CONTROLLING TECHNOLOGY:

Ethics and the Responsible Engineer

—Third Edition

By STEPHEN H. UNGER

Emeritus Professor
Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

School of Engineering & Applied Science

Columbia University, New York, NY
 Copyright Notice

Copyright © 2017 Stephen H. Unger and Donald N.S. Unger

All Rights Reserved

ASIN: B074Y7W745

Unger, Stephen H., 1931-

Unger, Donald N.S., (ed.) 1962-
Controlling technology: ethics and the responsible engineer /
Stephen H. Unger. — 3rd ed.
Revised and Expanded, August 2017

Ethics 3rd Ed V24, 26 SEP 2017, ca. 140,950 wds.

To my father . . .
 TABLE OF CONTENTS

CONTACT THE AUTHOR

PREFACE TO THE 3RD EDITION
PREFACE
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 An Engineer’s Dilemma

1.2 The Right to Be an Ethical Engineer
1.3 An Overview of Technology
1.4 The Engineer and the Decision-Making Process
1.5 Doing It Right: The Panama Canal; The Shinkansen
1.6 Summary
1.7 Discussion Questions
1.8 Sources

CHAPTER TWO: ENGINEERS ON THE SPOT

2.1 The General Picture

2.2 The DC-10 Disaster: Result of Swallowing the Whistle
2.3 The BART Case
2.4 Computers and Police Cars
2.5 Less Bang for a Buck—Waste in the Air Force
2.6 Welding Faults in a Nuclear Reactor
2.7 Cutting Corners—The Three Mile Island Cleanup
2.8 Violence versus Appropriate Technology:
The Ben Linder Story
2.9 Judges versus Engineers
2.10 Man Rescues Coast Guard
2.11 They Said It Shouldn’t Be Done
2.12 The Self-Employed Consultant
2.13 Some Additional Cases
2.14 Conclusions
2.15 Summary
2.16 Discussion Questions
2.17 Sources

CHAPTER THREE: THE ABUSE OF TECHNOLOGY

3.1 Titanic—First and Last Voyage

3.2 Bhopal—A Multinational Disaster
3.3 Chernobyl
3.4 Fire in the Sky—The Destruction of the Challenger
3.5 Summary
3.6 Discussion Questions
3.7 Sources

CHAPTER FOUR: CODES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS

4.1 Why Ethics Codes?

4.2 Scope and Form
4.3 Basic Principles
4.4 A Code of Engineering Ethics
4.5 What Should Not Be in an Ethics Code
4.6 Some Other Ethics Codes
4.7 Living Up to the Ethics Code
4.8 Summary
4.9 Discussion Questions
4.10 Sources

CHAPTER FIVE:
Role of Engineering Societies in Ethics

5.1 Traditional Function of Engineering Societies

5.2 How Academic Freedom Is Defended
5.3 Using Investigations to Support the Right to Be an Ethical Engineer
5.4 Other Ethics Support Measures & Society Activities
5.5 Employment Guidelines
5.6 Objections and Responses
5.7 Enforcement—Policing the Unethical Engineer
5.8 Some Conclusions
5.9 Summary
5.10 Discussion Questions
5.11 Sources

CHAPTER SIX: ETHICAL ENGINEERS AND THE LAW

6.1 The Geary Case—You’re Right and You’re Out

6.2 The Common Law—Fire at Will
6.3 A Turning Point—The Murray Case
6.4 A Triumphant Defeat
6.5 Regulating Technology
6.6 Energy versus Fish—The Baslow Case
6.7 Lawyers to the Rescue
6.8 Should Engineers Be Licensed?
6.9 Is There Strength in Union?
6.10 Standards and Conflicts of Interest
6.11 Summary
6.12 Discussion Questions
6.13 Sources

CHAPTER SEVEN: AVERTING CONFLICT AT THE SOURCE

7.1 Internal Procedures for Considering Dissenting Views

7.2 Advice to the Responsible Engineer: How to Be Ethical and Get Away with It
7.3 Summary
7.4 Discussion Questions
7.5 Sources

CHAPTER EIGHT: IN CONCLUSION

8.1 The Nature of Complicated Enterprises

8.2 Team Play, Organizational Reform and Engineering Education
8.3 Law-based Support for Responsible Engineers
8.4 Engineering Societies—A Key Element
8.5 Sources

SUPPLEMENTARY LINKS

Ethics Codes
Resources

APPENDICES

A.1 Abbreviations
A.2 DC-10 Case—The Applegate Memorandum
A.3 BART Case Documents
A.3.1 Oliver Letter
A.3.2 IEEE BART Case Brief
A.4 Edgerton Case Reports
A.4.1 CSIT Report
A.4.2 MCC Report
A.5 Ethics Codes
A.5.1 Model Ethics Code
A.5.2 IEEE Code of Ethics
A.5.3 ABET Code of Ethics of Engineers
A.5.4 Code of Ethics Association of Professional Engineers, Province of Ontario
A.5.5 Slowter-Oldenquist Core Concepts in Engineering Ethics
A.5.6 AAES Model Guide for Professional Conduct
A.5.7 National Society of Professional Engineers Code of Ethics for Engineers
A.5.8 ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
A.5.9 Code of Ethics American Institute of Chemical Engineers
A.5.10 Code of Ethics American Society Mechanical Engineers: Fundamental Principles
A.6 Guidelines to Professional Employment for Engineers and Scientists
A.7 Ethics Investigations—Ways and Means

REFERENCES
INDEX
 CONTACT THE AUTHOR

Should you have questions, comments, corrections, or suggestions regarding this book or any of
the topics it covers, I can be reached at:

unger@cs.columbia.edu

Editing questions or issues may be directed to:

donunger@mit.edu

A number of issues regarding the implications of technology on society are further explored on
my blog:

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/myBlog/endsandmeansblog.html

This book and my books of a more technical nature may be found on Amazon.
 PREFACE TO THE 3RD EDITION

When I last revised this book, in the early 1990s, the Internet Revolution was just beginning
to gather steam, cell phones were becoming more prevalent but smart phones were unheard of,
self-driving cars provided more fodder for comic books and science fiction than for text books and
“science fact.”
Today, more and more people carry around satellite and web-linked “pocket computers” the
processing power of which dwarfs the total amount of “computing horsepower” that got us to the
moon. Villagers in Africa and India use these smart phones for banking and commerce. Though
not yet for sale, self-driving cars are now piloting our streets.
In short: Powerful and sophisticated technologies are more deeply embedded in our lives than
ever before.
Has our attention to the ethical implications of the manufacture, sale, and use of these
technologies been heightened?
Not nearly enough, I would argue.
I think it more important than ever that technologists, ethicists, and citizens seriously consider,
and engage with, questions of risk and benefit, profit and cost, efficacy and morality.
 PREFACE

This book is about the problem of democratically controlling technology for the benefit of
humanity. Its central thesis is that such control cannot be accomplished entirely from the outside.
Those who are developing and applying technology must take responsibility for the consequences
of their work and play an active role in directing it toward humane ends. This must be done in
cooperation with their fellow citizens, and an important part of their task is to ensure that the public
is properly informed about technological alternatives, as well as about impending problems.
Thus the focus is on the role of the engineer and the applied scientist (who is in essentially the
same situation). As a consequence of being employees, rather than independent practitioners, the
great majority of engineers lack the autonomy necessary to exercise the important responsibilities
associated with their profession. This contradiction is analyzed and a variety of solutions are
proposed.
In Chapter 1 the problems are introduced, some basic assumptions presented, and some
examples of successful technological projects are discussed. A number of cases illustrating the
painful dilemma of the responsible engineer are presented in Chapter 2. The consequences of the
misuse of technology are illustrated in Chapter 3 via examinations of four catastrophes. The fourth
chapter is an analysis of the ethical obligations of engineers as formulated in existing or proposed
ethics codes. In Chapter 5, the great potential of engineering societies for supporting conscientious
engineers is discussed. I consider the development of this potential a basic step in rectifying the
situation depicted in Chapter 2. The roles of regulatory agencies, courts of law, the registration of
engineers, and engineering unions in coping with the problems considered here are discussed in
Chapter 6, with particular attention to the fundamental inadequacies of a purely legal approach.
Chapter 7 is concerned with how employers can set up internal mechanisms to minimize conflicts
with their professional staffs and how individual engineers can best handle disputes with
management over ethics-related issues. Chapter 8 is a summing up.
In order to avoid distracting footnotes, discussions of sources are confined to a section entitled
“Sources” at the end of each chapter. Citations in these sections refer to a unified bibliography at
the end of the book.
There is a single listing of all abbreviations, designated as Appendix A. 1. Additional
appendixes consist of material related to some of the cases treated in Chapter 2, the most important
engineering ethics codes, and the Joint Society Employment Guidelines.
The chapter on catastrophes is entirely new in the second edition. It indicates the growing
importance of the need to utilize technology with great care. The section in the first chapter on
successful technology is also new; it gives us some grounds to believe that large technological
enterprises can be managed properly. Several new cases were added to Chapter 2, and a section on
standards, including a discussion of the Hydrolevel case, has been added to Chapter 6. Other
material throughout the book has been updated, supplemented, and revised as appropriate.
 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The first edition of this book was an outgrowth of a research project (Grant No. OSS79-06980)
funded by the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the Humanities
through the EVIST (Ethical Values in Science and Technology) Program. (Of course, they are not
responsible for the contents.)
Special thanks are due Dr. Kenneth Kipnis of the University of Hawaii Philosophy
Department, whose constructive criticisms and suggestions resulted in an improved final version
of the first edition.
Another patient reader of a preliminary draft of the first edition who helped filter out errors
and unclear passages was my father, Julius I. Unger, to whom this book is dedicated.
I shall not attempt to name all those who contributed to my thinking in this area; the list would
simply be too long. But key associates were Mal Benjamin, Walter Elden, Toni Robbi, Joe Wujek,
and Victor Zourides.
Collectively, my colleagues on the IEEE Committee (later Society) on Social Implications of
Technology constitute one important group.
The members of my Technology and Society classes at Columbia University, over a period of
about two decades, constitute another.
 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH OF THE AUTHOR

Emeritus Professor of Computer Science and Electrical Engineering, Stephen H. Unger taught
at Columbia University from 1961 through 2005.
He is a graduate of the Polytechnic Institute of Brooklyn and received his doctorate at MIT.
Prior to coming to Columbia, he was a Member of the Technical Staff of the Bell Telephone
Laboratories for about 5 years, doing research in digital systems, and later heading a development
group working on a compiler for the first electronic telephone switching system.
Dr. Unger was a summer and/or sabbatical-year employee of GE, IBM, RCA Laboratories,
the Western Electric Research Center, and Bell Laboratories, as well as a consultant for several
organizations.
He published many technical papers and reports on computer-related subjects, as well as two
books, Asynchronous Sequential Switching Circuits, and The Essence of Logic Circuits. He was
awarded one patent.
For over 45 years, Professor Unger was active in the area of technology policy, writing and
speaking on such topics as engineering ethics, secrecy, energy, and war:

• He taught courses on technology and society.

