Ethics

Kevin Smith

Recently, Kevin Smith, a well known Hollywood director, was kicked off a flight for being too fat. He was furious and started a twitter storm. His flamebuoyant communiques aroused media coverage and strong opinions everywhere. Fat people have rights too! They proclaimed. Besides, the number is on their side. The US shall have more and more fat people. Airline had better cater to their needs, lest losing their patronage.

Airline coach seats are about 18 inches wide with 32 inches “pitch” (the distance between two rows of seats). They are good for skinny and short people. (An average American woman has a hip width of 19.7 inches, and man 17.2.) Strapped in one of them is a discomfort that most people wish to get over as quickly as possible. It’s torturous if your seat-mate is nosy, noisy, smelly, messy, or, the worst, fat. Few things can bring up more terror than being squeezed against a stranger’s skin in a tight space.


A group of Californian students are seeking reversal of proposition 209, passed in 1996 to prohibit public institutions from considering race, sex, or ethnicity. Under this law, the UC system would consider only academic merits — GPA, SAT scores, etc. — to admit students.

In 2007, Latino, black, and Native American students comprised 45.1 percent of California’s high school graduates but those groups comprised only 16.9 percent and 19.9 percent of new freshman admits at UC Berkeley and UCLA, respectively. This is an outrage and a social explosion waiting to happen.

Prior to Prop 209, UC has the infamous affirmative action system that give each ethnic group a quota in the new admission pool. The graduation rate of those disadvantaged ethnic groups were miserable. UC system wasted precious resources, and admission slots, for those academically ill-prepared students that essentially robbed the education opportunities from those who were otherwise qualified.


In the study of ethics, there are the concepts of just, utilitarian, fairness, and equality. It is not just to violate any individual’s rights. But utilitarian will strive for the most good for the most people, usually sacrificing the minority. Kevin Smith may have his right as a passenger, but many more passengers suffer if airlines accommodate too much for fat people, directly with discomfort or indirectly through delay, lost of available seats, or increased price from reduced capacity.

The group that sued UC called themselves “Equality by Any Means Necessary.” Equality is an economic concept of the allocation of resources. (Five dollars for you and five for me will be equal.) Fairness means all considerations be merit-based. (We each get paid by how much we contributed will be fair.) It is obvious that UC admission system has not been equal. But is it fair? To answer, ask if the admission is merit-based.


Ethics is a complicated subject. Topics are controversial because different approaches do not arrive at the same result. We would like things to be just and good for the most, fair and equal too. Choose your stance based on an ethic yardstick, not whether you are fat or slim, Asian or Latino.

This entry was posted in Management Thoughts, Peek into my mind. Bookmark the permalink.

One Response to Ethics

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.