A recent study that examined a high-profile admissions scandal at the University of Illinois suggests decisions administrators make that the wider public may consider unethical — such as intervening in admissions processes on behalf of connected applicants — are not the product of being an unethical administrator, but are actually the result of many factors. The most troubling and significant factor is, according to the study, existing administrative structures at universities.
An article in The Chronicle of Higher Education quotes Nathan F. Harris, a doctoral student at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor who authored the study, as saying that administrators experience “ethical fading” — according to The Chronicle, this is when “the culture or structure of an organization causes those within it to lose sight of ethical considerations.” Essentially, Harris argues “ethical problems [are] system problems.”
At the University of Illinois, the admissions scandal involved administrators using a separate, hidden admissions process for connected applicants. But according to the study, this isn’t where favoritism ended: Harris found that Illinois favored well-connected students in access to desirable residence halls, courses, programs and other offerings at the school.
In this specific case, the creation of a separate process for reviewing more connected applicants prevented admissions officers from engaging in an open ethical debate about whether applicants should receive offers based on merit or based on connections — in effect, these competing institutional interests did not actually have to compete. And this is the kind of structural issue Harris points to: that by incorporating unofficial quotas or processes for selecting students, administrators were not forced to question their decisions or take into account ethical concerns.
If it is not conscious decisions, but rather subconscious biases as a result of existing structures, that push administrators toward unethical tendencies, addressing ethical issues in higher education is that much more complicated. But this case-study provides some clear solutions: one could be that administrators be required to review their decisions in one consistent platform; another could be that outsiders come into college campuses over certain periods of time to discuss current ethical dilemmas. It is hard to combat the problems inherent to existing bureaucratic structures, but creating environments in which individuals question their longstanding practices or beliefs is important for reevaluating which processes are working and which ones are not.
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