I don’t think Velocity said anything about society, so this is a weird flex. I don’t think society owes anyone a job, but I think it is smart for society to offer a safety net to prevent the jobless from breaking homes, selling drugs, and murdering people. I don’t think people owe society lawful behavior, but it is smart for them to be lawful if they don’t want to go to prison. There are consequences for not doing the “smart” thing, but that doesn’t mean the “smart” thing is an unalienable right.
I am pointing out that expelling this girl is meaningfully different than not accepting her. I am not claiming she doesn’t “deserve” this punishment, just noting it sometimes is applied unjustly.
In the Stanford case, the kid knew what was up and I don’t have any sympathy.
I think it’s a lot harder in cases where 1) the kid didn’t know and 2) they ARE a qualified applicant who might well have gotten in regardless. Most admissions fraud involves cases like this: tons and tons of perfectly qualified kids don’t get in, so you do something to grease the wheels to make sure that YOUR perfectly qualified kid ends up in the right stack once it gets to the “arbitrarily deciding among very similar kids” phase. I guess the appropriate thing, there, is for the kid to have their acceptance revoked/wiped out and be given the opportunity to reapply–and for the kid to sue their parents for damages. It’s the parents that are responsible for the damages, not the school.
Also called The Endowment Effect. It has been shown to be active in chimps also.
So, a squatter kicked out of a non-abandoned house has a reason to complain because he took the trouble to move all his stuff in?
Some people really seem to be having trouble telling the difference between two completely different questions:
- Is expulsion equivalent to not getting accepted in the first place?
- Is expulsion justified?
On the other hand, if you’re an athlete on an NCAA championship golf team that is later stripped of its championship because it had an ineligible player, but you didn’t break any rules, then you are allowed to keep the watch (and yes, they do give out watches as “trophies” in that sport).
Firing or expelling is punitive because someone has something (a job, a school, a privilege) and then loses it.
Not admitting someone or giving them the job is denying them the opportunity.
Taking something away is different than never giving it to them in the first place.
Not to get too off track, but what I am referring to is the “social contract”. We live in a society consisting of various integrated systems. Not some state of nature where everyone can live as self-contained units. Which is why I always find it amusing when overpaid Wall Street bankers, lawyers and corporate executives act like their wealth is the result of some inherent competitive advantage and government is “evil” for wanting to tax them at a reasonable rate. The only reason banks and lawyers exist is because we live in a society with a monetary system and laws defined by government.
People do “owe society lawful behavior” because they enjoy the benefits of living in a society of laws.
There are 2 definitions for the word “punish”:
- inflict a penalty or sanction on (someone) as retribution for an offense, especially a transgression of a legal or moral code - as in “punishment for robbery can be imprisonment”.
- treat (someone) in an unfairly harsh way - “A regressive tax punishes the poor”
I think either definition can apply to expulsion due to bribery, #1 because it was direct retribution for a wrong and #2 because the girl didn’t necessarily commit or know about the wrong. Being fired for cause, in my view, is punishment under definition 1. Not being hired could be under definition 2, especially if the reason is unfair - race, gender, etc. - as in “only hiring white males punishes applicants of other races and genders”.
It’s not necessarily punitive though; I think that’s the point of the OP.
Going back to my bullying hypothetical, a school would be within its rights to expel a student for bullying because such conduct creates a hostile environment for others.
The school would likely consider the same risk when rejecting a student’s application for bullying. Admitting the student means possibly subjecting others to a hostile environment.
To elaborate further…
Just because an action creates a negative consequence doesn’t make that action “punitive”.
If you start a fist fight with me and I give you a black eye incidental to me defending myself, that’s not a punitive.
If you get caught speeding and a cop issues you a fine, that is punitive.
What distinguishes the two is the chief purpose of the action: in the first scenario, I’m not trying to hurt you as much as I’m trying to protect myself. I’m trying to eliminate a threat (you). In the second scenario, the fine doesn’t do anything except send the message that you committed a wrong that you have to pay for.
Expelling a student who got in through illegal means is not punitive to me; it’s more like self defense. The school has every right to protect its reputation as a respectable learning institution, and if that means kicking out those who haven’t played by the rules it’s established, then so be it.
While I can see why being denied an opportunity doesn’t feel as much as a slap in the face as being fired or expelled, from an outsider perspective they really aren’t different enough to cause “meh” for one and outrage for another. Particularly when we’re talking about something as egregious as million dollar bribes and what not.
And that point is wrong. Just because the outcomes are the same doesn’t mean the actions are equivalent. The part in the middle still happens, and still has effects.
That is the huge flaw in the OP’s argument. There is a difference between never having had something, and having been given something and having it taken away.
