analyzed the results. I reminded him that I was looking for specifics.
His reiterated that his research showed ESOP companies clearly outperformed other companies. No question.
So by what specific percentage, I asked, again trying to get him to share his concrete research.
He seemed taken aback that I questioned him and asked for specifics and responded with a curt two-word expletive.
Taken aback myself, I asked him if I'd offended him somehow. He told me I had questioned his credibility by asking him to substantiate his claims.
I reminded him that I was reporting a story and simply looking for information.
He repeated the expletive.
This went on for some time until it became clear he either didn't have or wasn't going to share his research with me.
I thanked the source for his time. Before we hung up, he mentioned that he'd purchased a table at an upcoming industry association dinner and asked if I'd like to join them.
Given that I'd never been invited to dinner by someone who less than 15 minutes earlier had hurled epithets my way, I wasn't certain of the appropriate response. I supposed it might be an interesting event. You never know where an idea for a story might arise. Then again, I'd have to spend time with this guy.
If he didn't want to share information with me (if he indeed had it), the right thing would have been for him to simply tell me he chose not to share it rather than to launch into a verbal attack. I declined his invitation. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Is a potentially offensive joke worth the possible repercussions?

Driving home one Sunday afternoon along Route 1 South heading into Boston, I noticed the message on a large billboard to the left off the highway. The billboard featured the photo of a Lexus sedan on the right and on the left, the message: "We give everyone great service. Unless you're a Yankees fan."
That's it. That's the whole billboard sign. It's a joke, of course, and after doing some digging, the newspaper version of the same ad features a note from the dealer that starts with the words, "Just kidding" and ends with the observation that everyone deserves great service, "even Yankees fans."
OK. So it's a joke. But when the joke is not made clear on the giant billboard sign, does the car dealer risk offending prospective buyers by telling them they're not welcome?
Granted, Boston is a diehard Red Sox town. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center (BIDMC) announces on its website that "our newborns are all Red Sox babies," tough going if you're an out-of-town Yankees fan who goes into labor in Boston and ends up at BIDMC.
It's all in good fun, but does the loyalty for one team that's so strong it carries over into a playful hatred of another team warrant carrying the joke far enough so that a particular group is made to feel unwanted on the premises? BIDMC welcomes all newborns as members of the Red Sox nation. It does not joke about providing exemplary healthcare to all newborns except those born to Yankees fans.
I'm a Yankee fan living in Boston. I've been a Yankees fan since I was 4. My father was a Yankees fan. But I've lived in Boston for more than 35 years and am surrounded by family and friends, all of whom are diehard Red Sox fans. (Except for my youngest grandson, Luke, who loves that Derek Jeter hit a home run on the first pitch in the first game that Luke ever saw the Yankees play the Red Sox at Fenway Park.)
My dentist of 30 years knows I'm a Yankees fan and he provides me with the same care and service he does his other patients. He doesn't joke about treating me differently because of my fan loyalty. And hepitched for the Red Sox in the 1960s.
Was the car dealer wrong to joke on the billboard about giving great service to everyone but Yankees fans? Humor is a funny thing. As long as the dealer is willing to recognize that by suggesting a specific group of prospective buyers is not as welcome at his establishments, he's likely to lose business, that's fine. Perhaps his business is just fine without welcoming Yankees fans. And it's not likely charges will be brought against him for discriminating against a protected group of Yankees fans.
The right thing for any business owner to do is decide whether it's worth it, in an effort to be funny, to run the risk of offending prospective customers. And the right thing for Yankees fans to do is decide whether to buy a car from this guy. I know at least one who won't. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Alternative answer to exam question stands up to scrutiny

