March 6, 2011

• Justice and Example

  “Kill one man to warn a hundred.” – Ancient Chinese legalist saying

  

  Getting back to the Brigham Young controversy, there’s another angle that hasn’t been very well explored. We all accept that BYU has the power to suspend Davies. They seem to be using this power to make an example, an assertion that they will stick to their ideals no matter what. On the surface of it, that is principled.

  But is it really just?

  Justice, as we understand it, involves not harming innocents. To consider what is just, we need to consider who is being harmed by a judgment. There are at least three entities involved in this decision: the player, the team, and the university itself. We may dispense with the university (as the entity making the judgment, it can make a decision that harms itself) and the player (as the one who broke the rules and made the judgment possible.) But what of the teammates?

  If you were a hard-working athlete on the way to a championship, how would you feel about getting your legs cut out from under you because of something a teammate did in his spare time? More to the point, how would you feel about it if that act at virtually any other university would not warrant the same punishment?

  Certainly if we want to be Biblical about it, we can respond that life is not fair: in Biblical stories, the latecomers to a day of work get paid the same wages as those who started early, and neither are supposed to complain. Davies may have signed up for more difficult terms than other athletes, but he should not complain, and by extension, neither should the other athletes, who also signed up for BYU’s terms. Even if the terms didn’t include anything like “your career could be jeopardized by someone else on the team not following our code of conduct,” one supposes it was possible to work out the details from the general attitude of the institution.

  But athletics depends on fairness. Athletics asserts that two teams will enter the field, bringing their best competitors and their best game, and that in the end the truth of which team is better at the sport will shine through. In the end, Brigham Young University can make whatever decision it wishes, but harming Davies’ teammates just to make a point isn’t justice.

  It’s making an example.

  • 5:27 pm
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