Think about this: we all start out with $0 when we are born. But some of us are given more. Would it be morally equivalent to give everyone the same amount at birth as it would be to steal money from everyone (including you) until everyone had the same amount?
Hell, this concept exists legally. You can’t just get restitution by paying someone back for what you’ve taken from them. In court, you’ll sue for the damages. Because the time when you didn’t have something still occurred, Same as the time when you had something.
SamuelA does a great job in showing the practical issues in this case. The guy was deprived of his ability to go to a different school because he was let into this one. The guy made plans based on the fact that he was at this school. That stuff doesn’t magically go away once he’s kicked out of the school.
I notice monstro’s response switched at that point. She could no longer maintain the idea that the actions are equivalent and that people are irrational to think otherwise. She switched to a second question of “Then should he not be punished?”
My answer to that is that we have a classic issue of competing interests. On the one hand, the kid should not benefit from the illegal actions of his parents. Breaking the law shouldn’t pay. On the other hand, he shouldn’t be punished for actions that he had nothing to do with.
The only answer I can come up with is to say that the whole thing is messy, and only some sort of compromise is possible. For example, they let him finish out the school year, keep his credits, and help him get into another school that he’s actually qualified for. IN other words, they do their best to minimize the damage to the kid.
And both of these would be punishment for being a bully. It’s just that the first one is a worse punishment.
Just like expelling the kid is a punishment to the father for his illegal actions. The problem is, the brunt of the punishment goes on the kid, rather than the person it is supposed to be punishing. Hence the need for damage reduction.
By the definition you’re using, everything bad that happens to someone can be viewed as a punishment.
If I fail to look right a second time before I cross the street and I get hit by a car, was I punished? Or did a bad thing just happen to me partially due to my own carelessness?
But in this case, both kid and father were involved in the illegal actions. The father has to deal with consequences (hopefully jail time and/or a heavy fine). His kid has faced hers.
Even if she hadn’t been involved, I don’t have a problem with Stanford expelling her. I guess thisis because I don’t believe expelling someone is akin to ruining someone’s life, as some people seem to think. There’s no centralized database containing all the names of anyone who has ever been expelled from school or fired from a job. Worst case scenario she goes back to being Daddy’s little rich girl in China and gets a job working for one of her father’s best friends. If that’s a “punishment”, everyone should be so lucky.
I’m struggling to understand why you think is a logical counter scenario.
If a father robs a rich person and uses that money to buy a house for his wife and kids, do you think it’s morally wrong for this ill-gotten asset to be seized and liquidated so the money is returned to the victim of theft? And would it make sense to call this act “punishment” when really it’s about restoring what was lost to the rightful owner?
I can’t imagine anyone defending the idea that this hypothetical family is somehow entitled to keep this house just because its seizure will leave them homeless or worse. Most people understand that the negative consequence that comes to the family is incidental to ensuring justice for the victim. Thus, saying they are being penalized for the actions of the father mischaracterizes what has happened and implies that what they “lost” was ever theirs in the first place.
Yes and? If the student’s father had stolen $6 million dollars and bought her a mansion instead of a Stanford education, I have to assume you think she should have squatter rights using this logic. “Oh no, she made plans based on the fact that she was living in a mansion, and that stuff doesn’t magically go away once she’s kicked out!”
Please tell me if you see this as absurd as I do.
I was going to give you a hundred bucks, but I found your last joke offensive, so I changed my mind. // I found your last joke offensive, so I took a hundred bucks out of your wallet. In both instances you’re missing out on a hundred bucks. But not remotely equivalent.
Yes because one is theft and the other not.
Suppose you are a kid who claims innocence in these sort of “cheating to get into college” scandals. Two scenarios:
- You are knowingly avoiding looking at you faked college application and other materials. (And in several cases playing along with SAT test games.)
Ergo, you are a cheat and deserve to be expelled.
- You are unable to realize that what is going on is breaking the rules.
Ergo, you are too stupid to go to college and deserve to be expelled.
I have zip sympathy with these kids and they should face criminal punishment as accessories to their parents’ crimes.
That’s really not true. Again, a LOT of the time, it’s not a matter of getting an unqualified kid in. It’s a matter of getting a qualified kid out of the “admissible” pile and into the “admitted” pile. If you’re a kid with SAT scores and grades well within the school’s range, you are engaged in your community, your professional college counselor approved your essays, your teachers told you they wrote good recs, etc. etc., why would you be “stupid” if you didn’t suspect your parents made your admission a “sure thing”?
Most of the stuff in this most recent scandal was pretty crude, and I agree the kids probably usually knew. But I am absolutely positive that there are more subtle scams out there, and that it’s quite possible there are many students who don’t know their parents put their fingers on the scale, and it’s not because they are stupid.