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CASE: FIGHTING INJUSTICE

Although this case, like most of the cases in this book, was inspired by real events, the details
are made up.

Rachael was a senior computer science major who worked part-time for IT services at her
university. As part of her duties, she needed to install a new printer driver on Professor Paige’s printer,
Professor Paige while rushing off to teach a class, had said, “Go on in Rachael. Just log me out of my e-
mail program and do what you need to do”.

Professor Paige was having a bad seminar. She had never been the most popular teacher in the
Computer Science Department, but this semester she had become target of the ZTs, a student
organization on campus. The name “ZT” is short for ZTBT (Zero Tolerance for Bad Teaching). The ZTs
maintain a Web site which stablishes accounts of what the students consider to be teaching practices. It
includes quotes from class, examples of grading errors, and photos. The Web site’s main attractions are
satirical videos made by students. The videos are often very clever at lampooning the organization’s
targets and very popular with the students. That semester the group had been relentlessly making fun of
Professor Paige, particularly her clumsiness.

Rachel had taken classes with Professor Paige and found her to be a competent teacher who
seemed to take a genuine interest in her students. Rachael was aware that ZT’s had targeted the
professor, but she had not done anything beyond watching and enjoying videos.

However, when he sat down to log Professor Paige out of her email account, she noticed that
the Professor’s Inbox was on the screen .Her eye happened to catch a subject line that read “So sorry
about your diagnosis.” Instead of logging out of the professor’s account, Rachel opened the message
and read, to her dismay, that Professor Paige had recently been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.
Suddenly, the videos took on a different complexion in Rachel’s eye.

All day Rachael was distressed at what she now perceived as an injustice. That evening she
posted a comment on the ZT Web site revealing that Professor Paige had MA and asking that she be left
alone. Rachael’s comment was challenged, a number of students asking how she could possibly know
that. Rachael explained., in a comment on the Web site, how she had come to read Professor’s Paige’s
email. That comment had immediate consequences.

Rachel’s boss, Stacy McFarland, called Rachel in for a conference. Ms. McFarland pointed out
that Rachel had violated the privacy policy of IT services. That policy had been explained and
emphasized when Rachael took the job. She had signed documents signifying her willingness to follow
that policy. Shad had violated a trust that people on the IT staff rely on to do their jobs properly. As a
senior computer science major, she had violated the ethical standards of her job and of her chosen
profession. She had behaved unprofessionally. Racheal tried to explain the reasons for her actions, but
Ms. McFarland was not interested. Rachael was fired, and there would be no recommendation for
future employment.

Questions:

1. Were Rachael’s actions moral? Explain.

2. Were Rachael’s action ethical? Explain
3. Was Ms. McFarland justified in firing Rachel? Explain.
4. Suppose Rachael had not been in Professor Paige’s office because of her job with IT services.
Suppose she had simply been a student who was in the office for a conference when
Professor Paige was temporarily called away for some reason. Would that change either of
your first two answers? Explain
5. Did Professor Paige behave ethically when she asked Rachael to log her off rather that doing
it herself? Explain
6. List 3 situations in which a computer professional, either directly or indirectly, could strongly
affect your life.

CASE 2

Sheila was the system manager for the College of Computing Education at a University of Mindanao. The
system consisted of a complex network of computers that included many personal workstations and
several larger machines that functioned a s servers. Sheila’s position was subordinate to the Dean
Engineering, who had reported difficulties with his workstation. In particular, the performance on the
dean’s system had, in recent weeks, degraded steadily, and he was now suffering what he considered
intolerable delays for some important applications.

As the system manager, Sheila was a superuser, meaning she had direct access to all files and directories
on the network. She was highly competent and well-respected system manager and considered herself a
professional. She did not, however. Belong to any professional organizations. As a member of the
university staff, she had access to the publications of multiple professional societies, so she had allowed
her membership in the ACM and the IEEE to lapse.

Sheila quickly discovered that the performance problem was linked to a full hard disk. The number of
files was not so large as to prohibit the computer from operating, but it did degrade the performance for
a number of applications. In the process of moving one of the local files to the server, Sheila noticed that
a great many files had the “.wmv” filename extension, indicating that they were probably video files.
Out of curiosity, she opened one of the files and discovered that it was pornographic video. Further
investigation revealed that many, perhaps all of the .wmv files were of a similar nature. The dean had
filled up most of his hard disk on a university computer with pornographic videos. Sheila was dismayed.
She considered the following actions:
a. Confront the dean and demand that he delete the files.
b. Report the matter to the provost.
c. Transfer the files to the server to improve performance of the workstation and say nothing to
anyone.

Questions:
1. What should Sheila do? Explain
2. If the files had been vacation videos of the dean and his family, should Sheila’s decision be
any different?
3. Should there be a code of conduct for system managers that would help Sheila decide her
best course actions? If so, what should that code say?
4. Sheila looked at the dean’s files without his permission. If that became known, should Sheila
face consequences? In particular, if Sheila confronted the dean and he fired her for looking
at his files, would he be justified?