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Spank me, but don't tell my boss

SIRI AGRELL

From Monday's Globe and Mail

Latest comment posted at 11:56 PM EST 20/07/08

How far should the boardroom reach into the worker's bedroom? ...Read the full article

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  1. K McIntyre from Oshawa, Canada writes: On the bit about FIA president Max Mosley's alleged 'Nazi sex romp', the Nazi claims come in part from the fact that Max is the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, one-time leader of the British Union of Fascists and acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. Hitler attended the wedding of Max Mosley's parents. Sir Oswald was the presumed leader-in-waiting of the UK should Nazi Germany have successfully invaded it.
  2. R M from Ottawa, Canada writes:
    Wide open interpretation of vague guidelines by his employer, and likely therefore biased and discriminatory.

    If what he did was not illegal, he should be restored to his full former position and priviliges, or sue for the equivalent and damages.
  3. M. Mark from Victoria, Canada writes: Based on what is described here, I would agree that the university went too far.
  4. cyan blue from Canada writes: (Apologies if this repeats - the comment page keeps stalling)..

    Employers do not pay a 24/7 salary, so they should have no control over private lives. If they were to, it would remove the freedom for people to make their own life choices within the work-life balance.

    I do not condone Dr. Wightman's out-of-hours behavior, but nor do I view it as relevant. He (and the Acadia administration) are employed by all taxpayers, and we should only need to know that they are all effective and efficient at their jobs.
  5. Elmo Harris from Niagara, Canada writes: I think employers and institutions often go too far in their restrictions of what people can and can not do on their own time. I know people in the public sector who are prevented from showing outward support for political parties or for helping out during elections. I find that disgraceful and I suspect it is against the charter of rights and freedoms. Yet, they show strong disapproval against anyone attempting to exercise their democratic rights because it may offend the party in power and may affect their public funding. This happens all too frequently in colleges and universities in particular.
  6. Stephen McPherson from Newmarket, Canada writes: OK so let's focus on the real issue - lack of leadership. Dr. Claus Rerup, Richard Ivey School of Business, University of Western Ontario seems quite willing to let the perps off. But these people are in leadership roles and may from time to time have to discipline staff about the very same deeds they have committed. These perps - not leaders certainly - have zero credibility now. Dr. Rerup, you're at the heart and sole of the problem - business schools that have no concept of what leadership is all about and that are incapable of defining it, let alone teach it to someone. Step aside and let those with a true moral compass lead the way.
  7. Freddie B from Woodbridge from Canada writes: Only person that has any business with what the prof did is the wife. Even using the laptop did not cost or harm he school in anyway. Have to agree with most. This is mor G&M crappy reporting. Too bad the Post can't get its web site to be more user friendly.
  8. Native Son from Canada writes: Dr. Wightman appears to be incredibly shortsighted and self centred, so it is easy to see why the university (and pretty well any other employer would prefer to be shed of him), yet it does appear as though the university may have overstepped its bounds. That will be for the courts to decide. In the meantime, I feel truly badly for Wightman's family, somewhat badly for the university (which is in a no-win position) and not very badly at all for Wightman.

    Yet, if the comments published in this article are indicative of Dr. Wightman's general mindset, self-pity appears to his focus. Not his wife's pain, but his pain at having to tell his wife. Not the embarassment that he caused the university, but his pain at having to call the university. Not the damage that he has done to the university's reputation or the incredibly bad example he has set for students, but the injustice of his firing and his sense of loss when he looks at the university campus. It's hard to feel sorry for someone, whose sole concern appears to be the damage he has done to himself, rather than the damage he has done, especially to all those who cared about him (i.e., to those to whom he owed a duty of care).
  9. Carlos Jose from Canada writes: I agree with the general sentiment - the employer should have no say in the personal affairs of employees. His actions had no bearing on the university, so why should they get involved? Whether or not the university approves of his conduct outside of his work is irrelevant, especially since he is not in public office. I think perhaps elected officials are in a different category, in that they are responsible to the general public and their affairs can have direct implications to how a much larger group of people they represent are perceived internationally. For a university prof, though, this should not apply.
  10. Darren X3 from Toronto, Canada writes: Acadia went way too far and they are going to get countersued. People use work issued computers for personal communication all the time, so employers have no grounds for complaint. What's next.... will Acadia find all the homosexuals on their staff and fire them too?
  11. Native Son from Canada writes: I'm having a hard time with the logic of criticizing the Globe for running this article, as how to deal with these kinds of transgressions is clearly an important issue that is going to affect a lot of organizations. Therefore, clear policies will indeed be required. And, to the people saying that the G&M shouldn't have run this, because it is between Wightman and his wife, has it occurred to you that no one forced Wightman or his lawyer to take the interviews. In fact, has it occurred to you that they may have sought the coverage to try to force Acadia's hand. Obviously, I can't say with any certainty (but neither can anyone else).

