Ethics, Maxims, and activists, Epilogue

Bonjour!

I recently had cause to write a blog article which I entitled, Ethics, Maxims, and Activists.
You can see it here

It pertained to this article in the Daily Lion, which was the source for the piece and all the  related discussion that was to follow. 

I had reason to revisit that blog this evening since one of the main threads contained within it came to something of a conclusion. I'll say no more about that save this:

Quod erat faciendum

&

Quod Erat Demonstrandum

However in the course of revisiting the arguments and my own previous work I made two discoveries:

The original piece that my arguments were based upon is somewhat ambiguous as to the student bodies motives, this then leads to a weakening of the reasoning within my article. Secondly I spotted a byline under the picture in the original article that had been added. 

It reads:

"Editors Note: After evaluation, the school has decided to not change their ceremony"

It would seem that the student body protested against the change to the gowns, but their objections were somewhat different to those which I originally suggested.

Here's a different link to the same story. 

In it David Kilmnick (LGBT network) is quoted as saying:

“Nothing is really being taken away from any student, the students still are able to be their own unique individual and express their talents, except what’s going to happen now is they’re going to be able to do that as one community,” Kilmnick said. “The decision for students to all wear one gown means that there’s unity, there’s safety, there’s inclusivity, and there’s going to be moving forward together in a safe way.”

In light of this I wanted to outline a few points in the context of the arguments pertaining to the ethical nature (or otherwise) of the proposed change and examine whether  the  conclusions that I drew with regard to the ethical nature of the schools action still hold up to scrutiny.

• Firstly is the statement by David Kilmnick above actually true? 
• Did the timing and implementation of the change affect its ethical nature? 
• What are the implication of the outcome of this going forward for LGBT inclusion.

So is the statement above true? 

"Nothing is really being taken away from the students.." 

It seems to me the problem with this initial statement is that it is somewhat obviously untrue and also undermining of the whole argument for change at the same time. What is being taken away from the student body is the historical context of the school colours and the aspirational nature of something that they may have individually looked forward to for some considerable time. Also the "choice" argument applies here. That removal is as real as the removal of choice for the unrepresented LGBT students would've been had no action been taken. The counter argument to that is that the "evil" of discrimination of the LGBT students outweighs the "evil" of the removal of choice for all.  If one accepts this it then confers an ethical premise on the actions of the school as a justification of the "lesser of two evils argument"

But, let us assume the minority LGBT students had approached and asked for a colour change or to be allowed to wear whatever colour they best identify with (A flawed premise for sure when one considers NB but bear with me) This statement can very well be used against the trans inclusively model as for it.

"Wear whatever colour you wish, Nothing is really being taken away from you..."

Thus it inherently misunderstands and misrepresents the argument(s) at hand, which as I stated in my first blog are choice, with perspective and the motive preceding action. 

So, if the initial justification of the action in the above statment is questionable, then what of the rest? Well non of the individual statements that follow are entirely "wrong" per see, but they are inherently weakened by the false premise that precedes them. 

The second point, of timing, is interesting, since other (originally unseen) articles cover the fact that there was only one weeks notice of the change and many families had already bought the original gowns at considerable cost. I suspect many many people would baulk at a last minute change that asks them to swallow a $400 loss, so yes, it's a no brainer this had an effect. This factor is entirely unrelated to the issue of representation and becomes one of financial inconvenience, since its fair to say any last minute change for any reason with similar penalty would illicit a similar response. 

Finally we come the last point, implications for the future. 

The school implemented this badly, in a poorly thought out fashion, and thus the decision to instigate a change on the grounds of representation has been dropped, leaving the status quo in place.

In my initial blog I suggested any perceived benefit brought about by a false premise of inclusivity would be short lived. 

Consider this. 

If inclusivity and representation were at the heart of the issue then consultation s/w/could have begun months in advance, negating the (wholly justifiable) financial argument above. 

We do not know for how long the LGBT school members had been petitioning the school authority to address the issue, but it would seem a last minute change was poorly thought out, and, we might speculate, implemented as a reactive measure - perhaps to a student's long term unheeded requests being marginalised until they "had to be dealt with" 

Whatever the causality, the planned change and its somewhat inevitable failure has now damaged the chances of real inclusivity being addressed in the future at this school, because the argument can be brought forth of "Oh we tried that and it didn't work" It's almost as if the LGBT cause in this instance has snatched defeat from the jaws of potential victory, and thus made the entire battle for true representation that much harder when next fought. 

Both articles lauded the proposed change as a progressive move, and whilst prima facie arguments might support this view, the lack of actual meaningful discourse and organisation to the process gives the lie to that statement. For all the appearance of it being progressive it was anything but.

There are only two conclusions. Either the whole thing was intentionally botched to kill the LGBT representation issue and retain the historical colour references. Or, the school authority is almost criminally incompetent. 

Which option is closest to the truth, I'll leave to your own thoughts.