Years ago, when N.W., a reader in the Midwest, attended a liberal arts college, she and a friend decided to meet one of their distribution requirements by taking an introductory religion course focusing on nonwestern religions. It was, she writes, an overview course describing the beliefs and practices of "pretty much every other religion besides Judaism and Christianity."
When they sat down to their final examination, one of the long essay questions the professor posed "added some color" to the typically staid compare-and-contrast questions often used to test students' knowledge of what they've learned during the semester.
"The essay question posed a hypothetical," N.W. writes. "If your personal faith was outlawed, which of the faiths we covered during the course would you join?" The professor specified that students show their knowledge of at least three of the religions covered over the course of the semester in their answers.
After they finished the exam, N.W. and her friend talked about the question over lunch in the school cafeteria.
"I took it as an intellectual challenge and made a choice, as did the vast majority of my classmates," N.W. writes. But her friend, who was "far more deeply religious," chose to answer the question differently.
She chose to go the route of "persecuted religions the world over," writes N.W. "Go underground."
"I understood her choice," N.W. writes. "She didn't want to even consider losing her faith as part of a thought experiment."
N.W. asked her friend if she'd followed the instructions to discuss three of the religions they'd covered in the class in her answer. She told N.W. that, indeed, she had.
N.W. wonders if it was right to pass her friend, even if she didn't directly give an alternative religion as an answer to the professor's question?
In dealing with acts that show integrity, I often refer back to Stephen Carter's delineation of the three steps needed to act with integrity, outlined in his book, Integrity (Basic Books, 1996). The first step requires discerning the issue. The second step requires acting on what you discern. The final step is stating openly what you've done and why.
In writing the response she did, N.W.'s friend certainly worked to discern the issue. She thought through the question carefully and decided that, theoretically, choosing an alternative religion, even for the sake of getting a good grade on an exam, was unacceptable. She acted by writing the answer she did and articulating the reasons for her choice.
N.W.'s friend indeed showed integrity. Even though some of her classmates might have thought otherwise, the friend did give a direct answer to the professor's question. "None, and here's why" responds to the essay question posed, as long as she supported her answer with a clear understanding of the material covered in class.
The right thing was for N.W.'s friend to answer the question fully and with understanding and integrity, all of which she did. Although she never revealed the specific grade she received on the final, she did pass. Any teacher worth his or her salt welcomes a student who shows comprehension, critical thinking...and a bit of gumption. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Thirty-six reasons to be kind

Thank you, Bethany College, for inviting me to deliver the 2014 Founder's Day talk.

Faulty car leaves owners in the "lurch," ethically speaking

Often readers face a quandary about doing the right thing when they know doing so could cost them financially. A reader from the Midwest is caught in just such a quandary.
The reader's wife recently settled a breach-of-warranty lawsuit against a car manufacturer. The suit was based on the fact that her car lurched forward when coming to a stop, something that happened often but not always.
The first time the reader's wife experienced the problem was more than a year after she bought the car. That first lurch nearly caused a collision. After that, she learned to leave extra room before coming to a stop and pressing firmly on the car's brake.
Eventually, this practice stopped working. In the fall of 2012, when the reader was driving his wife's car, the vehicle leaped forward into a cross street when the reader tried to stop at an intersection.
He parked the car in the driveway at home and neither he nor his wife drove it for more than a year as she was working to settle her breach-of-warranty suit against the manufacturer.
Ultimately, the reader received a settlement, but the amount was smaller than she might have received had she considered selling the lurching vehicle to a dealer. She received $8,000 from the manufacturer, about half of which will be left after her lawyers take their share of the spoils.
"Our fear was that if we returned the car to the (original) dealer," the reader writes, "they would sell it to some innocent buyer who might then get into an accident."
The couple plans to make a last-ditch attempt to fix the car so the lurching is gone once and for all.
"If that doesn't work, we will need to dispose of it somehow," writes the reader, "possibly by selling it privately with a written disclosure of the car's history, or by junking the car altogether."
They don't "want the possibility of an accident on their consciences." They point out, however, that three acquaintances, all lawyers, have suggested that the couple simply sell the car to a dealer and be done with it.
"They say that what happens after that is not our problem. What do you think?"
From a strictly legal standpoint -- keeping in mind that I am not a lawyer - the couple's lawyer acquaintances are likely correct.
But fobbing off responsibility onto a dealer does not diminish the reader's concerns about a potential buyer's safety. But simply because something is legal does not always make it the best choice.
From an ethical standpoint, the reader seems to be taking the right stance by showing an appropriate level of concern for unsuspecting future buyers. The right thing is for them to trust their instincts that selling the car without disclosing all that has ailed it would not only result in a guilty conscience, but would also expose potential buyers to unsuspected risk. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.

