Several readers of my previous blog regarding squishy ethics asked: "If you're so certain that Pittsburgh's school board should fire the new school superintendent for plagiarism, why did you not fire a college student for the same ethical breach? I had, and still have, my reasons. Please tell me if you feel that they are valid or not.
First, when I confronted my student, aka Jose (to simplify the story and protect his identity for obvious reasons), he was genuinely repentant. Although he had read the university's policies, his culture is so different from ours that he didn't fully understand them.
Second, Jose comes from a middle-class family in a very poor country. I figured that his parents had sacrificed a great deal to send him to Pittsburgh for an advanced degree, and I didn't want them to lose their investment.
Perhaps more importantly, I did not want Jose to lose his reputation with his family, friends, and former teachers. I figured that he'd be hard-pressed to explain why he was expelled to the people who had trusted and supported him emotionally and financially.
Perhaps most importantly of all, I recognized a bright young man who is dedicated to improving the environment. He once told me: "The water and air in my country are so foul that they are unhealthy, and, unlike the United States, we're not rich enough to clean them anywhere near as much as needed. I want to help in some small way to save the Earth, and to do so, I have a job with your equivalent to the EPA when I return."
The dean and I agreed to bend the rules with a caveat: study the university's policies and talk to one of us about any that he did not understand. Jose graduated, and he emailed me from his home to tell me that he loved his job and had started a family. He emails me on my birthdays to wish me well and thank me for believing in his integrity. I email him and ooh and ah over pictures of his kids.
Bill O'Rourke and I make two points in our book, "The Power of Ethics," that I think justify my actions: bend the rules prudently but never break them, and the world needs ethics ambassadors such as Jose. Your thoughts?
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