• He was a founder, and later president, of the IEEE Society on Social Implications of
Technology and, for decades, was an active member of its governing body.
• He was a member of the IEEE-USAB Ethics Committee, played a principal role in the
development of the original IEEE Ethics Code, and also participated in the 1990 revision
process.
• He investigated many cases of engineers jeopardized as a result of conscientious behavior
and was involved for many years in developing methods for supporting such individuals.
Dr. Unger was a member of the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility,
chairing a subcommittee on national security and scientific information.
He has testified publicly on this topic before several bodies.
He is a Guggenheim Fellow (1967), a Fellow of the IEEE, and a Fellow of the AAAS, and
received the IEEE-USAB Distinguished Contributions to Engineering Professionalism Award for
1987.
CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION

1.1 AN ENGINEER’S DILEMMA

Consider the following actual incident:

An engineer is given the task of taking periodic samples of the effluent from a small chemical
company’s outfall pipe to a river in order to meet the requirements of an EPA discharge permit.
The sampling location was selected by a representative of the state health department.
The sampling program consistently indicates a pollution rate well within the allowable limits.
Surprised at this, the engineer investigates and discovers that the sampling site has been incorrectly
chosen: the main discharge is through a deep pipe not visible from the surface. Revealing the
existence of the over-looked pipe could expose the company (the engineer’s client) to a major
expense in order to lower the actual pollution rate to within the limits of the discharge permit.
Since the sampling site was actually chosen by the health department, the engineer would be in no
legal jeopardy if he remained silent.
Although the law provides no guidance in this situation, even a superficial consideration of
professional responsibility suggests that the engineer should inform the company of his discovery.
Since most managers would not want to pollute the environment, the likely result would be that Succumbs - to
the appropriate officials would be notified of the error and that steps would be taken to reduce the stop fighting
against
actual effluent rate. But suppose that a less scrupulous management succumbs to temptation and something
decides to derive a short-term advantage by remaining silent about the error and ordering the Scrupulous -
engineer to continue obtaining and reporting the defective data. (In a still more unsavory scenario, Careful to do
what is right or
we might imagine that the site selection error was not fortuitous.) Now the engineer’s professional Honest.
obligation to protect the well-being of the community, as well as to shun participation in Shun - To avoid
deceptions, conflicts with another obligation: to serve as a faithful agent of his client. Since most Somebody/Som
ething
systems of ethics generally assign higher priorities to the first two points, and since there may be
Deception -
a real question as to where the best interests of the client actually lie in this situation, the ethical Making somebody
choice is still not too difficult. Few would argue that a client (or employer) may legitimately believe or being
made to believe
require an engineer to deceive others or to acquiesce in an improper degradation of the something that is
environment. not true.

As a practical matter, however, the immediate consequences to the engineer must be Acquiesce - To
considered. Consultants who contravene the direct instructions of their clients, for whatever accept something
without argument,
reasons, may lose not only those clients but others as well. If the engineer in our example had been although you may
not agree with it
an employee of the chemical company, the possible consequences of such adherence to ethical
standards would have been even more severe. They could involve loss of pay increases and Contravene - To
break a law or a
possibilities for promotion, discharge, and even blacklisting. No treatment of engineering ethics rule.
would be complete without a thorough discussion of this type of conflict. Indeed this is one of the
central themes of this book. Specific cases are presented in later chapters and then remedies are
considered in some detail. At this point it will suffice simply to outline the general problem and
some possible solutions.

1.2 THE RIGHT TO BE AN ETHICAL ENGINEER

When professionals are in independent practice, serving many individual, relatively

unsophisticated clients, as is the case for many lawyers and for most physicians and dentists, the
ethics problem is mainly to formulate codes that help define ethical practices and to develop
procedures for educating and inducing practitioners to adhere to such practices. Such
professionals, because their incomes are derived from a multiplicity of independent sources, are
seldom subject to major economic penalties for ethical behavior. But for those professionals who
normally serve as employees, or who have a relatively small clientele, such as journalists, nurses,
or engineers, there is the added problem of devising means to secure their rights to behave ethically
where this entails behavior in specific instances that their employers or important clients object to.
The existence of such safeguards would certainly have made it easier for the engineer in the
opening example to follow the dictates of his conscience.
Several sources of support for the ethical engineer are considered in subsequent chapters. One
is based on our legal system. Various proposals have been made, and some implemented, that
directly or indirectly would use the law to shield engineers against retaliation for responsible
behavior in the public interest. For example, firing an engineer on grounds stemming from an act
clearly dictated by a recognized code of engineering ethics might be made grounds for civil action
against the employer. A second approach is through mechanisms within the organization for giving
a meaningful hearing to engineers with concerns about the organization’s decisions or policies.
Both private corporations and public agencies have been experimenting along these lines.
Finally, there are a number of ways that engineering societies can help create an atmosphere
more conducive to the ethical practice of engineering. These include investigating and reporting
on specific cases, providing legal assistance when appropriate, encouraging employers to adopt
procedures as above, developing and encouraging passage of helpful laws, and giving awards to
engineers who set outstanding examples of ethical behavior under difficult circumstances.
Although there are real problems associated with the involvement of engineering societies in this
arena, they are by no means unsolvable, and the potential for effective action is very substantial.

1.3 AN OVERVIEW OF TECHNOLOGY

All of the above general approaches are useful and important; none by itself is likely to be
adequate to solve the problem, the importance of which is closely linked to the significance of
technology to humanity.
The word technology has many definitions. In this book it refers to the intelligent organization
and manipulation of materials for useful purposes. Primitive examples include pottery, paper, and
plows. At the other extreme are science-based devices such as microcomputers, radio telescopes,
and jet airliners.
Lower-order primates may throw stones in combat, and beavers build dams to alter the local
environment in their favor. But these and most other examples of the use of what might be thought
of as “technology” by non-human species are clear instances of instinctual or preprogrammed
forms of behavior. There is scant evidence of a significant ability to innovate and to pass on to
other individuals or to future generations a growing body of useful techniques. At best, an
extremely slow evolutionary process may lead to today’s beaver building a slightly better dam
than was built by its forbearers a million years ago.
In the case of humans, however, not only do individuals have the capacity to improvise new
ways of doing things, but the species as a whole has the ability, through the spoken and written
word, to promulgate such ideas among the current generation and, even more important, can pass
them forward to future generations, who can elaborate and extend them. These abilities made
possible the enormous accumulation of knowledge and technological skill that characterizes
human history and that provides the infrastructure on which all other human achievements depend.
What kind of music, literature, or theater would be possible if people were engaged in a primitive,
day-to-day struggle for marginal survival?
The development and utilization of technology is thus an integral part of our species’ nature.
Whether this is good or bad is, in a sense, a pointless question, since to postulate humanity without
technology is to postulate the existence of a new species. Asking whether individual members of
such a species would be better off than humans is analogous to asking whether bears are happier
than rabbits.
A more significant topic is the extent to which our technological ability can be directed. If it
is controllable, how and by whom should control be exercised? Certainly the past use of technology
has profoundly altered the conditions of human existence over the centuries. Whether the results
have been beneficial to individuals is a complex and perhaps an ill-defined question: What
individuals are we talking about? How is individual happiness to be measured? How do we average
it over groups of people?
In a crude sense the question may not be so hard. It is unlikely that many citizens of a
developed country today, given a reasonable picture of human existence a thousand years ago,
would choose to live in that period, subject to famine, disease, and drudgery and deprived of the
comforts, conveniences, and variety of modem life. But technological ability is not without
drawbacks. Large-scale projects serving useful ends, such as dams, bridges, and wide-bodied jet
airliners have, when flawed, led to catastrophic accidents. Apparently beneficial enterprises have
produced unforeseen physical problems such as environmental damage and the destruction or
depletion of resources, as well as social problems such as job displacement or loss of privacy. War
technology has advanced to the point where the very existence of our civilization is in jeopardy.
One group of critics argues that technology has a momentum of its own and that increasingly
pernicious effects are inevitable. Some of them claim that disaster can be avoided only if we can
halt or perhaps even reverse technological progress, whereas the rest feel that since this cannot be
done, we are doomed.
Another group agrees that technology is on a fixed track but is convinced that there are built-
in processes that will generate satisfactory solutions to the problems referred to above. Hence we
need only exploit each innovation that is technologically feasible and everything will work out for
the best.
A third group believes that, although the laws of nature impose constraints on what is possible,
there is much flexibility with respect to the directions that technology can take. Choices can be
made among alternative paths, and these choices are often of great significance. It follows that the
processes by which these choices are made, whether implicit or explicit, should be carefully
examined and efforts made to improve them.
This last premise, along with the added assumption that it is possible for us to enjoy great
benefits from technology without incurring excessive human and environmental costs, represents
my own view and underlies much of what follows.

1.4 THE ENGINEER AND THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS

Real-world decision making in the technological arena must often be based on vague,
inaccurate data, incomplete knowledge, uncertain probability estimates, and controversial value
judgments. Although this is particularly true for large projects, it often applies even to relatively
small undertakings. There are no simple algorithms for making such choices.
 Furthermore, many different kinds of people have significant influence on the decisions. They
can include the general public acting through the marketplace and the political arena, politicians,
government officials, lawyers and judges, investors, officers and managers of corporations,
military officers, scientists, and engineers. Although the emphasis here is on engineers (the term
as used here includes applied scientists), it should be clearly understood that the other groups
mentioned are very important factors in deciding how technology is to be used and have in the past
often merited major blame for disastrous blunders.
Engineers, however, do play a pivotal role. By virtue of education and experience, engineers
are better equipped than most people to foresee and appreciate problems as well as to identify and
assess alternatives. This is true even when they are not professionally involved in the projects at
issue. Those engineers professionally engaged in a technology-based enterprise bear a very special
burden. First, in the course of their work, they may be making, or influencing those who make,
many decisions, large and small, that together determine critical aspects of the final product.
Furthermore, it is the engineer on the job who is likely to be the first to realize that some-thing has
gone wrong. This latter point is often crucial, since the cost of rectifying serious errors generally
increases steeply with time, which, in turn, reduces the chances that corrective measures will
actually be taken.
Given the power of modern technology, the consequences of wrong choices or errors in
execution can be massive in terms of damage to the environment and the loss of life, liberty, and
property. The responsible practice of engineering is a vital element in preventing such mistakes—
a necessary, though not sufficient, condition for humanity to best utilize its marvelous
technological capabilities.
It should not be inferred from the above that a dictatorship of the engineer—technocracy—is
being advocated. Far from it. As proposed here, professional responsibility in engineering means
that, in the course of their work, engineers should:

• Consider social and environmental consequences, not allowing their professional

judgments regarding these to be overruled arbitrarily
• Not commit their engineering skills to projects whose purposes they regard as pernicious
• Make available information relevant to the public interest (under conditions to be discussed
in subsequent chapters)

These obligations are individual, not collective. There is no suggestion that engineers as a
group should determine whether the goals of particular pro-jects are on balance positive, although
they probably ought to exchange ideas on such matters. On the one hand, if a few engineers
indicate that they would not, on moral grounds, work on a certain project, this would not by itself
be decisive, although their arguments ought to be considered seriously by the others involved in
deciding whether to proceed. On the other hand, given the diversity of values held by engineers,
the number of instances where such refusals are sufficiently widespread as to impede seriously the
possibility of implementing the project is likely to be very small. In such cases, one would expect
many, if not most, other informed decision makers, and perhaps the general public as well, to share
the concerns of the engineers, once these have been made clear.
With respect to initiating projects, engineers may make proposals to be evaluated by other
engineers, as well as by others, and, as indicated above, acceptance depends on the concurrence of
a number of other groups.
 Hence the concept of engineering responsibility is perfectly compatible with the democratic
process and, in effect, defines the engineer’s special role in that process. Similar concepts could
be and have been enunciated for other categories of people, such as managers, lawyers, journalists,
and politicians.
In addition to the obligations to the public discussed above, engineers also have ethical
responsibilities to employers and clients, colleagues, co-workers and subordinates, and to the
profession as a whole. For the most part these are relatively noncontroversial, except for questions
of priority. Where constraints on competition are implied, questions of legality become germane.
Engineering ethics is discussed at length in Chapter 4.
In order to illustrate the importance of this subject, some important cases of engineers under
stress are presented, in Chapter 2, and the results of misusing technology are underscored by the
episodes described in Chapter 3. However, before launching into a study of how technology can
be misused, let us consider some examples illustrating the brighter side.