Send your ethics stories and questions...

For the weekly newspaper ethics column I write for the Tribune Media Services Syndicate called "The Right Thing," I am always looking for stories of ethical challenges, dilemmas, and perplexing situations. If you have such a story or question based on an incident and would like it to be considered for the column, please email it to me at rightthing@comcast.net. 

Please make sure to include enough details about the story, the issue that you're wrestling with, and your name and the city and state or province where you are located. Include a way for me to contact you. 

If you know of others who might have interesting stories, please forward this on to them by clicking on the envelope below. 

Thanks in advance for your stories.

Am I my coworker's pizza keeper?

If a colleague interprets rules differently from you, does that make her unethical? A reader from the Midwest seems to think so.
The reader has a colleague who works as a counselor for her church's youth group. Until some members of the youth group are baptized, the coworker said she had chosen to abstain from eating bread.
"In her mind, this is some sort of meaningful religious sacrifice," the reader writes, suggesting he's doubtful that the meaningfulness extends beyond his coworker's mind.
When a group of people at the reader's office, including his bread-abstaining coworker, were discussing where to go for lunch, they decided they'd go to an all-you-can-eat pizza buffet.
Obviously, the reader believed this would cause some concern for his coworker. However, the woman readily agreed to the group's choice and said she'd just eat the cheese and toppings off of the pizza and leave the rest.
"I believe it is unethical for a person to do this," my reader writes.
He explains that he believes the all-you-can-eat deal works because "it assumes people will get full and stop eating." To go to an all-you-can-eat place with the intent of not eating half or more of the food, he writes, "is shady."
"In the same way that you can't share food with a non-paying tagalong at such a place, or take leftovers home, I don't think you can go to such a place with the intent of not consuming the food you are taking."
At the restaurant, the reader's colleague had the opportunity not to partake of the buffet and instead order her own pizza off the menu. If she had done that, my reader concludes, "she'd be free and clear to eat or not eat it in any way she saw fit." But the reader seems surprised that his coworker saw nothing wrong with ordering the buffet and then eating only the toppings from the pizza.
"Is her approach ethical?" he asks.
Years ago, my wife and I frequented a restaurant in Western Massachusetts that featured a salad buffet with printed signs that implored diners to: "Take as much as you want, but eat as much as you take."
The reader is likely right that restaurants would prefer buffet customers eat what they take from the buffet table. Clearly, he'd never go to a buffet and take food with the intent of not eating all that he took.
It is inappropriate for the reader to pass judgment on whether or not his coworker is making a religious sacrifice through her actions. That's between the coworker and her God.
Ideally, the coworker would eat what she takes from the buffet table to avoid being wasteful. But it's not convincing that the coworker's behavior would be any more shady than that of a customer who doesn't like pizza crusts and leaves them on her plate. It's unlikely the reader would pass similar judgment on the crust abstainer.
The right thing is for my reader not to let his judgment about whether his coworker's self-professed religious actions and decisions are legitimate to color his assessment of how she behaves at the buffet table. She'll be back to eating the whole slice soon enough. 
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 a lecturer in public policy and director of the communications program at  Harvard's Kennedy School . 
Follow him on Twitter: @jseglin 
Do you have ethical questions that you need answered? Send them to rightthing@comcast.net .  
(c) 2014 JEFFREY L. SEGLIN. Distributed by TRIBUNECONTENT AGENCY, LLC.