Ethically Challenged

While there are many subjects formally built into the Harvard curriculum, ethical education is not one of them. Instead, the fast-paced, high-pressure environment of Harvard College forces us to question and develop our own values of character and integrity in academics, extracurriculars, and in our personal lives. At Harvard, it is difficult to maintain these values because it often seems that greater emphasis is placed on winning and being “right” at all costs in order to achieve success. Excelling at competition is a prerequisite for admission to Harvard. While enforcing a value system can be as simple as doing the right thing, our society has a way of contorting everything by enforcing an “ends justify the means” attitude. Today, there are very few strong ethical role models and far more models of those who compromised their values or completely relinquished any set of values in order to achieve fame and fortune.

During my tenure as president of The Crimson, my own value system was tested almost every day as I had to answer to those within the organization itself and to those in the Harvard community at large. Initially, I was tempted to get caught up in the hype of running a major organization at Harvard, but soon realized that we were all young adults who had a lot of learning to do. We report on very serious and sensitive issues. It is one thing to report on the world at large, when peers are reporting on other peers, but in a close-knit community like Harvard, one always walks a fine line of what is appropriate and what is not. As a result, we were constantly debating over which stories to run. When we were wrong, we issued corrections and sometimes apologized. While my initial reaction was to defend and justify the staff’s decisions at all costs, after listening to the views of our primary audience, the Harvard community at large, I realized that we didn’t always get it right.

One particular incident that left an indelible impression on my mind relates to a student suicide at Harvard last spring. There was a strong disagreement within The Crimson over how to respond to the community outrage when, the day after the suicide, we ran a seemingly distasteful photo of the student who had committed suicide with another student who had committed suicide roughly a year earlier, both pictured at a Harvard event they had attended together. The Crimson initially responded to the outrage over our coverage of the tragedy with several justifications. Afterwards, I agreed to meet with a good friend of the recent suicide victim in the photograph. It was one of the hardest things I have had to do at Harvard, to face someone who was hurt and angry and even disgusted at our coverage. He gave me further feedback. Many other students had already flooded my e-mail inbox with similar feelings. The more I spoke with other students and administrators, the more I realized that he represented the feelings of the majority on this issue. I wanted to defend my organization because we had worked very hard to cover the story in the fairest way possible. When I looked at the picture we published, I could not deny that it appeared inappropriate. So, I did what I knew was right. As a leader of The Crimson, I took the responsibility and apologized.

I learned from my experiences there that journalists walk a fine line between unbiased reporting and concerns for the feelings and well being of those affected by their stories. The First Amendment and freedom of speech notwithstanding, a journalist needs to weigh his or her zeal to right what is wrong with the world against the unintended victims of their coverage. The recent riots caused by Newsweek’s article about desecrating the Quran is a great example of insensitive reporting based on “unnamed sources.”

Returning to the issues of values, ethics, and morality, every freshmen brings to Harvard their own set of values acquired from their parents, teachers, friends, books, environment, and extracurricular activities. Hopefully, during their time at Harvard, they define and strengthen the values they believe in. Those of us graduating from Harvard today share the desire to succeed. This leads into to the next step, what is success and how much of one’s value system one is willing to compromise to achieve that success. A vast majority equates success with the “rich and famous.” Most corporate scandals resulted from unabashed greed, and since they are all a product of our society, we must critically examine our value system and “the” definition of success. To paraphrase George Sheehan, the running philosopher: “Success is not something that can be measured or worn on a watch or hung on a wall. It is not material wealth, the esteem of the colleagues or the admiration of the society. Success is the certain knowledge that you have become yourself, the very person you were meant to be.” To everyone graduating in my class, I wish you this success and hope you become the person you were meant to be.

Erica K. Jalli ’05 is an economics concentrator in Leverett House. She was president of The Crimson in 2004.