1.5 DOING IT RIGHT

Well-designed systems actually do exist, and significant projects have met their objectives on
time and within budget. Several are mentioned below, and then two more are discussed in a bit
more detail.
The Douglas DC-3, initially flown in the early 1930s, was one of the first commercial airliners.
After years of successful use by civilian airlines, tens of thousands of these planes (under the name
Dakota) were used as military transports during World War II. Pilots remember them fondly as
being rugged, reliable aircraft. Perhaps the best evidence of the quality of this product is the fact
that DC-3s are still flying in various parts of the world.
In an era when military projects were characterized by cost overruns, schedule slippages, and
failures to meet specifications, the Navy’s Polaris submarine project, was an outstanding
exception. Under the direction of Captain (later Rear Admiral) Hyman Rickover, the first nuclear-
powered submarine was designed and built, along with a nuclear-tipped missile that could be
launched while the vessel was submerged. This system, and its successors, served as the principal
second-strike deterrent force of the United States. Fortunately, there has been no occasion for
verifying how well the missile would work under actual wartime conditions, but it did pass the
benchmark tests fairly well, and the submarines themselves have been operating reliably for many
years. The original project was completed on schedule without exceeding the budget.
Another successful weapons project—perhaps the most important of all—is the Manhattan
Project, which produced the first atomic bombs. (Most people would probably concur with my
view that a better outcome for humanity would have been a conclusive demonstration that such
weapons could not be constructed. But, from a strictly technical viewpoint, it must be scored as an
outstanding achievement.)
Other successful systems and products include the Model-T Ford, the Boeing-747, the
Brooklyn Bridge, the IBM-360 family of computers, the telephone network developed by the Bell
System, the Panama Canal, and the Shinkansen. Let us look more closely at the last two of these.

The Panama Canal

The political preliminaries to the construction of the Panama Canal by the U.S. government
were of a rather unsavory nature. Gunboat diplomacy is the applicable term—literally, not
metaphorically. After the project was under way, there is much to criticize about the way that the
workers, particularly the black Caribbean laborers, were treated. But from an engineering point of
view, this was a splendid achievement.
Constructing a canal across the isthmus of Panama was a truly formidable challenge. A
magnificent earlier effort by a French company was defeated by a combination of tropical diseases,
dense jungle, and difficult terrain. Torrential rains, blistering heat, and poisonous snakes
compounded the problem. After the U.S. government took over in 1904, the chief engineers,
principally John Stevens and then George Goethals, displayed great organizational ability,
resourcefulness, and strength of character in managing this enormous project.
Before getting down to serious work on the canal itself, it was necessary to do something
about the problem of mosquito-transmitted disease (yellow fever and malaria), to construct
adequate facilities for workers and equipment, and to build a railroad to carry not only workers
and supplies but also to remove the enormous quantities of dirt and rock to be excavated.
Dr. William Gorgas had the responsibility for the first of these tasks—the most difficult one.
He brought to bear on it the latest in medical and biological knowledge. In 18 months his mosquito
eradication program had eliminated yellow fever altogether and reduced malaria to a relatively
minor problem. This was achieved by identifying the specific species of mosquito that carried each
of these diseases (there are more than 2500 different species of mosquito), studying their life
cycles, and then using this knowledge to attack them with precision and vigor.
The actual digging of the canal was a prodigious feat of civil engineering that entailed the use
of many new and huge machines, along with a sophisticated railway system for hauling away the
overburden. Repeated landslides greatly exacerbated the difficulties. The quantity of material that
had to be excavated—2 x 108—staggers the imagination. Civil engineers were also confronted
with the tasks of building huge dams and then locks capable of raising and lowering the largest
ships then in existence or contemplated. They had to develop new varieties of concrete and new
ways of using concrete in structures of unprecedented size. Their solutions were eminently
successful.
Designing the enormous lock gates and the mechanism for controlling them was the task of
mechanical and electrical engineers. Here too the problems were great. The latest ideas in
metallurgy, roller bearings, electric motors, electrical controls, and the like were deployed with
great skill in solving them. Those principally responsible were Harry Hodges, Edward Schildhauer,
and Henry Goldmark. Fail-safe electrical control mechanisms were developed, mainly by
Schildhauer, that have been successful to this day in preventing accidents due to the incorrect
sequencing of operations. The major manufacturer involved was the then young General Electric
Company, whose reputation was greatly enhanced by its very competent performance on this
project.
From the time of its opening in 1914, the Panama Canal fully met its design objective as a
shorter shipping route between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans. All of its subsystems worked
smoothly, beginning with the very first passage through it. They still operate as originally
conceived. Except for the largest tankers and bulk carriers, the canal continues to be a valuable
shipping route.
Despite certain unanticipated problems such as the continuing landslides, the project was
completed over 6 months ahead of schedule. The total cost to the U.S. government was about $300
million (in addition to $40 million paid to the French company for its earlier work, and $10 million
paid to Panama). Amazingly, this was $23 million less than the estimate made in 1907, when the
main work was just beginning. (The French company went bankrupt after spending about $290
million.) No credible evidence has ever emerged of any significant instances of corruption, fraud,
or profiteering during the American phase of this gigantic enterprise.
A less favorable element is the loss of over 5600 lives due to accidents and disease over the
10-year American period. (An average of roughly 40,000 people were employed at any one time.)
While this toll would probably be considered unacceptable today, it was not regarded as excessive
by prevailing standards at the time. About 20,000 people died in the course of the earlier French
effort.

The Shinkansen

In April 1957, on the occasion of the fiftieth anniversary of the founding of the predecessor
of the Japanese Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI), a seminar was held at Yamaha Hall
in Tokyo entitled “Super Limited Express Train: the possibility of linking Tokyo to Osaka in three
hours.” The theme of this seminar had been in the thoughts of Japanese engineers since early in
the twentieth century. In fact some preliminary work on the right of way had been initiated in the
1930s, only to be interrupted by World War II.
Important work laying the foundation for the seminar had been done by many of the
approximately 100 engineers who, upon being demobilized in 1945 from the Japanese air force
and navy, had joined RTRI to work on high-speed railway systems. The idea of building a high-
speed railway was strongly supported by Takeshi Shinohara, the new director of RTRI, and by
Shinji Sogo, president of Japanese National Railways (JNR). The following year, authorization
was obtained for what was called the Tokaido Shinkansen Project, and construction began in 1959
on the 320-mile-long line. On October 1, 1964, the Tokyo to Osaka Shinkansen railway was
opened for commercial service.
This very substantial project must, by any measure, be considered a spectacular engineering
success story. The right of way was entirely new, with no grade crossings. It was necessary to
construct 66 tunnels and over 3100 bridges. All of the equipment was designed especially for the
Shinkansen. This included railway cars, locomotives, signaling systems, tracks, and switches.
Computers are used for train control (e.g., if speeds are excessive for conditions, then the
Automatic Train Control (ATC) will override the manual controls). Other computer systems are
used for traffic control and for scheduling. Top speeds were initially 210 km/h (about 125 mph).
The technology used, while state of the art, was not of a revolutionary nature. However, the
project was handled with unusual competence. The engineers were given great latitude to
implement their ideas. Management from the top down was fully supportive. Rather than patching
together bits and pieces of technology from numerous sources in an ad hoc manner, a broad
systems approach was taken.
From the outset, the real-world problems that the system would have to contend with were
given full consideration. Cold weather, rain, wind, snow, and earthquakes were considered, and
means for dealing with these problems were built into the system. Safety and reliability were given
the highest priority. Sophisticated test equipment was employed to ensure that various subsystems
worked properly and would be reliable under the anticipated heavy usage.
The system was built to be maintained. Provision was made for continuous monitoring of the
roadbed and of the rolling equipment. A special train was designed with apparatus to inspect the
track dynamically at speeds approaching those of the operating trains. A rigorous inspection
schedule was developed to ensure that all components of the system were kept up to standard.
 This careful approach resulted in a brilliant success. The Shinkansen worked beautifully from
the very beginning of its operations. The trains are fast and the ride is very smooth. Passenger
accommodations are generous, on-board facilities such as restrooms, dining rooms, and lounges
are clean and comfortable. On-board telephones are available. Schedules can be relied on—
average delays per train are of the order of 40 seconds.
Since the opening of the Tokaido line in 1964, three other Shinkansen lines have gone into
operation, bringing the total track length to about 1100 miles. Several generations of improved
trains have been developed, along with improvements in track technology. Maximum speeds on
the various lines range between 230 and 275 km/h. The newest model train (Series 400) was
successfully tested at 345 km/h. It is expected that 300 km/h will be achieved on a regular basis
throughout the system in the not distant future.
In addition to increasing speed, research and development work at RTRI continues on other
aspects. An important one is noise. A good deal has been achieved in reducing noise pollution.
One approach is by paying careful attention to the way in which noise is produced. This has led,
among other things, to improving the aerodynamics of the trains and paying careful attention to
the tracks and roadbed. Another approach is the use of trackside screening to shield populated
areas from train-generated sound.
Improving energy efficiency is another ongoing project. Although perhaps a third less
efficient than conventional, slower trains, the Shinkansen is already more efficient (on a per
passenger-mile basis) than buses by a modest amount and consumes energy at a rate of about one
fifth that of airplanes and automobiles. Improvements are still being made in motor efficiency, and
even better streamlining.
Other new features developed include liquid crystal window glass for light control and
automated on-board ticket checking. Shinkansen trains are wheelchair accessible.
Not surprisingly, the Shinkansen has been extremely popular. An average of 742 trains carry
about 759,000 passengers daily. By the end of 1992, over 3 billion people had been carried. The
advantages over air travel for trips of under 500 miles are obvious, as the Shinkansen takes
passengers directly from city to city reliably and comfortably. And safely! Perhaps the statistic
that Shinkansen’s developers are most proud of is one that is the easiest to understand and
remember. The number of Shinkansen passengers killed or injured after over 28 years of operation
is—zero! (The first death associated with the system occurred in November, 1992, when a 49-
year-old man ran onto the track in front of an oncoming train. Police called the death a suicide.)
This popularity is reflected in the fare box. Almost from its inception, the Tokaido line has
been a profitable enterprise. The same is true of those newer lines that serve well-populated areas.
Some lines are subsidized on the grounds that they are helping to develop outlying areas of the
nation.
The success of the Shinkansen doubtless played an important role in the development and
deployment of high-speed railways in other parts of the world, particularly Europe. A high-speed
rail line connecting Paris to Lyon (about 250 miles) was opened in 1981 by French National
Railways. The French trains, known as TGVs, are even faster than the Japanese trains, running at
top speeds in excess of 185 mph. (They hold the record for wheel and rail trains—an amazing
320.2 mph.) Additional lines have been built, and, in 1989, they carried an average of about 66,000
passengers daily. These trains too have not had any fatal accidents, they run on schedule, and they
are financially in the black. In 1991, the German ICE trains went into commercial service,
operating at top speeds comparable to those of the TGVs.
 Neither the Japanese nor the Europeans are content with existing railway technology. Major
work has been going on for a number of years to develop railways in which the trains float above
guideways on magnetic fields.
These maglev (magnetic levitation) trains can be propelled by linear induction motors at
speeds that are well in excess of what more conventional trains can achieve. The ride is even
smoother than that provided by the Shinkansen, since there is no contact with the ground.
 An Early Version of a Shinkansen Train
Photo Supplied by the Japanese Railways Group
1.6 SUMMARY

