Our scenario
When applications come in to join a student organization applications must be blind.
A student received an interview for a position, but their friend is also the president of the organization. He was obviously biased and that is how the student received the interview. Do you toss her application even though she had a 4.0 GPA and is very involved on campus?
Although the rules were clearly violated in this situation I would still have to keep this applicant in the running. I do not think it is right to punish her for someone else's mistakes. I would hold the applicant to the same standards as every other applicant and if they were qualified they would get an interview, and if they were not I would not give them an interview. Since she is clearly well qualified for the organization it would be easier to fight for her spot because she deserves to be there. I would base my decision solely off of the applicant's qualifications and ignore the president's breach of process.
What makes this a hard decision is the fact that the organization does have a process and it would be my job to abide by it.
Kidder's Framework
In this situation, I would have to decide between justice and mercy, and truth vs loyalty.
The justice in the situation would be the fact that the rules were violated and there are set consequences for violations. If I valued justice I would throw out the application because the rules were violated and she got an interview because of her connections.
Mercy comes into play because I would feel bad for the applicant because it was our president who violated the rules. I do not know if she had any say in whether or not the president gave her an interview and if she did not have anything to do with it I would feel bad taking her application out. Mercy wins out over justice because I would feel mercy for the applicant and give them an interview.
I would struggle with loyalty because I would want to uphold my organization's rules and values. I would feel loyal to my fellow members and to the promises I made to uphold what the organization believes in.
The truth of the matter is that this applicant is well qualified and even without the president's intervention, they would have probably gotten an interview. Truth would win out over loyalty because I would want this applicant to have the same chance as the others in being reviewed.
This is a fascinating dilemma, and I think your application of Kidder's framework is spot on. Because the applicant possibly had no idea of the President's violation of policy, it would be quite unfair to her to throw out her application; especially because she was already qualified without the aid of the president.
ReplyDeleteThat being said, I think that a serious discussion should be had with the president of the organization, reminding him of the rules which he is obliged to follow. This guarantees fairness in the future, and allows the candidate to stay in the running.
I think your breakdown of Kidder's framework is very on point. But I think it's funny because my automatic thought to this was, "that's why they say it's good to have connections" but then I realized that that was a very un-ethical way to look at it. This brought me back to our discussion and the fact that morals aren't a very big thing in today's society. Even though that's how society is a lot of the time and that's how we do things, it shouldn't be about the people you know, it should be about what you know.
ReplyDeleteI would not throw out the application because their friend, the president, decided to give them an interview. They were probably well qualified for the position, and in the end that is technically the point of an interview! To weed out the best from the best, it wasn't like they were handed the position. They still have to live up to their abilities. You Kidder's framework very well! Oh and I totally though of the same thing as Kasey, I mean they do tell us to make connections!
ReplyDeleteI agree with your decision to keep the application and since it is blind, the other members of the organization will decide as well. Also, if there is an interview round, I would make sure the president doesn't interview them either. So that even if the candidate is a worthy applicant, no one on the outside can say your organization was biased and that was why they let them in. You would be able to say "no our application was blind and interviews were unbiased because the president stepped out"
ReplyDelete