“I’m worried about the, if [my daughter’s] caught doing that, you know, she’s finished,” he said, according to the affidavit. “
” He expressed some uneasiness — “to be honest, it feels a little weird” — but later clarified to Singer that he wasn’t “worried about the moral issue.”
This admission is by Attorney Gordon Kaplan of a New York Law firm who paid $75,000 to Rick Singer, the mastermind broker, to get his daughter’s ACT score corrected. Gordon Kaplan is one of 33 other parents who have been charged by Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) in an alleged scheme to get their children admitted into elite colleges.
The college admission scandal has brought forth how rich and influential parents have no qualms about cheating the education system to get their under-qualified children admitted to the college of their choice. These educated parents with advanced college degrees from selective schools never questioned whether offering bribes, fixing scores on standardized tests and faking school credentials, was the right thing to do. Morality of the deed was never an issue for them, only the fear of getting caught.
Humanity continuously upholds the paramount values of honesty, integrity and doing the right thing. Children are taught by their parents and in religious classes to distinguish between right and wrong and to have the courage to do the right thing.
In today’s society, it appears that more often than not, these values are values of convenience. If one is able to do them easily and it suits their purpose, one does them.
Squeezed in are other circumstantial and related competing values such as that as a parent it is our duty to do everything possible to prep our children for success. Or the value that the end justifies the means. Or that it’s okay to do the wrong thing as long as no one is getting hurt.
Morality becomes relative in this case. Hierarchies may be assigned to each of the values. Parents who bribe may think that the morality of providing a strong foundation for their children, by getting them admitted to selective schools in this case, supersedes any other value. People who are accepting bribes, may be doing so to fulfill a need that they consider to be higher in moral value than any.
Is it that we choose the type of morality we pursue according to our circumstances?
Where do we draw a line?
And what is to say that people who are now crying fowl will do the same if they were to have a vast amount of wealth and resources available to them. With limited resources, it is easy to follow the cherished values of honesty and doing the right thing.
What are your thoughts on this? I would like to hear from you.
Reference:
A Mothers Chronicle 