Engineers, particularly those who are employees, sometimes find that “doing the right thing”
may result in career damage. This can lead to behavior detrimental to society. Mechanisms for
helping ethical engineers in such situations can be based on professional engineering societies, on
improvements in our legal system, and on the adoption of procedures within employing
organizations for dealing with controversy. Ethical behavior by engineers is of considerable
importance because they significantly influence the direction and nature of technological
developments.
Technology, a basic human activity, can greatly benefit mankind, but, if misdirected, can also
do terrible damage. Responsible engineers should consider the consequences of their work, avoid
contributing their skills to pernicious ends, and help inform others about technology-based issues
so as to facilitate the democratic process. An outstanding example of a successful engineering
project was the construction of the Panama Canal. This enormously complex and difficult
enterprise was completed on schedule, within budget, and without corruption.

1.7 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Imagine a study being made in 1905 to predict the social implications of the automobile.
What might a really perceptive study have shown with respect to beneficial and harmful
consequences? How might such a study, if widely publicized, have influenced the development
and deployment of this technology?
2. List three products or engineering projects not mentioned here that you believe were (or
are) very successful. What are some factors that might account for such success?

1.8 SOURCES

The outfall pipe case is included in a collection of informally collected dilemmas faced by
consulting engineers compiled by L. Robert Smith (himself a consulting engineer) as part of the
National Project on Philosophy and Engineering Ethics.
Background on the history of technology can be found in Mumford’s comprehensive work
(1934), and a broad sampling of views on technology and society is in Burke and Eakins (1979).
A principal proponent of the pessimistic school of thought is Ellul (1965), and defenders of the
other pole include Starr (1980) and Florman (1976). What I regard as a more balanced position is
held by Winner (1979).
Definitions of technology are discussed by Sinclair (1980), and the importance of choosing
properly among technological alternatives is a major theme of Unger (1967). Ladenson et al.
(1980) have produced an excellent annotated bibliography of material related to professional ethics
and social responsibility in engineering. A very interesting, well written, wide ranging series of
short essays on engineering ethics has recently been made available in ebook form by an
experienced engineer, Karl Stephan (2015).
An interesting set of papers on the social responsibilities of scientists is in Brown (1971), and
material on the social responsibility of engineers is treated in Fruchtbaum (1972), Weil (1979),
Mock (1969), Bok (1979,1980), Brown (1971), ASCE(1975), and Unger (1976). A variety of
problems in the area of scientific and technological rights and responsibilities are discussed by
Edsall (1975). Interesting treatments of the direct roles of scientists and engineers in public affairs
can be found in the works of McCracken (1971) and Primack and von Hippel (1974). A pair of
books edited by Baum (1980a) and Flores (1980a) are very useful compilations of material relevant
to engineering ethics, and a more current collection is in Johnson (1991). Risks associated with
technology are treated in a collection of papers edited by Flores (1989).
The discussion of the Panama Canal is based on the work of McCullough (1977). General
information on the Shinkansen was obtained from various brochures supplied by the Japanese
Railways Group through the courtesy of Mr. Akiyoshi Yamamoto, deputy director of that
organization’s New York office. I am particularly indebted to Dr. Kainen Watanabe, executive
director of the RTRI, who answered in writing a number of my questions on the history of the
Shinkansen. A more general source on high-speed railways is the book by Vranich (1991).
References more specific to the subject matter of the various chapters are in the “Sources”
sections at the ends of the chapters.
CHAPTER TWO: ENGINEERS ON THE SPOT

2.1 THE GENERAL PICTURE

The great bulk of all engineers, certainly over 95 percent, are employees of various types of
organizations ranging from pharmaceutical laboratories to manufacturers of integrated circuits,
from universities to government agencies of all sizes and types. A very small number are self-
employed as independent consultants or as owner-operators of small businesses manufacturing a
special product or providing a particular service. Some of the special problems of independent
consultants are discussed in Section 2.12. The employee engineer, like any other employee,
normally takes orders from a boss. The problems of concern here arise when the boss makes
decisions that the engineer considers unethical, particularly when damage to the public health,
safety, or welfare is threatened. In such a situation, if normal discussion and argument fail to
resolve the matter (usually they succeed), the engineer is in a difficult situation, forced to choose
between loyalty to principle and loyalty to his or her organization or superior. More starkly put, it
is a question of conscience versus career. Usually the engineer stands alone, unsupported by any
formal coalition of colleagues. In some cases, the engineer’s immediate associates may be hostile
to the idea of their boat being rocked. As a group, engineers are badly cast as agitators. They tend
to be stable, hard-working people, quietly proud of their profession. Many, if not most, are totally
absorbed in their work, taking it for granted that good things will result from the often ingenious
solutions they develop for the problems posed to them. They are usually quite content (perhaps
too content) to leave to others the big decisions regarding the interfacing of their projects with the
world at large. It took instances of gross incompetence, perceptions of serious threats to human
life, or major assaults on the taxpayer’s wallet to produce the atypical acts reported on here. In
each case, it is clear that a quiet resignation would not have averted the anticipated ill effects. The
choice was either to go outside regular channels or to allow what they regarded as serious blunders
or misuses of technology to stand essentially unchallenged.
The first of these two choices, taking unorthodox action, is commonly referred to as whistle
blowing. Although it is now well established, I consider this an unfortunate term in that it may
suggest that what is generally a selfless, highly principled, courageous act by a conscientious
person is undignified, unprofessional, eccentric, or disloyal. The term organizational disobedience,
coined by James Otten, has somewhat better connotations. There may indeed be a sense in which
whistle blowing is disloyal to a particular manager or sometimes to an organization, but this form
of loyalty must be subordinated to higher loyalties, to one’s own principles, to one’s profession,
and to the general public. In a civilized society, loyalty to wrongdoers is not considered to be a
virtue but rather a betrayal of important values. Further discussion of the concept of whistle
blowing is presented in the concluding section of this chapter and in subsequent chapters. In most
of the cases discussed in this chapter, the engineers were concerned not about the desirability of
the end product but about how it was being produced. The situations depicted in Section 2.9 differ
in that the issues involved what was being produced. We begin with a “non” case.

2.2 THE DC-10 DISASTER:

RESULT OF SWALLOWING THE WHISTLE

 On June 27, 1972, Daniel Applegate, director of product engineering and the highest ranking
Convair engineer involved with the design of the fuselage of the DC-10, wrote in a memorandum
submitted to his supervisors: “It seems to me inevitable that, in the twenty years ahead of us, DC-
10 cargo doors will come open, and I would expect this to usually result in the loss of the airplane.”
(See Appendix A.2 for the full text of this memorandum.) Mr. Applegate was referring to a
problem that had very nearly caused a disaster just 15 days prior to the date of this memorandum
and that had been recognized at least as early as August 1969, when the DC-10 was still in the
design stage.
The cargo hold and the passenger cabin of the DC-10 are separated by the cabin floor, and
both compartments are pressurized to maintain normal atmospheric conditions at high altitudes.
Should either compartment suddenly be depressurized as a result of a large hole appearing in the
fuselage, the floor would be subjected to a very substantial force owing to the pressure differential
between the compartments. Because of the importance of minimizing weight, the floor is not
designed to sustain such forces and hence buckles when so stressed. This in itself, though it might
cause some injuries and would certainly be alarming, would not be catastrophic. However,
hydraulic control lines for the rear engine and the rear control surfaces all run through this floor,
so that the effect of severe buckling is a loss of control that would most probably result in a crash.
A large hole could occur in a number of ways. Some mentioned by Applegate are a midair
collision, explosion of combustibles in the hold, and sabotage. But the one greatest concern for the
DC-10, and the one Applegate’s memorandum was principally concerned with, was the opening
of a door in midflight, particularly one of the lower cargo doors.
These doors were designed, for structural reasons and reasons of convenience, to open
outward, so that at cruising altitudes very strong forces are trying to push them open. This makes
the door-latching mechanism of crucial importance. Only these latches keep the doors closed. The
door-closing mechanism, which must be operated from outside the plane by a baggage handler,
must be absolutely foolproof in its operation. Unfortunately, this was not the case. From the outset
it became evident that the design was inadequate. Proper operation was too sensitive to various
adjustments necessary during maintenance. It was quite possible for the baggage handler and the
flight crew to be convinced that a door was properly latched, when actually the lock pins were not
fully engaged. Should this be the case, then, when the plane reached a sufficient altitude, the
pressure differential would burst open the door.

Foresight

Precisely this happened on June 12, 1972, when an American Airlines DC-10 departing from
Detroit reached 12,000 feet over Windsor, Ontario. Two circumstances combined to avert a fatal
crash. One was purely fortuitous: The plane was very lightly loaded with only 67 people. The other
was the fact that Captain Bryce McCormick was the pilot.
While familiarizing himself with the DC-10, McCormick, a veteran flier, considered the
possibility of a failure of the hydraulic system that would deprive him of control of the tail engine
and control surfaces. Experimenting with a flight simulator, he learned how to handle the plane
with only the wing engines and control surfaces. Thus, when, with a loud bang, decompression of
the cargo hold occurred, the floor caved in and the controls to the rear jammed, Captain
McCormick was uniquely qualified, at least in theory, to cope with the situation.
But this extraordinary piece of foresight on his part would not have been enough without the
ability to think quickly and calmly under pressure. During the initial uncertain moments, when
most of his plane’s controls suddenly became inoperative and one false move on his part could
have put the plane irretrievably out of control, McCormick avoided precipitous action, correctly
appraised the situation and, using the techniques he had developed on the simulator, brought the
plane onto a level course. Then, after carefully experimenting with the remaining controls, he was
able to return to Detroit and, even more remarkably, to bring the disabled aircraft to a safe landing
by manipulating the two wing engines and the control surfaces on the wings. We have here a
splendid act blending dedicated professionalism, foresight, great technical skill, and cool courage
to avert violent deaths for 67 people. Captain McCormick should, in my opinion, have received
far more public acclaim than he did.
Even he, however, would, in the opinion of experts, have been unable to control the stricken
airplane if it had been loaded to near capacity. This dramatic near miss gave the various individuals
and organizations concerned an unusual stimulus and opportunity to correct past errors.

