CASE #1: Coping Up with Injustice
Gio works as a part time student employee at CSIT Department in their university. As part of his duties, he needed to install new software in Professor Umali’s desktop. Since it is accreditation period and everybody was in hurry to finish the needed PACUCOA documents and served their class. Professor Umali told Gio to go ahead to his office, installed the needed software, do whatever he is needed to do but be sure to logout his email before anything else. Professor Umali was having a bad semester; he became the target of SSC – Bad Teacher Go Out (BaTGo) project. The project has been part of a social networking site; where students can (1) upload satirical videos, (2) post sarcastic quotable quotes from teachers , (3) grading computation forums and (4) teacher’s photo. Videos and photos are very clever at making fun to the organization targets which became hit and popular to the students. This semester target was Professor Umali for his clumsiness’ and his baldness. Student also posted some pictures on the site a weekly picture of Professor Umali showing his head and the thinness of his hair. Gio has been part of Professor Umali’s class two (2) years ago. His been a good teacher for a long period of time, Gio and his colleagues can attest to that, Professor Umali during their time got the “eagle award winning” medal for being such a good one. Professor Umali’s competency and competitiveness to field of technology is priceless for them. He teaches everything and anything a student must learn in their field showing several projects and study to attest what’s really on the real world. Gio knows that this semester target was Professor Umali, he wanted to converse whatever is posted and uploaded on the site but he doesn’t know how. When he about to log out Professor Umali’s email, he noticed that the professors inbox was open. He catches a subject line that read “so sorry about your diagnosis”. Instead of logging out professor account, Gio open the record and read and found out that Professor Umali was diagnosed to have a prostate cancer. Gio thinks that what is happening in the trial was injustice. He thinks that the best way to counterpart those allegations is to post something credible on the site that will prove that Professor Umali was really a good one that his baldness and clumsiness was only an effect of his medication. That evening he posted a comment and video of Professor Umali showing good sides of the professor, challenging those students who wanted the professor to be out in the university. Gio was in hot seat in the organization, his comment and video was up and gain enormous comments and challenges for him to tell where those stuff came from. He immediately answered those questions that he read the email of Professor Umali who was accidentally left open in the office where he is asked to install accreditation software. That comment had immediate consequences. The following day, Mr. Tubero, Gio’s immediate superior called him in a private conference. Mr. Tubero, pointed out that Gio’s action violated privacy policy of their department. Policy was carefully discussed and emphasized to Gio when he signed contract with the company. His signature was affix to the documents which shows his willingness to follow the policy. He violated the ethical standards of his job and his chosen profession. He behaved unprofessionally. Gio tried to explain the reasons for her actions, but Mr. Tubero said that it is written in the contract therefore it is valid. Gio get fired and no recommendation was given for his future employment.
Questions:
1. Were Gio’s actions moral? Explain.
2. Were Gio’s actions ethical? Explain.
3. Was Mr. Tubero justified in firing Gio? Explain.
4. Suppose Gio had not been in Professor Umali’s office because of his job with IT services. Suppose he simply been a student who was in the office for a conference when Professor Umali was called away from some reason. Would that change either of your first two answers? Explain.
5. Did Professor Umali behave ethically when he asked Gio to log his off rather than doing it himself? Explain.
6. To what extend does Gio violates under ACM code of Ethics.
1 answer