Conflicts Arising from the Desire to Succeed and to Be Right
Can grades be evidence of a conflict of interest? This is what the Cook
County prosecutor's office is effectively arguing, according to <a href="http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-alvarez-first-yearoct20,0,393695…
article in the Chicago <i>Tribune</i></a>. <br>
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Northwestern University journalism students spent three years
researching a criminal case, in which they believe that a man was
wrongfully convicted. They presented a great deal of evidence to the
prosecutor's office, and in return the prosecutor's office has
apparently determined that they are not journalists, but investigators,
and as investigators you need to turn over all your notes, not only
audio- and videotapes of their interviews.<br>
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In addition, the prosecutor's office has subpoenaed the students'
grades and e-mails, grading criteria, and student evaluations. What's
that about?<br>
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The prosecutor's chief of staff said, "Suppose we
detect an account that said the students were guaranteed to
get a higher grade if they went and located more witnesses. That then
threatens the integrity of the information they got from the
witness because there's this incentive or this bias that exists."<br>
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In other words, there might be a conflict between doing justice to the case and the students' interest in getting good grades.
To get better grades, they might skew justice by trying too hard to
find injustice.<br>
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This is not completely a specious argument, but there are two principal
problems with it. First, according to this argument, when a
prosecutor has a case, she's going to try to win it to get a promotion,
even if it means skewing justice by trying too hard to convict someone.
Unless a prosecutor's office has clear promotion criteria benefiting
those who insist on dropping cases where there is insufficient evidence
equally to those who win cases, then the prosecutors in the office have
the same sort of conflict as this prosecutor's office believes the
journalism students have.<br>
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Second, trying hard to succeed in a venture really has nothing to do
with grades or grading criteria. Everyone is biased in their attempt to
prove what they are trying to prove. This bias causes all sorts of
problems in every profession and business. When it comes down to it,
money and grades are secondary to the drive to succeed and to be right.<br>
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The conflict caused by the drive to be right is at the center of this
controversy. What group of professionals wants to be told by a bunch of
students that it made a tragic mistake and ruined an innocent person's life? Accusations are being made that
the Cook County prosecutor's office is trying to destroy the journalism
project. This would not be surprising, for much the same reason they
are arguing with respect to the journalism students: none of us
wants to fail.<br>
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The prosecutor's office needs to try to rise above its natural feelings
about past mistakes of others' and possible investigations
into their own mistakes. It needs to recognize its own biases and
question whether the documents it has demanded are really necessary to do
justice. And it needs to take a hard look at its own grading criteria,
to make sure that it is as without conflicts as it would like the
Northwestern journalism school's to be.<br>
<br>
Robert Wechsler<br>
Director of Research-Retired, City Ethics<br>
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