Band-Aids

Actually, the problem, recognized on paper as early as 1969, manifested itself in 1970 when
a pressure test, in a hangar, of the first DC-10 fuselage resulted in a cargo door opening and the
floor collapsing. A series of memorandums by engineers and conferences on the subject resulted
only in what Applegate referred to as “Band-Aid fixes” that actually further de-graded the safety
of the door-latching system. Although the solution to the more basic problem of differential
pressure on the two sides of the floor is simple, and was well understood—namely, installing vents
and/or blowout panels in the floor—it had not been implemented.
But Applegate’s memorandum, in which he urged Convair management to persuade
McDonnell Douglas, the plane’s manufacturer, to remedy the basic problems and thereby avoid a
disaster, was suppressed after consideration by Convair’s highest management. No effort was
made to follow his advice. Simultaneously, a “gentleman’s agreement” was reached between
Federal Aviation Agency (FAA) Director John Shaffer and Douglas Division President Jackson
McGowan that the FAA would not ground the DC-10 or even issue an airworthiness directive that,
with the force of law, would specifically compel the necessary design changes. In return Douglas
would, in some unspecified way, “fix” the airplane.
What followed were additional Band-Aid fixes, such as the installation of a one-inch-diameter
peephole window over the locking pins. And less than 2 years later, on March 3, 1974, when a
fully loaded Turkish Airlines DC-10 taking off from Paris reached an altitude of about 12,000 feet,
a cargo door burst open, the floor collapsed, and the uncontrollable aircraft plunged into a forest,
killing all 346 people on board. It was, at the time, the greatest air disaster in world history.

Dollars versus Lives

Why did it happen? Why, in a dynamic, forward-looking industry with an excellent record of
providing a safe, reliable product, were so many warnings about a well-understood and relatively
easily remedied hazard ignored? There are a number of answers, only a few of which are discussed
here. For a fuller account, the reader is referred elsewhere (see the Sources section at the end of
this chapter).
Apart from the usual reluctance of people to admit error, some very significant financial
factors were at work. First of all, the McDonnell Douglas Corporation was engaged in a desperate
race to get the DC-10 flying before its competition, the Lockheed Tri-Star. The belief seems to
have been that the market was insufficient to support both aircraft and that the first to be ready for
service would have a tremendous advantage. Since losing the race would thus entail a substantial
financial loss and since McDonnell Douglas was in a very precarious financial position, any delay
in getting the DC-10 into production was regarded as a threat to the very life of the company.
Convair, the subcontractor, was reluctant to call attention to the problem because their contract
with McDonnell Douglas was somewhat imprecise with respect to responsibility for the cost of
design changes. John Hurt, Convair’s general manager for the DC-10, in a memorandum
commenting on Applegate’s memorandum, wrote: “I am sure that Douglas would immediately
interpret such recommendation as a tacit admission on Convair’s part that the original concurrence
by Convair of the design philosophy was in error and that therefore Convair was liable for all
problems and corrections that have subsequently occurred.” The two’ companies were at that time
already arguing over who should pay the costs of earlier changes in the door-latching mechanism.
Millions of dollars were involved.
Even Applegate, in his memorandum, did not dwell on the human lives that would be lost in
the crash that he predicted. Rather he referred to accident liability claims with which Convair
would be faced. Did this reflect Applegate’s own ranking of priorities—dollars over people? Or
did he feel that only financial considerations would carry weight with Convair’s upper
management?
In short, concerns over money and corporate health induced the managements of the two
companies to overrule judgments expressed by their engineers that the DC-10 had design flaws
that endangered human life. The engineers pressed the matter through normal channels within the
two companies—Applegate was by no means the only one to urge remedial action. Indeed it
reached top management levels. There is in this case no indication of a serious dispute over the
technical issues—how could there be after the 1970 and 1972 incidents! But when their
professional judgments on this matter involving public safety were contravened by managers on
nontechnical grounds, neither Applegate nor any of his colleagues took the matter any further. Nor
did any of them, as far as is known, withdraw from the project.
Before criticizing them too harshly for what, according to engineering ethics codes, might be
considered unethical behavior, one must consider the likely penalties in terms of career and
economic damage that would have befallen any of them who had taken further action. What was
required was heroic behavior and, unfortunately for the 346 mangled victims of the Paris crash
and their surviving families and friends, the heroism displayed in one form by Bryce McCormick
was not matched by any of the Convair or McDonnell Douglas engineers in their own realm.
However, as is illustrated in the succeeding sections and chapters, the ranks of the engineering
profession are by no means devoid of heroes.

2.3 THE BART CASE

The following account of the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) case originally appeared in the
September 1973 Newsletter of the IEEE Committee on Social Implications of Technology (CSIT)
and was subsequently reprinted in several other places.
There has been an upsurge of discussion recently about the status of engineering as a
profession, the obligations of the engineer toward the public, and the relationship of the engineer
to his employer. Some very important facets of these questions are illuminated by the fate of three
engineers employed by Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART).
 A few words about the structure of BART will be useful as a back-ground. (The recent series
by Gordon Friedlander (2) constitutes a excellent description of the overall project.) BART is a
fast (80 mph top speed) modern rail transit system, with 34 stations and 75 miles of track, serving
the counties of San Francisco, Alameda, and Contra Costa. Ownership and control are vested in
the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BARTD), created by public statute in 1957 and governed by
a 12-person Board of Directors, four from each county. It is financed by public funds.
Construction began about 1963 and the overall cost is now estimated at about 1.5 x 109 dollars
(1). Partial revenue service commenced, between Oakland and Fremont, on September 11, 1972,
almost three years behind schedule (1).
A consortium of three engineering firms, referred to as Parsons, Brinkerhoff-Tudor-Bechtel
(PBTB), was retained by BART to direct and engineer the construction of the system. They in turn
contracted out various phases of the operation to other firms. In particular Westinghouse Electric
Corporation, on the basis of competitive bidding, was awarded (in 1967) a $26 million contract to
design, install, and operationally qualify the Automated Train Control (ATC) System (1).
BART itself has an engineering staff whose functions include system maintenance and
operation, surveillance and status checking of construction, approval of design changes, and
general investigation of problem situations.
The following account is based on a collection of over 40 documents including letters, memos,
newspaper articles, and reports, ranging in length from a few paragraphs to over 100 pages. These
were acquired principally through correspondence. Because it was not feasible to interview the
participants (even by phone), certain details have not been clarified. However, these are not
important enough to affect the overall picture that emerges. The same is true for a few pieces of
information that were given to the writer in confidence; these only serve to reinforce the
impressions created by other information.

THE EVENTS

Holger Hjortsvang, a systems engineer in the BART Maintenance Section since 1966, and a
senior member of IEEE, was involved with the ATC system. He became, over a period of years,
increasingly concerned with the way the development of this system was progressing. He felt that
BART had no internal structure adequate to monitor this phase of the project, relying instead on
PBTB, who were also not set up to oversee this task (3). In part as a result of his having been sent
to work for ten months with the Westinghouse Computer Systems group responsible for ATC,
Hjortsvang had grave doubts about the success of this phase of the project (4,5). He expressed
these concerns to his superiors both orally and in a series of five written memorandums dating
back as far as April 1969 (7). In one of these reports criticizing the ATC system, he predicted a
mean time between failures (each stopping a train) of three and a half hours when the system was
in full operation (4,5). There was no significant response from his management.
Max Blankenzee, a programmer analyst working with Hjortsvang since 1971, had a similar
experience. His memos to his superiors criticizing various aspects of the ATC development drew
only vague verbal responses and warnings not to become a “troublemaker” (5,7).
Meanwhile, in BART’s Construction Section, Robert Bruder, an electrical engineer
monitoring various phases of the project since 1969, was growing increasingly disturbed about the
“unprofessional” manner in which the installation and testing of control and communications
equipment was being supervised by both BART and PBTB, as well as the obviously unrealistic
opening dates being released to the public. His management was also not responsive to his
expressed concerns (6).
Toward the end of 1971 the three engineers decided that in the public interest they must take
steps to have their concerns dealt with seriously. Accordingly they made contact with Daniel Helix,
a member of the BART Board of Directors, told him about the problems they were encountering,
and gave him some written material. Mr. Helix expressed interest and was persuaded that action
was needed. He conferred with two other board members and gave copies of a report on the subject
to the entire board and the top management of BART (4-7).
The next step (and the elapsed time here is not clear) was the release to the press by Mr. Helix
of the news of the controversy (7-9). This was followed by a public meeting on February 24 (or
February 25) of the BART board at which presentations were made by Edward Burfine, a
consulting engineer engaged by either Helix or the three engineers (possibly both— another
unclear point) to present the criticisms of the handling of the ATC development, and by
representatives of PBTB and Westinghouse in defense of their approach (4,7). The board voted
ten to two (one source said eight to two) in support of BART’s management, in effect rejecting the
criticisms.
Apparently the identities of the three who initiated the controversy had not been made public,
and BART’s management now proceeded to identify them (6,9). On March 3, Hjortsvang,
Blankenzee, and Bruder were given the options of resigning or being fired. Upon refusing to resign,
they were summarily dismissed with no written reasons being given (5-7,9).
On February 23 (just prior to the public meeting of the board) Bruder, a member of the
California Society of Professional Engineers, telephoned CSPE President William F. Jones,
outlined the situation as it then stood, and asked for support. Mr. Jones immediately contacted the
Diablo Chapter of CSPE (to which Bruder belonged) and, along with the leaders of that chapter,
initiated a thorough study of the situation. Subsequent to the discharge of the three engineers, Jones
(on March 13) attempted to reach B. R. Stokes, BART’s general manager. (All accounts attribute
the firings to Stokes’ initiative.) Jones was never able to reach Stokes. He did speak to Chief
Engineer David Hammond, who expressed surprise that CSPE should be interested in the situation.
BART’s top management declined to meet with CSPE (112).
Requests by the fired engineers for hearings on their case, or even for written statements of
the charges justifying their dismissals, met with no response, and in fact BART has refused to issue
any explanation to anyone (6,7, 9-12). (Of three letters of inquiry I wrote to various BART
manager— including Stokes—who were involved in the case, only one reply has been received.
This was a refusal by Blankenzee’s supervisor to provide any explanation, on the grounds of
pending legal action (13).)
A full investigation of the firings, the conduct of the three engineers, and the substance of
their concerns about the BART project was then undertaken by CSPE. President Jones stated (10)
that he and other CSPE members (Gilbert A. Verdugo, state director Diablo Chapter CSPE, and
Roy W. Anderson, chairman of CSPE’s Transportation Safety Committee, also played major roles)
involved in the case were “convinced that the three engineers acted in the best interest of the public
welfare in disclosing to the BART Board of Directors problems regarding train control, systems
management, and contractual procedures. “He also stated that “a large volume of most distressing
information on the employment practices of BART, and on its apparent disregard for public safety,
has been gathered.”
On June 19,1972, a report of CSPE’s findings authored by Roy Anderson and entitled “The
BART Inquiry” was submitted to the California State Senate. At about the same time, the Diablo
Chapter of CSPE circulated a public petition calling for a wide-ranging investigation of BART by
the state legislature (a number of specific charges were made, but the case of the fired engineers,
and employment practices in general were not mentioned) (9). CSPE also took some tentative steps
toward a court action on behalf of the fired three, but never did follow through on this (9).
The state legislature did investigate, producing what is known as the Post Report (1). It
acknowledges the CSPE report as its starting point. Several instances of mismanagement of the
project are pointed out, although no mention is made of employment practices or of the three men
whose initial warnings led directly to the Legislature’s investigation. The Post Report (1), a further
study by a special panel of distinguished engineers (14), and several other independent studies all
confirmed, in general outline, the concerns expressed by Bruder, Hjortsvang, and Blankenzee.
A great deal of information pointing to poor engineering design was uncovered.
A more dramatic confirmation occurred on October 2, 1972, when a BART train overran the
station at Fremont as a result of an ATC failure and several passengers were injured (2). This
occurred just three weeks after the initiation of partial revenue service.
At this writing, the BART ATC is still under a cloud, with the trains being controlled
ultimately in the traditional manner (2). The three engineers are now suing BART for damages
totaling $885,000. They charge breach of contract and deprivation of constitutional rights.
Blankenzee also charged that BART officials intervened on several occasions to discourage
prospective employers from hiring him on the grounds that he was a “troublemaker” (15).

