My mother-in-law is cheating for my sister-in-law in her college courses. The courses are online courses. It started off with my MIL finding the test answers in the book to help her out, then it progressed to her checking/changing her test answers and has finally culminated with her writing an entire final paper.
My MIL is completely cavalier about the whole thing – joking about it to her family and friends, bragging about “how she did on her tests”, etc and to my surprise, everyone is just playing along with it. Everyone she tells just laughs about it.
I feel a little torn about it. I know that if she was caught, she would get fired from her job (academic advisor at the same university), and my SIL would potentially get suspended from school. At the same time, I think maybe it’s more common than I think, and I really don’t want to get involved in it.
What are your thoughts? Do you think I have any ethical responsibilities here?
Ethically, yes… but is it worth it, considering the fallout you’d get?
Personally, I just wonder WHY they think this is a good idea, long-term. The sister-in-law will eventually get a job based on her academic qualifications, and I doubt the boss will be very impressed to find out she knows next-to-nothing about the work she’s doing.
Woah, she works at the university? Sheeit, do they not have an honor code? Personally I’d turn her the hell in, family or no family. Yes, you do have an ethical responsibility. Do they not grow people with shame anymore?
Grrr, this is just dumb on so many levels. MIL is playing a very bad game with her daughter’s life. By being so out in the open about this she is endangering both her job and her kid’s academic credentials. And for what? Dumb, dumb, dumb.
On a personal level this apalls me. I helped a friend get an on-line degree by monitoring her tests for her. I was required to make sure she had nothing with her during the exam but the allowed materials, time her exam and submit the finished exam to the University. We both treated this role with utmost respect. There is a ton of room in the process for cheating. The end result for my friend was that she got the degree that she deserved, worked hard for it and had the satisfaction of a job well done. What is the potential end result for SIL?
Emily; The best you can do is suggest to MIL that what she is doing is not ultimately helping SIL, but if she wants to continue to do it STFU about it already!! Do not turn them in! Chances are MIL’s big mouth is going to get noticed eventually anyway. You do not want to be involved in the fall-out.
I cannot imagine people having so casual an attitude about something like that. Wow.
If I caught a colleague/friend doing something like that I would make it clear to them that I had an obligation to report such activity unless they stopped it right then and there.
Suspension is probably the lightest punishment your SiL could hope for.
Then again, unless you are part of this university (student, faculty, staff) you don’t really have a responsibility to report it, in my opinion.
What subjects? Maybe this is narrow-minded of me, but I wouldn’t mess with it if it involves courses like English Lit or History. But if it’s, say, an anatomy or chemistry class that’s going toward a medical degree, I think you need to turn them in. That’s the kind of cheating that might kill somebody some day.
Call her on it. Ask her why on God’s green earth she thinks this is acceptable. Or if you don’t feel like being that confrontational, fake a look of wide-eyed concern and ask what would happen if they got caught.
This is a child development class which is going towards a psychology degree. Not likely to kill someone, but also not a throw away class. Next semester, she’s “taking” a history class, and she already has assigned the books to other family members to read, which she thinks is just a hoot.
Okay, another strange question. Since these are all in-laws, what is your spouse’s take on this? You realize if you intervene in this, you are likely to wreak havoc with whatever family relationships you’ve developed? Would you turn your spouse into an enemy?
My spouse seems to be going along with the cavalier attitude that my MIL exhibits, but when I brought it up to him last night he did agree that it was wrong. He just doesn’t think it’s that big of a deal.
That’s the thing – I don’t know if I should care THAT much about it, to ruin relationships or cause conflict.
Are you in any way involved with the school, as staff or student? Or with another, similar school? I’m wondering if your job has any particular ethical code of conduct that would be related to this question.
I have trouble understanding why anyone would think this wasn’t a big deal. Even if it were just a “throw-away” class, it’s not like your SIL asked for help with something she didn’t understand - she’s allowing others to do her work so she can represent it as her own, presumably without bothering to learn the material herself.