    One final note re. tenure, it is meant to ensure that university administrations can't dictate the views that professors must hold on academic matters. It is not meant to be an all encompassing 'free pass', so Wightman is seeking to distort the purpose of tenure, as well. Whether this was a big enough transgression to justify dismissal will be decided by the courts, but tenure ought not to afford him any additional protection, at all.
  12. guy tozer from Saskatoon, Canada writes: Stephen McPherson. What people do on their own time is of no concern to anyone else, as long as it is legal. Your final statement is an oxymoron, as there is no morality in big business!! I hope Mosley sues the crap out on the employer.
  13. Darren In TO from Toronto, Canada writes: K McIntyre, the romp Moslet had was proven not to have Nazi links or themes.
  14. Antonio San from Canada writes: If instead of porn he had researched about Global Warming... he would have probably received a grant! Still both are morally questionable...
  15. Norman Petit from Calgary, Canada writes: Living as America is in a time of deep 'moral' schizophrenia (never have there been more churches or porn shops), it is disturbing to see service providers base their value proposition on having the most lily white employees. Wightman could have easily been arranging a tryst from his office phone at 9:00 PM (with his wife or lover) - would wiretapping his office have been seen as an infringement of his rights, or a business desperate to out the pervert at all costs to the barrier that divides our business and personal lives?
  16. Paul Polock from Windsor, Canada writes: Stephen Macpherson, by your use of the word Perp, you imply that what he did was a criminal action, since no charges were placed, he did nothing illegal. yes it looks bad, however he should not be fired for it, if that were the case, there is not one politician who should be still in office, and i would bet very few senior executives would still hold there positions. and the same could be said for students who also represent the university, with drinking, drugs, etc, all should be banned from school as it harms the reputation of the school, once you start terminating for your moral compass be careful, there will be a lot less people working.
  17. Craig Cooper from Toronto, writes: Society is so hypocritical.
  18. jo bloom from toronto, Canada writes: The article started with information about this being a sexual assault investigation. When citizens are being investigated for such violent crimes,
    they should be released from their jobs until their trials are over.

    I am confused by the article however because it doesn't actually follow up in any real way about the sexual assault investigation and uses this example to discuss work policies and boundaries. I find this the wrong example, this scenario. They should have used other people where the story did not include a potential sexual assault investigation.
    The journalist left all that information out. Perplexing.....
  19. Mike H from Grande Prairie, Alberta, Canada writes: jo bloom from toronto, Canada writes: The article started with information about this being a sexual assault investigation. When citizens are being investigated for such violent crimes,
    they should be released from their jobs until their trials are over. '

    You're absolutely right Jo Bloom. Enough of this innocent until proven guilty crap. Guilty until proven innocent, right? Because no one has ever been falsely accused of a crime they never committed.
  20. Mr. Coffee from Victoria, Canada writes: What happens outside of work stays outside of work. However, Mr. Wightman should have kept it in his pants and thought unsexy thoughts (an ugly right-wing Bill O'Reilly-type in a thong for instance).

    Now he's likely to face the scariest scenerio he could imagine: A cheated-on wife with her .45 calibre lawyer.
  21. Michael Manning from Mississauga, Canada writes: Never, ever do anything on someone else's computer that you would not be proud to stand up and admit responsibility for.

    What a consenting adult does on his own time in privacy is no one's business until he starts utilizing someone else's property.
  22. jimmie rabbit from toronto, Canada writes: he used a university computer to arrange his spankings - i think he should have had more sense.

    how can students sit through one of his lectures now, with images in their heads of his naked white bottom being caned?
  23. Steve D from St. John's, Canada writes: Did the guy have sex with her or only talk about it? I didn't read it too closely the first time and don't want to read it again.