COMMENTS AND CONCLUSIONS

The code of ethics of the NSPE states that the engineer “will regard his duty to the public
welfare as paramount” and that “he will notify the proper authority of any observed conditions
which endanger public safety and health.” The Employment Guidelines approved by many
engineering societies, including IEEE, and published in the May 1973 issue of Spectrum are also
highly relevant.1 The facts related above indicate that Hjortsvang, Blankenzee, and Bruder acted
in a manner fully consistent with the letter and spirit of this code and guidelines, a conclusion also
attested to by the CSPE. There is no indication that they did anything in this situation that could
reasonably be called improper. When they felt it necessary to depart from normal administrative
channels, they addressed themselves to the BART Board of Directors, an action difficult to
interpret as irresponsible. (An interesting sidelight on the cautious approach of at least one of the
three was provided by reporter Justin Roberts of the Contra Costa Times (16). He stated that he
met Robert Bruder some months prior to the firings, and having heard, from other sources, of
trouble in BART, “attempted to pump him.” “He politely but firmly rebuffed my efforts.” Only
after the matter became public knowledge, did Bruder speak to the press.)
Dr. Willard H. Wattenburg, a consultant who looked into the matter, referred to Holger
Hjortsvang as “one very honest engineer” who was “ruthlessly sacrificed.”

1
Objective #3: The responsibility of the professional employee to safeguard the public interest must be
recognized and shared by the professional employee and employer alike.
Terms of employment #2: The professional employee should have due regard for the safety, life, and health of
the public and fellow employees in all work for which he/she is responsible. Where the technical adequacy of a
process or product is involved, he/she should protect the public and his/her employer withholding approval of plans
that do not meet accepted professional standards and by presenting clearly the consequences to be expected if
his/her professional judgment is not followed.
 Nevertheless, having performed an obvious public service in the highest tradition of
engineering, the considerable personal sacrifices of Blankenzee, Bruder, and Hjortsvang have been
largely ignored in the reports that subsequently validated their claims. Only the CSPE showed any
concern for them, and this group was apparently unable to take effective action on their behalf.
Unfortunately, the BART case is not a unique example of employed engineers being forced
to choose between compromising their ethics or seriously jeopardizing their careers. It is
imperative that the engineering profession develop institutional means for eliminating such
dilemmas. The working Group on Ethics of IEEE CSIT is now exploring proposals toward this
end and a progress report will appear in a future issue of CSIT Newsletter.

ACKNOWLEDGMENT

The author’s efforts to gather material on this subject were significantly facilitated by the
cooperation of Messrs. Gordon Friedlander (IEEE Spectrum), Gilbert Verdugo (CSPE), and Justin
Roberts (Contra Costa Times).

SOURCES AND REFERENCES

(1) A. A. Post, “Investigation of the operation of the Bay Area Rapid Transit District
with particular reference to safety and contract administration,” California State
Legislature, Nov. 9, 1972.
(2) G. Friedlander, Series of five articles on BART, IEEE Spectrum, Sept. 1972, Oct.
1972, Nov. 1972, Mar. 1973, Apr. 1973.
(3) H. Hjortsvang, “BART System Engineering,” memorandum to Director Daniel
Helix, Nov. 18, 1971.
(4) H. Hjortsvang, Memorandum to CSPE attorney, Mar. 7, 1972.
(5) J. Roberts, News article, Contra Costa Times,
Mar. 7, 1972, p. 1.
(6) R. Bruder, Letter to author, June 10, 1973.
(7) R. Vogt, News article, Contra Costa Times,
Mar. 8, 1972.
(8) H. Hjortsvang, Letter to author, June 26, 1973.
(9) “BART in Perspective,” Editorial, California Professional Engineer,
pp. 4-6, Mar.-Apr. 1973.
(10) W. F. Jones, “The BART Affair,” a printed document of the CSPE,
undated, received from Mr. Verdugo.
(11) “CSPE Action to Protect Engineering Employees,” a typed CSPE document,
undated, received from Mr. Verdugo.
(12) R. W. Anderson and G. A. Verdugo, “The BART Inquiry,” (Not the report to the
Senate referred to later), a typed CSPE draft, received from Mr. Verdugo.
(13) E. F. Wargin, BART Superintendent of Maintenance Engineering, Letter to author,
June 14, 1973.
(14) B. Oliver, C. Lovell, and W. Brobeck, “Report on Safety of the Bay Area Rapid
Transit Automatic Control System,” prepared for the State of California Senate
Public Utilities and Corporations Committee, Jan. 31, 1973.
(15) J. Roberts, News article, Contra Costa Times,
 May 20, 1973, p. 1.
(16) J. Roberts, Letter to author, May 25, 1973.
(17) W. Wattenburg, Letter to author, May 16, 1973.

Some fascinating insights into the quality of the engineering of BART’s automatic train
control system can be found in the letter (see Appendix A.3.1) by Bernard Oliver, a distinguished
engineer and former president of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE), who
served on a three-member panel of experts commissioned by the California State Senate to review
the system. After the expenditure of additional millions of dollars, the BART system now provides
very good service, though maintenance remains a problem.
Following the appearance of the above article, the BART case was discussed intensively
within the IEEE. In March of 1974, a two-part resolution was passed by CSIT, which called on
IEEE’s board of directors (BOD) to set up machinery to support engineers whose acts in
conformity with ethical principles may have placed them in jeopardy and, in the interim, to
intervene on behalf of the three BART engineers. The BART issue was also considered by the
Ethics and Employment Practices Committee (EEPC) of the IEEE U.S. Activities Committee. A
subcommittee appointed to consider the matter reviewed the file on which the CSIT article was
based. As a result of this review, the EEPC endorsed the CSIT position.
The Executive Committee of the BOD responded by appointing its own subcommittee to
consider the matter. This eventually led to the IEEE’s filing an amicus curiae brief (see Appendix
A.3.2) on behalf of the three engineers in their civil suit against BART. The brief deals not with
the facts of the case but with the broad ethical principles involved. The court was urged to rule that
an engineer’s employment contract includes an implied term that he or she will protect the public
safety and that discharging an engineer for adherence to this term should constitute a breach of
contract by the employer.
Shortly after the filing of this brief on January 9, 1975, BART offered the three engineers an
out-of-court settlement (reported to be $75,000). A combination of financial hardship and
uncertainty as to the outcome of a trial, the latter compounded by a weakness in their case (the
engineers had falsely denied to management that they were the instigators of Helix’s intervention),
induced the three to accept the settlement. An unfortunate consequence is that the opportunity to
establish a legal precedent based on the IEEE brief was thereby forfeited. The principle involved
was however taken further in the Grace Pierce case decided in 1980 (see Section 6.4).
Subsequent action by the IEEE related to the matter of general support in such cases is
discussed in Section 5.3. Suffice it to say here that, in addition to the direct benefits that accrued
to the public as a result of the alarm sounded by Hjortsvang, Bruder, and Blankenzee, their action
significantly advanced the cause of engineering ethics within the IEEE and other engineering
societies. In 1978 they jointly received the first IEEE CSIT Award for Outstanding Service in the
Public Interest, consisting of a certificate and $750 for each.

2.4 COMPUTERS AND POLICE CARS

The New York City Police Department has had in operation since the mid-1970s an on-line
computerized police car dispatching system called SPRINT. A dispatcher, upon receiving a
telephoned request for police assistance, enters the address to a computer via a remote terminal,
and the computer responds within seconds by displaying the street coordinates and the location of
the nearest patrol car. By cutting the response time to emergency calls, perhaps by a few minutes,
for each of hundreds of calls per day, SPRINT may be presumed to have saved lives and to have
improved police efficiency. As of 1977, the system had been operating successfully for several
years.
At that time, a project was well under way to install another computer system to aid law
enforcement. This system, called PROMIS, was to provide New York City prosecutors with on-
line information, again via remote terminals, pertaining to ongoing cases—names and addresses
of witnesses, hearing dates, and the like. This project was being managed by the Criminal Justice
Coordinating Council (CJCC), or Circle Project, a committee of high-level city officials including
the deputy mayor for criminal justice, the police commissioner, and, as chairman, Manhattan
District Attorney Robert Morgenthau.
The committee employed a computer specialist as project director and early in 1977 engaged
Virginia Edgerton, an experienced systems analyst, as senior information scientist to work under
his supervision. Both were technically listed as consultants, although in practice they were full-
time employees. No other computer experts were employed by the committee. In the spring of
1977, Edgerton learned that the PROMIS system was to be run on the same computer that hosted
SPRINT. Realizing the importance of a short response time for SPRINT, she expressed concern
about the effect of loading the computer with an additional task. When she found no indication
that the problem had been studied, she brought it to the attention of her superior. He disagreed with
her view and, without providing any technical basis, instructed her to drop the matter. Edgerton
then sought advice from the IEEE, and, after her supervisor rejected out of hand a memorandum
calling for a study of the overload problem, decided that the hazard to the public safety required
stronger action. She sent copies of a memorandum with a covering letter to the members of the
Circle Committee. Immediately following this, she was discharged by the project director on the
ground that she had, by communicating directly with the committee members, violated his orders.
He also stated that the issues she had raised were in fact under continuing discussion with the
police department computer staff.
 Virginia Edgerton, Photo by Gloria Aukland
Reprinted with permission from IEEE Impact
Copyright © 1979 IEEE
The case was then investigated by the Working Group on Ethics and Employment Practices of the
IEEE CSIT (I chaired the working group and the investigating committee—the other members
were R. Jeffrey Bogumil and Joseph S. Kaufman) and subsequently reviewed by the newly formed
IEEE Member Conduct Committee (the CSIT and MCC reports on this case are reproduced in
Appendix A.4). More is said about this process in a later chapter. At this point, suffice it to say
that both groups agreed that Virginia Edgerton’s actions were fully justified by the IEEE Code of
Ethics and that her treatment by her employer was unjustified. In 1979 she received the second
IEEE CSIT Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest.
Some additional facts and comments relative to this case are worth noting. First, the issue was
not whether the performance of the SPRINT system would in fact have been degraded by the added
load on the computer. Edgerton did not claim to know that this would happen. She was arguing
that a proper regard for the public safety dictated that the question should be carefully investigated.
A consultant brought in by CSIT to discuss the matter with her stated that questions of this kind
are not easily answered and that it seemed reasonable to him that a study be made. Although the
supervisor, and later another city official, claimed that the matter had been and continued to be
under study, they cited no reports and named no individuals who were doing the work. According
to Edgerton—and she was not contradicted by city officials when given the opportunity to do so—
the police department staff had no analysts qualified for such work.
But even the question of whether a study was required is not the ethical issue. The point is
that, in the judgment of a qualified professional, a study was called for in the interest of public
safety and that this judgment was peremptorily overruled by the manager. There was no hearing
of any kind and no technically qualified (or for that matter any) individuals were brought in to
listen to arguments, discuss the matter, and state their own views. On a matter of some importance,
in an area of her responsibility, a qualified professional was being asked to accept an arbitrary
ruling, given without justification and with no opportunity for appeal. Even in the DC-10 matter,
there was at least a written response to Applegate’s memorandum in which his superior stated why
Applegate’s recommendations were being rejected. (This is not to suggest that the response by
Hurt dealt adequately with the issues or justified rejecting Applegate’s recommendations.)
With respect to the technical issue involved, Edgerton’s action may indeed have averted
serious damage to the public interest. Although the precise reasons cannot be established, the fact
is that the city did not place the additional load on the computer running SPRINT. There was,
incidentally, no appeal process of any kind made available by the city to Edgerton. After her
discharge, she formed a small company selling data processing services.

