Dilemma: Right vs. Right
Toe the Company Line, or Stick to Personal Principles?
Rachel is a senior staff person at the Klatu Foundation. One of the foundation's board members felt that support for public-education research resulting in a published book fit within the Foundation's grant-making interests. The board agreed and funded the project.
The book was supposed to be an analysis of the history of public education in the United States. Throughout the book, however, it drew conclusions about this history that encouraged the use of market strategies to improve public education. The board members, who generally held conservative, free-market viewpoints, agreed entirely with the researcher's conclusions. But from Rachel's perspective and that of other staff, the book was a polemic rather than a legitimate analysis of historical trends. Upon its publication, Rachel felt great concern that the Klatu Foundation would quickly become known as a partisan organization.
Suddenly, Rachel is faced with a dilemma. The president of the board has asked her to write a review of the book for use in the foundation newsletter and for submission to several major newspapers. Rachel disagrees deeply with the book's point of view and wonders what the book might do to the Klatu Foundation's reputation. What should she do?
Rachel takes a moment to consider her situation. She feels that she is faced with a conflict in which she might have to compromise her personal values in favor of the values of the foundation. In short, it appears she has an ethical dilemma between telling the truth and maintaining loyalty to the organization. In addition, the dilemma pits her individual interests, which favor a nonmarket approach to educational reform, against the community, or foundation board, interests, which strongly support the opposite approach.
Note: This and other dilemmas on this site come to you without their real-life resolutions. We encourage you to think for yourself about how you might resolve them, since the nature of each dilemma is highly individualistic. In sharing these dilemmas, we do not endorse them in any way, but rather offer them for your consideration.