    It might not have even been a woman he was corresponding with. Remember its the internet; where men are men, women are men and children are FBI agents.
  24. The Human Body Is Amazing from Mid Ontario, Canada writes: Doesn't a person's inner character or demeanor reflect itself in said person's employment?
    Can a teacher who has bondage fantasies treat certain 'students' differently than others because of certain 'qualities' that they may engender?
    Doesn't a professor represent a university's reputation and doesn't a university strive for respectable and admired reputation?
  25. Dominique Millette from Canada writes: I agree. Sure we have the right to privacy; but we can't be indignant if we use company equipment to pursue private interests and the company doesn't like it.
  26. George BrownIII from Christmas Island writes: So can universities fire homosexuals, people of color, handicapped pot smokers or anybody else they would not agree with? Now fire the facist administrators who went too far!
  27. L M from Toronto, Canada writes: The issue is he used the university's laptop to arrange his date. Most employers have explicit rules regulating the use of computers. If he was stupid enough not to use his own PC, he deserves what he gets.
  28. MR. oz from Canada writes: on which e-mail address did he find that woman?
  29. City Pig from Toronto, Canada writes: I got bored reading the article, although I must admit the headline caught my eye.....
  30. Wandering Willy from Kelowna, Canada writes: I wonder if he had ever asked his wife if she was into bondage? My advice to anyone thinking of getting married is to be totally upfront in the first few weeks of meeting someone. If they are not into your interests then you can move on till you find someone that is. Or you can have an open marriage........
  31. Lin Geary from Canada writes: So we have here in Canada a university professor who has a formerly-hidden addiction to kinky sex, not with his wife, but on the side and with (most-likely) a professional sex worker. However, most such addictions are just self-administered antidotes to help each of us avoid facing some unpleasant pain experienced perhaps in early childhood, or experienced in some other area of life one doesn't believe one can face again. It is a pain-avoidance 'quick-fix' that usually, eventually, turns into some unshakable albatross. Still, it's the same thing that makes most of us choose over-eating, cigarettes, tv, drugs (prescription and otherwise), etc., etc., or as Dr. Wightman did, sexual distraction. And, we are, all of us, usually embarrassed as hell to have others identify our addiction right out-loud as a hard-core addiction, or worse still associate it with some nebulous crime. Yet, no particular addiction known to human kind is actually any kinder to us than any other. Right now Acadia University is all over this slightly risque pay-per-use sex addiction like it was THE ONLY ONE THAT WILL BRING POLITE SOCIETY TO A HALT IF WE DON'T NIP IT IN THE PROVERBIAL BUD. So my question is this: what is it the RCMP are really looking for, and why in heaven's name is it taking them forever to put it 'out' there for us to understand? So far it seems to me that Dr. Wightman loses his job over a fairly normal addiction, albeit one that plays into Anglo-Canada's obsession with sexual scandal, while the RCMP doesn't bother to tell us that this 'case' is probably a routine part of their indirect route to spying on organized crime. Anyway, I suppose the rest of us can while away a few more summer hours encouraging the media to keep on playing with Dr. Wightman the way a cat tosses and catches a chipmunk before chewing it's head off and walking away. But better him than you, eh? Better him than me.
  32. jimmie rabbit from toronto, Canada writes: he can get a new job at the 'school of hard knocks'
  33. jimmie rabbit from toronto, Canada writes: ...butt only after he's really 'hit bottom'
  34. evelyn robinson from Canada writes: his personal life is his own business; he crossed the line using employers internet to access personal indiscretions so bye bye no sympathy.
  35. Michael Leblanc from Toronto, Canada writes: Our society is regressing in terms of reasonable tolerance and personal freedoms. Because television and other media are so permissive in their displays of flesh and profanity, people have this illusion that things are relaxed - I assure you they are not. Beneath the veneer I see a disturbing puritanical mindset. Perhaps it's political correctness gone too far, or perhaps it's simply that there are so many technological walls between people that intimacy and social skills in general are vanishing like the morning mist. At the very least, it sounds like the majority of this university's Board of Governors' needs to get creatively laid, and fast.
  36. Sean L. from Stalingrad, Canada writes: 'The Human Body Is Amazing from Mid Ontario, Canada writes: Doesn't a person's inner character or demeanor reflect itself in said person's employment?'

    Your comments, sound suspiciously like the same justification used by 'moralists' to claim gay persons can't be teachers because they might teach your children to be gay.

