Assignment 2:
Workplace Ethics
Due Week 8 and worth 275 points
Overview
This assignment will give you the
opportunity to write about the ethical implications and the impact of the
events that are described. The case study includes a set of questions that you
should answer. Case Study 9.1: Unprofessional Conduct. You will be graded on the following criteria:
Write a four to six
(4-6) page paper in which you:
- Analyze the questions associated
with your chosen case study and discuss them using concepts you learned in
this course. - Explain your rationale for each of
your answers to your chosen case study. - Format your assignment according
to the following formatting requirements: - Typed, double spaced, using Times
New Roman font (size 12), with one-inch margins on all sides. - Include a cover page containing
the title of the assignment, the student’s name, the professor’s name,
the course title, and the date. The cover page is not included in the
required page length. - Cite your textbook as a
reference. - Include a reference page.
Citations and references must follow APA format. The reference page is
not included in the required page length.
The specific course
learning outcomes associated with this assignment are:
- Determine the considerations for
and process of ethical business decision making to balance corporate and
social responsibilities and address moral, economic, and legal concerns. - Analyze selected business
situations using the predominant ethical theories, such as utilitarian,
Kantian, and virtue ethics to guide ethical business decision making. - Determine the implications and
impact of various civil liberty laws in the workplace, such as hiring,
promotion, discipline, discharge, and wage discrimination. - Use technology and information
resources to research issues in business ethics. - Write clearly and concisely about
business ethics using proper writing mechanics.
Click here to view the grading rubric.
The following case
study for Assignment 2:
Case 9.1:
Unprofessional Conduct?
Located on page 342 of your textbook
- Do you believe the Board of
Education violated her right to privacy? Were they justified in firing
her? Explain two to three (2-3) major reasons why or why not. - Was Pettit’s behavior
unprofessional or immoral? Do you believe she was unfit to teach? Provide
a rationale for your position. - If teachers have good performance
inside the classroom, should they also be held to a higher moral standard
outside the classroom? Explain why or why not. - Analyze five (5) behaviors you
believe would show unprofessional or immoral conduct for a teacher.
CASE 9.1
Unprofessional
Conduct?
TEACHING ELEMENTARY
SCHOOL CHILDREN with intellectual disabilities requires skill, patience, and
devotion, and those who undertake this task are among the unsung heroes of our
society. Their difficult and challenging work rarely brings the prestige or
financial rewards it deserves. Mrs. Pettit was one of those dedicated teachers.
Licensed to teach in California, she had been working with mentally challenged
children for over thirteen years when her career came to an abrupt end.
Throughout that career, her competence was never questioned, and the
evaluations of her school principal were always positive.
Teaching was not
Pettit’s only interest, however. She and her husband viewed with favor various
“nonconventional sexual lifestyles,” including “wife swapping.” Because so-called
sexual liberation was a hot topic at the time, the Pettits were invited to
discuss their ideas on two local television shows. Although they wore
disguises, at least one fellow teacher recognized them and discussed Mrs.
Pettit’s views with colleagues. A year later Pettit, then forty-eight years
old, and her husband joined “The Swingers,” a private club in Los Angeles that
sponsored parties intended to promote diverse sexual activities among its
members. An undercover police officer, Sergeant Berk, visited one of those
parties at a private residence. Amid a welter of sexual activity, he observed
Mrs. Pettit perform fellatio on three different men in a one-hour period.
Pettit was arrested
and charged with oral copulation, which at the time contravened the California
Penal Code (although now it does only if one of the parties is under eighteen).
After a plea bargain was arranged, she pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor of
outraging public decency and paid a fine. The school district renewed her
teaching contract the next academic year, but two years later, disciplinary
proceedings were initiated against her. The State Board of Education found no
reason to complain about her services as a teacher, and it conceded that she
was unlikely to repeat her sexual misconduct. But the Board revoked her
elementary school life diploma—that is, her license to teach—on the ground that
by engaging in immoral and unprofessional conduct at the party, she had
demonstrated that she was unfit to teach.
Pettit fought the
loss of her license all the way to the California Supreme Court, which upheld
the decision of the Board of Education.116 In an earlier case, the court had
reversed the firing of a public school teacher for unspecified homosexual
conduct, concluding that a teacher’s actions could not constitute “immoral or
unprofessional conduct” or “moral turpitude” unless there was clear evidence of
unfitness to teach. But Pettit’s case was different, the court hastened to
explain.
The conduct in the
earlier case had not been criminal, oral copulation had not been involved, and
the conduct had been private. Further, in that case the Board had acted with
insufficient evidence of unfitness to teach; by contrast, three school
administrators had testified that in their opinion, Pettit’s conduct proved her
unfit to teach. These experts worried that she would inject her views of sexual
morality into the classroom, and they doubted that she could act as a moral
example to the children she taught. Yet teachers, the court reaffirmed, are supposed
to serve as exemplars, and the Education Code makes it a statutory duty of
teachers to “endeavor to impress upon the min
In a vigorous
dissent, Justice Tobringer rejected the opinion of the majority, arguing that
no evidence had established that Pettit was not fit to teach. The three experts
didn’t consider her record; they couldn’t point to any past misconduct with
students, nor did they suggest any reason to anticipate future problems. They
simply assumed that the fact of her sexual acts at the “swingers” party itself
demonstrated that she would be unable to set a proper example or to teach her
pupils moral principles.
Such an attitude is
unrealistic, Tobringer argued, when studies show that 75 to 80 percent of the
women of Pettit’s educational level and age range engage in oral copulation.
The majority opinion “is blind to the reality of sexual behavior” and
unrealistically assumes that “teachers in their private lives should exemplify
Victorian principles of sexual morality.” Pettit’s actions were private and
could not have affected her teaching ability. Had there not been clandestine
surveillance of the party, the whole issue would never have arisen.
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS
1. In concerning
itself with Pettit’s off-the-job conduct, did the Board of Education violate
her right to privacy? Or was its concern with her lifestyle legitimate and
employment related?
2. Was Pettit’s
behavior “unprofessional”? Was it “immoral”? Did it show a “lack of fitness” to
teach? Explain how you understand the terms in quotation marks.
3. Was the Board of
Education justified in firing Pettit? Explain.
4. Was the court’s
verdict consistent with its earlier handling of the case of the homosexual
teacher?
5. If teachers
perform competently in the classroom, should they also be required to be moral
exemplars in their private lives? Are employees in other occupations expected
to provide a moral example—either on or off the job?
6. Which of the
following, in your view, would show unprofessional conduct, immorality, or lack
of fitness to teach: drunken driving, smoking marijuana, advocating the use of
marijuana, forging a check, resisting arrest for disorderly conduct and
assaulting a police officer, being discovered in a compromising position with a
student, propositioning a student, cheating on income tax, calling attention to
one’s openly homosexual lifestyle?
7. Under what
conditions do employers have a legitimate interest in their employees’
off-the-job conduct?
