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'Excellent results' perhaps, but at what price success?
by Terry Bailey
published in Glendale News Press
January 3, 2004
For the better part of my Thanksgiving holiday, I reflected on the Glendale City Council's decision to extend the application deadline for the Commission on the Status of Women. Most particularly, I considered the schoolteacher who withdrew her application because she felt the council had played unfairly by snubbing the large pool of 17 women who submitted their applications on time.
The teacher's reaction reminded me of an incident I witnessed at a women's tea party last holiday season. A gift-giving game at that party grew contentious when one woman proceeded to bend the game rules in order to ensure that she would go home with a colorful scarf. Two teachers at the party were particularly offended by the woman's rule-bending tactics. I was amazed at the woman's cleverness — she played the gift-swapping game as if it were chess, and actually ended her complexly devised process with the gift she had coveted in hand.
Life is not fair. People bend and break rules all the time in order to achieve goals. I, like many, have been guilty of thinking that rule-abiding and fairness-seeking schoolteachers are well meaning but naive. After considerable reflection, I have come to a new conclusion: The school teachers in this country who spend their lives teaching us to play fair and obey the rules are torchbearers for the true and best values of this society, and we would do well to listen to them. The world might not play fair, but it certainly should be a goal of ours. As human beings, don't we really want to move in the positive direction, not of "what is," but of "what could be"? And wouldn't "fair" be preferable to what is?
When all was said and done, the scarf-coveting woman spoiled what started as a fun and lighthearted game of gift-giving at a tea party, and probably just threw the scarf on a shelf when she got home. She didn't make any close friends at the party, either. She achieved her goal, but at what price?
My 19-year-old niece, Tess, was incensed at the council's decision to extend the application deadline. She said to me, "If I don't get my application in on time for college or a scholarship, I cannot hope that someone will extend the deadline for me." My neighbor Paula, a teacher, shared that she was shocked by the council's decision as well. "If I miss a grant deadline, I cannot expect to get a grant," she remarked.
When the council first extended the deadline, the News-Press published a strong criticism of their action, calling it an insult to the ample number of women who submitted their applications on time. But after the final selection process, when four of the seven women selected came from the post-deadline enlarged 28-person applicant pool, the News-Press reversed itself and concluded that the controversial process had yielded "excellent results." Of most concern to me was the specific statement in the second News-Press editorial: " … it's hard to argue with success."
In point of fact, it is not hard to argue with success. At what price success? At what price do we bend the rules to get our preferred outcome? What, then, are the point of rules that seek to create processes that are fair? Based on whose value system do we declare that a woman prosecutor or a business executive will more ably serve the needs of all women in Glendale than would have a high school teacher or retired homemaker with years of acquired wisdom who followed the rules?
What about the patronizing appearance of a City Council that decides to change the rules and seek candidates whom they consider more appropriate, rather than trusting that a commission of women would be capable of doing outreach themselves if more views or skills or backgrounds needed to be represented?
Sadly, this commission has been established on a foundation of rule-bending and unfairness. Goals accomplished on foundations of unfairness cannot help but be tarnished.
As a commissioner, I would have been one of the first to call for the representation of old and young, financially successful and poor, victims of violence and prosecutors of violators, conservatives and liberals, all religions and the nonreligious, able-bodied and the disabled, all genders and all sexual orientations, Caucasians, African Americans, Jews, Latinos, Asians, Arabs and Armenians, the privileged and the underprivileged. But it was not to be.
On the morning of my interview for the commission, I called and withdrew my application. As a role model to my niece, I had no other choice. I want to be a role model for the values of fairness and equity to Tess. I want to demonstrate for her the importance of standing firm and speaking out for one's values. I want to teach Tess what can be, not what is. When I told Tess of my decision, she said simply, "Good."
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