    You mode of thinking, like Stephen McPherson's, is offensive to anyone who believes in the democratic rights that our society used to rely upon.
  37. Denis Hull from Canada writes: What he did on his own time is his own business... If you were to fire anyone or everyone who used their work PC for anything other than work I could imagine more than three quarters of the work force would be out on the street looking for a job.
  38. GlynnMhor of Skywall from Canada writes: Nothing wrong with a little kinky sex, and does anyone really think his university level students were such innocent virgins that the concept would corrupt them?
  39. Pat Mazier from Canada writes: To Acadia University: I sincerely hope that Acadia Board of Governors will swallow hard, allow the professor to return to work and - best of all - NO HARD FEELINGS.
  40. Ruth Walker from Edmonton, Canada writes:
    Acadia University deserves to be punished, and the likelihood is that they will get their due. What a lot of hypocrites!

    Shallow morals are no substitute for integrity and compassion. Let us hope that Acadia takes our comments to heart, and admits their foolishness.

    The good Prof. Mosley had the integrity to come clean right away. Can Acadia say the same???
  41. Piltdown Man from Canada writes: I should think this says more about the the current state of university administration - than anything else. Administrators want to believe they run big private institutions and act as if they have free reign in doing so. In reality they are so heaviliy dependent on the government purse they become conservative almost knee jerk in their behaviour.

    Bastions of liberal free thinking? Hardly.
  42. Nova Scotia watchman from Halifax, Canada writes: Word to the wise: Acadia has done the right thing here - and I'm no prude re B&D.
  43. R M from Ottawa, Canada writes:
    Sing it with us now, folks...

    And here's to you, Ms. Robinson (Evelyn)
    'indiscretions' bug you more than you could know?

    What's that you say, Ms. Robinson...
    Sorry we can't hear you....you're too LOW.
  44. Stephen McPherson from Newmarket, Canada writes: Sean in Stalingrad. Get over it! Life and business are not democracies. They are dictatorships; be it the dicatatorship of the business world (I haven't worked for one yet where I got to vote) or the dictatorship of our hypocritically judgemental society - the oppression of 'they'. If our leadership fails in setting standards, we all drop to the lowest common denominator by default. We are reaping the results of this type of left wing permissive libertarian thinking in our schools, on our streets and in our boardrooms. If you think the good Dr's firing is not justified, keep in mind the consequences. As for the good Dr, if he can't control himself, how can he possibly hope to lead other than through the positional power of tenure - pure weakness.
  45. Inmate #18330-424 from Coleman Federal Prison, United States writes: What terrible journalism! The article leaves out all the relevant information that about the central event is purportedly discusses. What tripe.
  46. Iain's Opinion from Canada writes: K McIntyre from Oshawa, Canada writes: On the bit about FIA president Max Mosley's alleged 'Nazi sex romp', the Nazi claims come in part from the fact that Max is the son of Sir Oswald Mosley, one-time leader of the British Union of Fascists and acquaintance of Adolf Hitler. Hitler attended the wedding of Max Mosley's parents.
    >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
    Uhm, so the child is responsible for the parents actions?

    C'mon folks, what consenting adults do together for sex is their business and the business of their spouses, nobody else.
  47. Angry West Coast Canuck from Canada writes: The people (because yes, there were people involved, not some faceless corporation) who made this decision at Acadia need to have their private lives examined in excruciating detail and made public for all to see. After all, they seem to think they have a say in the private lives of other employees. Anything else would be complete and utter hypocrisy. It's a pity hypocrisy isn't illegal though.
  48. Sue W from Canada writes: A spoiled academic who feels he's still entitled to his job after using company PROPERTY for arranging his rendevouz.

    He just doesn't get, which also doesn't make him as smart as he believes he is.
  49. MR. oz from Canada writes: What is the big deal? here in Canada we think perversion is OK and we are allowing it!
  50. Fake Name from Canada writes: 'jo bloom from toronto, Canada writes: The article started with information about this being a sexual assault investigation. When citizens are being investigated for such violent crimes,
    they should be released from their jobs until their trials are over.'

    Keep in mind anyone can lay a sexual assault claim at any time. It's made deliberately easy to get an investigation started, so victims won't stay silent out of the 'nobody will believe me' motivation. But what you're suggesting would be a prime way for any aggrieved employee to get their boss suspended for 6-12 months with a simple claim of something that never happened. The risks are minimal, because the police would be very wary of accusing the employee of maliciously filing a false claim (again, could scare legitimate victims into silence), and it's an easy opportunity to shaft a disliked boss.

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