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Ethical Dilemmas.

I know of an ethical dilemma where a teacher posted on her private Facebook page some blatantly racial comments about a newspaper report on the actions of an Indian taxi driver. Many other people had also commented and expressed their opinions about this man’s reported actions. This teacher’s comments could be judged to have been inappropriate by most people’s standards. The comments were racial and offensive.

Her Facebook page was open with no privacy restrictions. While her offensive comments were published for all to see, so was her place of work and her connection to her wider school community. This post was brought to her principal’s and her BOT attention via the fact that many of her Facebook friends were also work colleagues.

She thought her comments were humorous. She felt she was just reiterating the general population’s disgust for what this man had purportedly done. She did not feel she had an obligation to uphold any higher code of ethics or standards than everyone else who had posted a similar comment.

The teacher was asked by her principal to take down the offending Facebook page. To begin with, she refused, arguing that her personal opinions she expresses on her Facebook page are her own, and that they have nothing to do with her employer. They are her own intellectual property. She argued that what this man reportedly did, made him open to scorn and ridicule from all, including teachers.

The principal and the BOT demanded that her employment at the school required the racial material to be removed because by stating on the Facebook account that she worked at that particular school meant she needed to align herself with the school’s values, not publicly make a statement that contravened them.

The principal argued that these comments broached not only the school’s values but also “Our Code Our Standards.” This document outlines the fact that teachers have a Standard to Society to uphold.
I will respect my trusted role in society and the influence I have in shaping futures by:
1.  promoting and protecting the principles of human rights, sustainability and social justice (p12)

The colleague who brought this teacher’s Facebook page to light felt she had crossed an ethical barrier by reporting the post. She felt it is always her responsibility to be supportive of her colleagues and not undermine them or backstab them. She wasn’t sure she had done the right thing because the Facebook page was a personal site, and therefore, perhaps not school business. But despite these reservations she did report the issue because she felt so offended by the comments and couldn’t let it slide by unchallenged.

While many people will agree with the school that posting racial slurs is obviously unacceptable and reflects badly on the teacher, the school, and the profession, there is probably a grey area where comments might be deemed, ‘just bad taste.’ They might be comments promoting gender stereotypes. They might be ‘liking’ someone else’s risqué joke they have posted. It might be a photo from the weekend where a lot of alcohol has obviously been consumed.

These are the examples that are a lot harder to define what is the right action to take. These are the slices of life that evolve and change in society fairly quickly. Think about the language you can get away with now on TV. There would have been an uproar in my childhood to what is deemed acceptable for prime time viewing today.

So society’s standards morph and evolve. No one can put down a blanket rule that satisfactorily covers all these grey area scenarios. How much skin can a young teacher show on their Facebook page?  Can there be a rule about this?

Maybe the way this principal handled the derogatory racial comments might be a good way of guiding teachers towards what is acceptable and away from what isn’t. 
Does your post reflect our school’s values? Does it reflect what we believe in as a school and what we are trying to achieve together?





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