Legal Issues

Any person who has ever applied for an admission in a prestigious college or job is well aware of the feelings people go through before knowing their fate. It is the same feeling the applicants at Harvard business school had and the opportunity was presented to them to know their fate by an anonymous hacker. The information on how to access the site was posted on the Business Week Online by anonymous hacker who gave out details on how to know the admission decisions which had been made by the school. Since the universities involved were using the same application software, accessing the site was made easier by just changing the end of applicants URL so as to get to the restricted site which contained the details of the application results. It took about 9 hours for the Apply Yourself programmers to rectify the security flow and this time was long enough for the curious students who wanted to know their fate.

(Q1).
If I happened to be among the MBA applicants who stumbled before the opportunity to learn the results early, I would have not even tempted to participate since the action was not the official way of checking the results. Secondly, owing to the competitiveness of getting admission in these schools, I would have thought that may be that was some trick to eliminate students who do not question their actions. This is because the school was still going to realize what happened and the people who took part in the whole process.

The act of hacking into the restricted site was termed as being seriously unethical and a break of trust that cannot be corrected by rationalization. Since Harvard University is a prestigious college, the administration felt that the students involved in the whole act did not qualify in terms of behavior to get admission into the college. Also according to the colleges mission, it is supposed to produce principled leaders who would make a difference in the world and the applicants involved in the whole act lacked the principles. The students are supposed to have skills and qualities, high integrity, second judgment and moral values of knowing what is right and wrong. Those who hacked the site were considered to lack such qualities and principles and therefore their admission was rejected. Through their action, the school showed the society the type of leaders they want to produce- ethically fit leaders.

(Q2).
Considering the morality of the applicants actions from the point of view of egoism, the applicants can be said to be morally right since their action was encouraging their long term interest. If the action was to result in a greater ratio of good to evil in the long run as compared to another alternative, then that was the right action to take. On the other hand, the act can be considered as being immoral since getting into the restricted area to check the application results was not in any way going to promote long term interests. The results they were going to get would not change anything in the long run. Choosing to wait was the best option and the applicants would have behaved like egoists since egoist believes that temporary sacrifice is required for the advancement in long term interests.

According to utilitarianism, the applicants action can be considered as being morally right if their actions would result in more good results over bad ones to the people affected by their actions. Utilitarianism states that before engaging into any action there is need to asses the consequences of that act on the people affected. If it consequences has more advantages as compared to its alternative, then the action should be performed.  When we apply this principle in this situation of applicants, then their action was immoral since it resulted in negative consequences which affected many people parents, other applicants, the administration, students body. Although their action was going to solve their anxiety, the results were bad and brought suffering to them.

On the ethical perspective, the applicants actions can be considered as being ethically right. According to Kants ethics, an action is considered morally right if and only if it can be made a universal law. Actions which occur as a result of feeling, partiality, or self interest are said to lack moral value. The applicants to the prestigious MBA programs did the wrong thing. Their actions were driven by self interest, they failed to consider their inspiration and that drive was not moral and was only serving their own benefit. According to Ross pluralism, the actions of the applicants are deemed as immoral. Ross states that we have several moral responsibilities which should not be reduced to the single obligation in order to increase happiness. The applicants had many important roles than knowing their application status early. The university was going to give them the results anyway.

The applicants action could be considered as being moral according to rule utilitarianism. This theory states that the standards should be applied to moral code as a whole but not to individual actions, since they adopt moral principles that guide individual action.

(Q3).
It was wrong for the MBA applicants to view their application files without authority. The whole act was wrong from the word go since that was not the official way of knowing the application results. They also knew that it was hacking and they still went ahead to check their results. Before engaging into the action, the applicants failed to asses the repercussions of their action since the university was still going to find out. There was a generational gap in this issue because the university still maintained their old fashioned way of disseminating information which the current generation has passed.

The Harvard school did not take long to make their next move known. The applicants who took part in the whole process were rejected. Where only a few students gained access to their files, systemic approach was adopted and no individualized decisions were made. Forty two applicants who had tried to know their results at Stanford were invited to explain themselves in form of writing. Later on, these students were also rejected for having failed to give satisfying reasons for their actions

(Q4)
Other people claimed that Harvard and other business schools overreacted to the whole thing.  I think the decision taken by Harvard school and other business schools was not excess since they believe that in business ethics is a priority. If they failed to take such a decision, these students would have believed that they did not commit any serious offence. If I was in the same situation I would have done the same. About 70 of MBA students supported the decision made by the school, but the undergraduate students were unconvinced. The hard line stance of Harvard school has made it media favorite (Felten, 2005).

(Q5).
One of the critics argued that the applicants who snooped were just engaging in the type of bold and aggressive behavior that makes for business success.  I tend to differ with this statement because business people should have morals and be honest. They should also be able to exercise some patience which these applicants lacked. Good leaders are those who take their time before taking any action to think about the consequences of their actions. Although what the applicants did was morally wrong, the university is to blame for having in place faulty procedures or not keeping their passwords secret. May be the hacking was done by somebody else who was not even one of the applicants but just wanted to be malicious (Felten, 2005).

(Q6).
The applicant failed to asses the consequences of his action but asserts that that should not be used to test whether he is moral or not. Of course it is a matter of ethics. A person may have integrity but may suffer from lapse of judgment and I think this was the case with this applicant. The applicants were overcome by the anxiety and failed to judge their actions and this does not mean that they lacked ethics.