2.5 LESS BANG FOR A BUCK—WASTE IN THE AIR FORCE

The situation outlined in this section does not involve the public safety, at least in the usually
understood sense, but rather the public purse. A. Ernest Fitzgerald, an industrial engineer employed
by the U.S. Air Force, found himself in trouble when he took seriously his job of seeing to it that
the taxpayers got what they were paying for.
A. Ernest Fitzgerald
 In September 1965, Fitzgerald, then president of a small, successful consulting firm that he
had helped found, accepted an appointment as deputy for management systems in the air force,
with a GS-17 classification. He had extensive experience in helping Defense Department
contractors cut and now was going to do a similar job on a wider scale as one of three deputies to
the assistant secretary of the air force for financial management.
Among the major projects that he was involved with were the Minuteman II and Minuteman
III missiles, the F-111 fighter-bomber, and the C-5A military transport plane. Fitzgerald found
widespread evidence that, public statements to the contrary, the Department of Defense (DOD)
was not interested in holding down weapons costs and in fact actively discouraged employees who
exposed the wasteful practices of suppliers.
Prices paid for military hardware were routinely inflated, he found, by bloated overhead costs,
abysmally low labor productivity rates, and the inefficient use of machinery. Contracts were
negotiated in such a way as to reward wasteful practices and penalize efficient operation.
The resulting weapons systems, apart from being overpriced, also failed to meet specifications
and were delivered well behind schedule. Instead of being penalized for this, the manufacturers
reaped additional profits as the DOD paid them additional fees to correct their own errors. Both
civilian and military contract monitors were, Fitzgerald found, acting more to protect the interests
of the companies than to see to it that the government received value for its money.
Initially awarded high ratings for his work, and even nominated for awards, Fitzgerald became
increasingly unpopular with his superiors and with many air force officers involved in military
procurement as he persisted in his war on waste. This process reached a climax in the fall of 1968
when, after learning of his views on the economics of weapons contracting, Senator William
Proxmire invited him to testify before the Joint Economic Committee of the Congress. During the
course of the hearing, when asked whether the C-5A project was going to exceed its budgeted cost
by $2 billion, a circumstance that the Pentagon was trying to cover up, Fitzgerald, as he later put
it, “committed truth,” confirming the cost overrun.
He immediately became a pariah in the Pentagon, shunned by associates and reassigned to
trivial tasks. At the request of Air Force Secretary Harold Brown, a memorandum was prepared
detailing several possible ways of circumventing civil service regulations to discharge Fitzgerald,
who had attained tenure status a few months earlier. An Air Force Special Investigations unit then
carried out a wide-ranging investigation of his personal life in an unsuccessful effort to find some
ground for action against him. During this time, Fitzgerald supplied further information and
interpretation to Congress through reports and testimony.
Finally, on November 4, 1969, in an “economy” move, the DOD carried out a one-man
“Reduction in Force” and discharged the source of their embarrassment. Attempting to return to
private consulting, Fitzgerald soon found that the kinds of companies that normally would seek
out his services were not willing to antagonize the Pentagon by engaging him. Even colleges were
unwilling to hire him.
In this case, however, the engineer was not so easily disposed of. He had support in Congress,
including Senator Proxmire and representatives from his home state of Alabama as well as his own
congressman in Virginia. As a result of his successful career prior to entering government, he was
in a relatively good financial position. Fitzgerald, a mature, able executive, handled himself very
well during the entire affair, impressing people with his common sense and good humor. A
fundamental asset was that events continually confirmed the accuracy of his assertions, particularly
as the troubles of the Lockheed C-5A continued to grow and it became impossible to avoid the
conclusion that, as Fitzgerald had warned, the plane was both a technical and a financial disaster.
Finally, the legal basis for the bureaucracy’s treatment of him was very dubious, even under the
rather weak laws and regulations intended to protect civil servants from arbitrary discharge.
With these assets, and with the aid of able attorneys donating their services, Fitzgerald fought
back. After a long series of battles at administrative appeal board hearings and in the courts over
a 4-year period, he won reinstatement in 1973. But this turned out to have been a hollow victory.
Although the Civil Service Commission had ruled that Fitzgerald’s discharge had been improper
and that he should be awarded back pay and returned to his old job, Pentagon officials found ways
to circumvent the ruling. He was reinstated to his former position, but then immediately demoted.
Several months of additional legal struggles were required before the air force agreed to a
settlement in which he received only part of the money owed to him.
Fitzgerald launched another series of lawsuits. The targets eventually included former
president Nixon and other White House officials as well as the Pentagon. Meanwhile, from his
position of reduced authority, Fitzgerald resumed his efforts to combat waste and corruption in the
military procurement area. Efforts by the Pentagon bureaucracy to discredit and intimidate him
also continued. For example, government agents sporadically shadowed him, and his secretary was
interrogated in another fruitless effort to “get something on him.”
The story is a fascinating one, involving many well-known individuals and organizations,
often taking unexpected positions. There were many painful disappointments along the way. Only
a few highlights can be sketched here. One key piece of evidence was a segment of a Watergate
tape in which the then-president Nixon, referring to Fitzgerald, is heard to say, “I said, get rid of
that son of a bitch.” Compromise settlements were reached in 1982, whereby Nixon paid Fitzgerald
about $140,000 and other defendants paid smaller amounts; $200,000 in legal fees were paid to
Fitzgerald’s attorney by the air force; and Fitzgerald was finally restored to his original job.
Although efforts to squelch him continued, and various presidential orders were promulgated
to impede the flow of information within and from the government, Fitzgerald continues to expose
corruption and incompetence in military procurement. For example, in the mid-80s, he and some
colleagues made public the outrageous prices that the Pentagon was paying for spare parts and
tools. Some sample prices are $286.75 for simple plastic toilet pans (used on the C-5A) paid to
Lockheed, and $8832 for a pulley puller (a simple tool that can be purchased over the counter for
less than $30) paid to General Dynamics for use on the F-16 fighter plane. Other investigations
that Fitzgerald made at the same time revealed egregious examples of poor quality control, for
example, in the production of the Phoenix 54-C missile produced by Hughes.
To this date, however, Fitzgerald continues to be regarded as a hostile force by the Pentagon
bureaucracy. His talent for exposing and remedying inefficiency in the arms industry evidently is
still not wanted by those who spend the taxpayers’ money for weapons. Occasionally he and a few
like-minded colleagues manage to shave a couple of hundred million dollars off some bloated
contract. But this is small change in relation to the huge sums involved.
Fitzgerald today continues to study, think about, write about, and lecture publicly on the
problems of waste and corruption in arms procurement. Although the most well-known Pentagon
opponent of such practices, he is by no means the only one. He credits a number of associates,
both in and out of uniform, as having made important contributions in this difficult struggle. In
addition, much of Fitzgerald’s information comes from those he refers to as “closet patriots,”
Pentagon employees who abhor what is going on, but who are not willing to take the punishment
that would be entailed in exposing it. He also serves as an unofficial adviser to other individuals
facing problems similar to his.
 Having served under six different presidents, Fitzgerald claims that the military procurement
situation has steadily deteriorated over the past quarter century. To illustrate this point he compares
the F-4 and F-22 fighter planes. These are of similar size and complexity. The F-4 cost the
government $2 million each in 1965. In 1990, the price for the F-22 was $100 million.
One can only marvel at the way in which Fitzgerald has persisted over the decades in his war
on corruption. He is obviously a strong-willed, highly principled, very able and independent-
minded man. But he is far from being a grim fanatic. To anyone who has heard Ernie Fitzgerald
tell about his adventures it is clear that he is has a lot of fun exposing, often in colorful language,
the incredible swindles perpetrated by those he calls (among other things) “The Pentagonists.” I
feel certain that his well-developed sense of humor has been a key factor in his durability.
Although Fitzgerald’s is the most spectacular story, involving billions of dollars, major
corporations, and key government figures, there are numerous other known cases similar to his in
many branches of government, involving a wide range of occupations of which engineering is only
one. And we can only guess at how many situations exist in which the dissenter is quietly
squelched, agrees to resign without making a fuss, or accepts a transfer to an innocuous position.

2.6 WELDING FAULTS IN A NUCLEAR REACTOR

Carl Houston, a mechanical engineer specializing in welding, was in trouble within a few days
after reporting for work at a nuclear power plant construction site in Surry, Virginia. Although
hired as a welding supervisor early in 1970, he was not given a specific assignment by the local
manager but was left free to inspect the operation on his own. He immediately found that welding
practices on the steel pipes that were to carry cooling water were substandard in a number of
respects. For example, the wrong kinds of electrodes were often used, and oven drying, required
for certain types of electrodes, was omitted. He found that many of the welders were not properly
qualified: Many were learning on the job. When Houston reported this to the manager, nothing
was done about it and he was told to take the matter no further. Reports to the head office of Stone
and Webster, his employer, had no effect, and within 2 months he was forced to resign.
Subsequently, Houston notified every organization involved in the enterprise about the
defective welding practices, including the reactor manufacturer, the purchaser (Virginia Electric
and Power Corporation, or VEPCO), and the Atomic Energy Commission (AEC). Obtaining no
significant responses, he then contacted the governor of Virginia, the Virginia Department of
Labor, and, finally, the two senators from his home state of Tennessee. The senators managed to
get the AEC to look into the situation and confirm a significant portion of Houston’s charges. This
led VEPCO to engage a consulting firm to investigate in detail. The investigators fully confirmed
the deficiencies Houston had pointed out. Ultimately, the AEC restricted the license of the Surry
plant to require triple the normal frequency of inspections over the lifetime of the equipment.
Houston, though technically vindicated, suffered severe financial losses owing to legal expenses
and extended unemployment, a consequence, he believes, of the reputation given him by Stone
and Webster.

