By William R. Jones
Jason Lim's early January opinion piece about nepotism prompted me to say a little bit more about possible entanglements and ethical dilemmas of the activity. Furthermore, his article reminded me of what someone had said long ago: "Aptitude tests show that you will succeed in a business where your father is boss."
It is not suddenly a new phenomenon that advantage, privilege, and position are granted to relatives (and even friends) in the entertainment business. It goes on in political circles as well. It occurs from the lowest to the highest levels in all spheres of life. We, each and every one, are guilty of it or in the least, we are complicit in one of the synonymic activities of favoritism, partiality and cronyism or patronage by acceptance of a position ourselves or recommending or supporting another. Only "God is no respecter of persons." (St. Peter 1st century AD).
At my university, we have many husband and wife teams. I joke with two professor friends that I was always aware of the spouse teams, but the brother and brother team was something else. As you know, nepotism is quite rampant in academic circles. It is not strictly illegal and is a very common practice in many countries, especially Italy, India and Argentina and it is actually exists if a cultural basis in China. In the U.S., to get your foot in the door by any means necessary is prevalent.
Most of us get where we are by connections. As the saying goes, it's not what you know, but who you know. A friend of mine was arranging for me to have a cushy position at my alma mater. For the interview, I would be asked some scientific technical questions requiring answers that had long ago escaped me. I privately expressed my concerns to my friend and the very next day he provided a list of questions that I would be confronted with (ultimate grooming). After one week of review, needless to say, I maxed the interview and beat out two other applicants for the position. Do I feel bad about that? No, not at all, because I had experienced a couple of hiring situations where I had been beaten out in a similar manner. Too, in no time at all I brought myself up to par. I can now say, there are few in educational circles that can match my metier or forte. But, no big deal, it's just a job. We are all expendable and/or replaceable. Of course, some people think not, until they get axed without recourse.
I don't feel nepotism is all bad, despite the equal opportunity and fairness argument. Certainly, it could get out of hand and job competence could be compromised (there must be a ladder to climb). Too, public faith in the organization may wane and weaken morale in whatever service it may be. Yet, one example noted, concerning a very successful company wherein the CEO at the company's anniversary party asked anyone related to anyone else at the organization to stand up. Of the company's 700 or so employees, almost 500 rose!
The fact is Crowell & Moring, an international labor and employment law firm representing clients in litigation says, "There's little out there on the books to discourage nepotism ― and nothing that explicitly forbids it."
The author (wrjones@vsu.edu) published the novella "Beyond Harvard" and presently teaches English as a second language.
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