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Workplace Ethics

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Assignment 2: Workplace Ethics
Danielle Davis
Professor Kenneth A. Pino
BUS 309: Business Ethics

Abstract Regardless of your occupation, employees have the right to privacy. Case 9.1: Unprofessional Conduct shows how Pettit privacy was violated. Pettit was a teacher of many years and never had a bad evaluation of her work. What she did outside of work was labeled unprofessional by the Board of Education and they chose to fire her because they believed she was unfit to teach. I disagree with them completely and they did violate her privacy.

Business Ethics is defined as “the study of what constitutes right and wrong (or good and bad) human conduct in a business context” (Shaw, 2014, p. 4). Based off this definition, I believed that Pettit should not have been fired. I also believe that the Board of Education definitely violated her right to privacy and they were not justified in firing her. Pettit was a dedicated teacher for many years and she did not involve her personal life in the workplace. Because of her sexual preferences, she was judged and fired from her job.
The Board of Education should not have fired Pettit is due to the fact that they had no evidence to prove that she was not doing her job correctly and her privacy was violated. Pettit was an elementary school teacher who taught children with disabilities. The case study said that “Mrs. Pettit was one of those dedicated teachers”……and “she had been working with mentally challenged children for over thirteen years” (Shaw, 2014, p. 342). Pettit did not promote her sexual lifestyles in the classroom so why did the Board of Education fire her? The Board of Education had no good evidence. All they did was assume that Pettit was an unfit teacher and they judged her on what she did sexually outside of work. Throughout all her years of teaching, her evaluations were always positive according to

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