ED, Thornton North student barred from graduation

Sun-Times (Kate N. Grossman) wrote about the Thornton North student who has been arrested for non-compliance with the school's graduation procedure.

Earlier Sun-Times (Maudlyne Ihejirika) reported:

Instead of celebrating her big day, she spent the evening at the Calumet City police station being fingerprinted and photographed because Principal Dwayne E. Evans, the Cosey family claims, was angry someone had let her into the ceremony after the doors were locked.

Dwayne Evans formerly was principal (or was it asst principal?) at Proviso East.

Rules are meant to serve a greater good. Sometimes it makes sense to bend the rules for the greater good. What was the harm done by letting the student arrive late? What is the harm to the school and its leaders by having this public feud? How do you weigh these consequences against each other?

BTW, who saw the Chicago Tribune (Jodi S. Cohen and Greg Burns) article "Can you teach a person ethics?"?

DePaul University professor Laura Hartman begins her business ethics class by talking about a train on a path to hit five people. By pushing a button, the train would veer off track and hit a different person instead, but only one.

"Do you hit the button?" she asks the undergraduates.

The example used bothered me because it doesn't relate to the real world ethical decisions people have to make. Almost all real world ethical decisions are easy in a classroom.

Do you do the right thing and risk your personal position and status within an organization or do you go along with the injustice and continue to get paid and receive health benefits for your family?

In the classroom, everybody can get this question right.

But the student who can provide the most articulate answer to the unanswerable question may be the next slick, but crooked politician.