You definitely have my sympathies here - what a tough spot to be in! If I were you, I’d probably talk to the SIL and ask her why she thinks this is ok. I’d be tempted to go to the school as well, but I’d start by confronting the SIL and maybe the MIL. I can understand why you don’t want to rock the boat, especially if it might have a bad impact on your marriage, but jeez - my husband wouldn’t be the man I thought he was if I found out he was ok with something like that. I’d be awfully disappointed in such an attitude.
Whatever you decide to do, good luck and let us know what happens.
This is what I had intended to ask, until I got down to Boyo Jim’s post. And given the answer (a child development class, towards a psychology degree) I personally find this pretty terrifying. What if she becomes a family counselor, or works for the state, or something? There are a lot of people who have positions with considerable power over others’ lives, BECAUSE they have psychology degrees. Not to mention that, given her & her mother’s behavior, she really shouldn’t be going into that kind of field, because she is exhibiting the kind of “ethics deficit” you don’t want your practitioner to have.
All the same, you’re between a rock and a hard place. I don’t know what I would do.
Now, y’see, here’s where you can have a little fun. Offer to read one of the history books, and when it comes time to report on what it contains, just go with whatever sounds plausible, while being factually untrue. Hey, neither MIL nor SIL read the book–and it doesn’t sound like they’re going to go back and read it to confirm your findings.
Seriously, I think there are ethical problems here, and they’re made worse by the fact that MIL is also an academic advisor at the university. I might have a quiet word with her, bringing up the potential problems that others have mentioned in this thread, but I wouldn’t push it too hard or too far for the sake of family harmony. But see if a quiet word will do anything.
Other than that, do you personally stand to face any repercussions from the university if/when this all comes to the attention of the school authorities? If you do, that may influence your decision to confront your MIL and/or let the university know before any fallout hits you.
It’s a tough situation–good luck with however you choose to proceed (or not).
First off, if she’s talking about to all her friends, I have to wonder whether anyone else may have already reported it.
Secondly, and more to the point, I have to wonder - would the school even do anything about it? It has the potential to become a huge public scandal, what with academic counselor being involved. And many admin types would allow most anything if they were sure it would leave no permanent stink behind. Rather than piss of tuition paying parents.
My sister had to fight, several times, to punish college level students for outright plagiarism, against the dean telling her to try to find some way for the student to redo the assignment.
I suspect that, for the OP, the option that will best combine keeping the peace with the in-laws and spouse, and taking at least a token stand would be to say, flat out to the MIL, “I do not want to hear these details. What you are doing is wrong and unethical. I can’t stop you from doing it, and I won’t turn you in, but I do not want to hear about it, nor do I want to be made an accessory after the fact.” Repeat whenever she brings it up.
I admit it’s complete expediency. On the other hand, given the level of proofs required for plagiarism from some admin types my sister had mentioned, I doubt the OP could get her MIL held accountable. In which case, I can’t see the point to poisoning her relationship with her in-laws.
Man, what an ass. If it were me, I’d definately talk to her about it. And maybe give the kid some sharp reminders about what has happened to famous cheats in the past.
As for alerting authorities and all that…a big part of me says “why bother.” Cheating is and always has been a big part of everything and chances are the kid will continue to cheat her way through a career. Chances are she is more lazy than she is dumb. I don’t think one incident will put her on the straight and narrow, but it will cause all kinds of problems for you.
I honestly think that this would be an appropriate punishment for the situation and that, if it’s possible to submit an anonymous notification of the situation to those in charge, you should do it.
I work in a public library, and I see parents trying to do their kids’ homework for them on a regular basis. It cheats them out of actually learning anything, and the kids who have parents who do this at a younger age think that the world is supposed to be doing all of their work for them by the time they get older. That said, I do my best to make sure that the kids are involved in the assignment help when at all possible (sometimes the parents don’t bring the kids but bring their homework) and that they know what plagiarism is and how to prevent it in their own work. I just hope that I’m making enough of a difference to curb some of the cheating.