Archives for the Month of November 2005 on Scrumtralescence
Jonah Creighton in-class discussion
During our class discussion on the Jonah Creighton case, some interesting and varying views were presented by the class. The differences between the views was evident due to the, at times, heated nature of the discussion. What led to this was that some students were not very appreciative of Jonah's values and the role they played in his decision-making. Sure, he did nothing regarding discrimination before the problem arose, but I do not think that that is sufficient evidence to claim that he did not really care about the issue. I chalk that up to his assumption that others think like he does and, therefore, discrimination would not be an issue. He had no reason to think otherwise until he received the direct evidence for the contrary. I think this case was vital for us as students to see that values are important, even in our careers, and that sticking to our values is also important, but sometimes in doing so, problems can arise. I think that Jonah did the right thing in working to eradicate the problem of discrimination at his company, even if he did lose his job. Without our values, integrity, and self-respect intact, we are not making a living that we should be proud of.
Jonah Creighton
One of the things that did not come up during the large group discussion but which our small group did discuss was that Jonah could have gone to his peers with the information he had come across. While this relates to Jonah not having a good network to go to with ethical dilemmas, I think that he should have told his colleagues about the situation. The reason for this is that it would have spread the word and Jonah could have built up some support for his side of the argument. Surely, there were others in the company who would have agreed with him. I feel that his side could have used some support, and making it a company-wide issue could have accomplished that. It is much easier for the company to brush aside the claims of an individual as opposed to those of a number of employees. While Jonah did begin his inquiries in the correct way, he could have gone to additional people once he realized his immediate superiors were unwilling to attend to the issue of discrimination.