2.7 CUTTING CORNERS:

THE THREE MILE ISLAND CLEANUP

The worst nuclear power plant accident in American history occurred on March 29, 1979,
when one of two nuclear reactors operated by General Public Utilities (GPU) at Three Mile Island
(TMI), Pennsylvania, underwent a partial meltdown. A massive cleanup effort was necessary to
stabilize the situation and prevent further leaks of radioactive material from the damaged facility.
This task was given to an organization involving both GPU Nuclear (a subsidiary of GPU, referred
to henceforth as GPUN) and the Bechtel Northern Corporation. Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC) personnel were also present on site to monitor operations.
The project was a difficult one, in part because of its nonroutine nature. Nobody had any
significant experience in dealing with the many unusual problems involved in dismantling the
highly radioactive components of the damaged plant. The estimated cost was in the hundreds of
millions of dollars, and the actual costs exceeded a billion dollars. Many hundreds of people were
involved, and by the end of 1992, the job had not yet been completed.
An important factor in the situation is that the Department of Energy agreed to contribute
financially to the cleanup by treating the various tasks involved as research projects. Funds were
supplied to Bechtel for each task, but only after completion of previous tasks. This gave Bechtel
an incentive to rush the work.

A Polar Crane Is Not an Arctic Bird

In 1982, Laurence P. King, Director of Site Operations for GPUN at the stricken TMI-2
reactor, began to experience difficulties on the cleanup job. He felt that a number of other high-
level managers, particularly Bechtel people, were not following NRC regulations and established
engineering procedures in carrying out various operations. This was being done, he felt, in a
misguided effort to meet unrealistic schedules.
A particularly serious problem concerned the polar crane, an important piece of equipment
used to move very heavy objects around within the plant. The crane had been damaged in the
original accident and was being reconditioned. Various parts, both electrical and mechanical, had
been replaced, some with components similar but not identical to the original parts. Certain other
modifications had been made, for example, some fuse ratings were changed.
Richard D. Parks, a senior startup engineer employed by Bechtel, was seconded as an
operations engineer to King’s Site Operations Department. His responsibilities included liaison
with NRC representatives and ensuring compliance with licensing requirements. He also served
as alternate startup and test manager for the plant. In November, 1982, King designated Parks as
his representative to the Head Lift Task Force (HLTF), the group involved with the polar crane.
Parks soon reported that all was not well. The HLTF was planning to begin using the plant’s
polar crane to lift various heavy components such as the 40-ton concrete missile shields and the
reactor head, which weighed about 150 tons. The problem was that the Bechtel team was not
following standard engineering procedures for testing the crane before using it. They were not
obtaining all of the certifications required by the rules under which the plant was licensed by the
NRC. Furthermore, they were making modifications detrimental to safety, some of which may not
have been documented at all. These were serious issues, since a crane failure resulting in the
dropping of a heavy object inside the plant could have catastrophic consequences—in the form of
releases of substantial amounts of radioactive material.
King received similar reports about the polar crane from another of his subordinates, plant
engineering director Edwin H. Gischel. Both King and Gischel had previously encountered other
problems at TMI. For example, some radioactive material had been found leaking into the
environment early in 1982. Gischel discovered that certain drains from filter cabinets had never
been closed off with drain plugs, as specified in the original plant design, but had been sealed with
adhesive tape instead. He immediately had proper drain plugs installed, stating later that, “The
incident left me shaken, however. I wondered how many similar oversights were lying dormant.”
With respect to the cleanup operation, there seemed to be a marked tendency to bypass the
administrative procedures that had been developed to ensure against mishaps. While strict
adherence to such procedures may seem to be a picayune matter, in a complex system such as a
nuclear power plant, seemingly minor errors can have drastic consequences.
King agreed with Parks and Gischel that the crane as a whole and its components should be
carefully tested before putting it into service. But when he tried to correct the situation he
encountered resistance, not only from the Bechtel part of the cleanup operation, but also from top
management at GPUN. On the one hand, he was told that his concerns were of a nitpicking
nature—that the crane would work properly, or that even if it failed no significant harm would be
done. But when challenged to take responsibility for their assertions by personally signing off on
the crane refurbishment task, his critics declined, insisting that Site Operations approve the
attenuated testing process.

Pressure

In February, 1983, the situation turned nasty. Within a few days after Ed Gischel had
submitted a memorandum criticizing the proposed use of the polar crane, King’s immediate
superior, deputy director of TMI-2 John Burton, angrily urged King to fire Gischel. King defended
Gischel and expressed support for his position. Next came a series of ugly incidents.
First, some background information must be presented. In June, 1982, Gischel had suffered a
stroke from a pinched blood vessel that affected his vision and short-term memory. He was back
at work in October and seemed to have made a good recovery. Not long after his return, he met
several times with Dr. William Jenkins, a psychologist at Corporate Stress Control Services, Inc.,
a company engaged by GPU. Jenkins suggested that Gischel take a neuropsychological stress
evaluation test, but, after some hesitation, Gischel declined on the advice of his physician.
Shortly after the issuance of the memorandum mentioned above (February 10), Gischel
received a certified letter from Jenkins urging him to take the test. A few days later, he was
summoned to a meeting with Barton, Bahman Kanga (director of TMI-2), and Robert Arnold
(president of GPUN). Arnold pushed Gischel hard to take the neurological examination, revealing
in the course of the conversation intimate details of Gischel’s conversations with Jenkins. This
despite the fact that Jenkins had, at their initial contact, assured Gischel that their conversations
would be held confidential under the doctor-patient relationship.
Pressure on Gischel to take the test continued, reaching a climax in mid-May when he received
a written ultimatum from the board chairman of GPU: either take the test by July 1 or be
transferred. In the interim, on April 4, Gischel sent to GPUN president Arnold a copy of a sworn
affidavit that he had prepared giving his position on the situation with respect to the cleanup
operation and his version of the ensuing events. The covering letter included a request that Arnold
forward this to the NRC and an indication that if this were not done that Gischel himself would do
so. Arnold did forward the letter. Later, Gischel refused to take the test and, on July 1, he was
transferred to a new position with a non-nuclear subsidiary of GPU in Reading, Pennsylvania.
The president of Stress Control stated that his concerns about safety at TMI motivated him to
urge Gischel to undergo testing and that this same concern led him to violate patient confidentiality
by passing on confidential information to GPUN management. Arnold maintained that he too was
motivated by safety considerations and that there was no intent to punish Gischel. In evaluating
these claims, one must consider what sort of damage a man in Gischel’s managerial position might
do as a consequence of the minor impairments involved in the stroke. It is also pertinent that
Gischel’s immediate superior, King, had no doubts about his ability to perform his duties.
Meanwhile, Rick Parks was subjected to different kinds of attacks. In mid-February, King
assigned Parks to review the crane proposal. This resulted in a memorandum by Parks arguing that
the proposal was deficient in that it did not specify adequate testing and analysis prior to the use
of the crane, and that proper organizational procedures were not being followed. Essential safety
reviews were being omitted. King concurred with this appraisal. The day after this memorandum
was circulated, a manager told Parks that upper management was talking about getting him
transferred off the site. Bechtel management also replaced Parks as alternate startup and test
manager. He immediately reported this to the NRC as a reprisal threat. Several weeks later Parks
was informed by another manager (indirectly through Larry King’s wife) that his ex-wife was
“trying to get some dirt on him” in order to get custody of his two young sons. The false and
malicious nature of this “report” was evident since Parks did not have an “ex-wife”; he was a
widower. It was this incident that prompted Parks to seek outside assistance in the form of legal
counsel. He obtained this through the Government Accountability Project (GAP), a public interest
group.
About a week later, his apartment was broken into. Nothing was taken, but his personal papers
had been rifled. The police were unable to identify the perpetrators. The next day, Parks was
removed from the crane project. A week later, March 23, having exhausted the possibilities of
resolving the problem internally, he filed a sworn affidavit with the NRC, along with a formal
complaint charging harassment. On the following day, he was suspended from work indefinitely,
with pay. A Bechtel spokesman stated that this was done to insulate Parks from harassment by
fellow employees and that his charges would be investigated. Parks scoffed at the justification for
his suspension and predicted that he would eventually be fired. (He later said that most of his
fellow engineers agreed with his position but remained silent for fear of losing their jobs. Parks
characterized their attitude toward him as manifesting, not hostility, but rather embarrassment for
letting him down. At least one engineer quietly resigned.)
During this same period, swift and decisive action was taken to knock Larry King out of the
game. For several years, King had, as a sideline, been president of a small firm (which he had
helped found), called Quiltec, that provided consulting services to companies in the nuclear power
industry.
GPUN’s upper management had known about this at least since November, 1982, and they
had raised no objections. Suddenly, on February 24, at the peak of the dispute over the polar crane,
this became a “conflict of interest,” and GPUN President Arnold ordered the suspension of King.
He claimed that King had hired people away from GPUN to work at Quiltec (no details such as
names or dates were supplied) and said that the discharge was not related to King’s criticisms of
the cleanup effort. King was denied access to his office, and he later charged that copies of memos
that he wrote criticizing various aspects of the cleanup were removed and destroyed. A week later,
Joyce Wenger, King’s secretary, was grilled by higher-level managers, who tried to get her to go
to Stress Control for counseling concerning “her involvement in the Larry King situation.” Some
of her friends were questioned about her personal life. She was effectively suspended from work.
On March 23, both King and Wenger were fired.

The Regulators
 Since TMI-2 was a licensed nuclear power plant, all of the regulations pertinent to the safe
operation of such a plant were legally in effect. The NRC’s job was to ensure that the cleanup
operation was carried out safely and effectively. But they were not only right on top of the situation
at TMI, they were virtually inside it. According to Parks, Gischel, and King, part of the problem
was that the NRC worked too closely with GPUN and Bechtel management. Proposals by the
Bechtel-dominated Recovery Program Department were shown to NRC staffers and often received
their informal approval before King’s Site Operations Department had a chance to review them.
Then, if Site Operations found that the proposals were inadequate, the fact that they had already
been “blessed” by the NRC was used as a lever to get them to drop their objections and sign off
on them. Sometimes, drafts of NRC reports were shown to company employees before being
finalized. What made all this into a serious problem was the perception that the NRC was more
interested in speeding up the operation than in making sure that proper procedures were followed.
At various stages, Parks, Gischel, and King sought support from the NRC. The results were
mixed. This was due, at least in part, to the fact that several different NRC organizations were
involved. For example, the NRC Office of Investigations (0I) looked into allegations by the three
engineers to the effect that Bechtel was, in many cases, not following proper procedures and that
GPUN’s upper management was allowing this to take place. The covering letter of their report
(September 1, 1983), which substantially supports the charges, states that “The allegations were
not only substantiated, but we found them to be illustrative rather than exhaustive.” It also suggests
that “the TMIPO [NRC’s TMI Program Office] passive role on administrative control matters may
have contributed to the licensee’s procedural noncompliance.” Another of its findings was that
“The Quality Assurance program for the facility is being compromised.” But when another arm of
the NRC, the Office of Inspector & Auditor, looked into charges of improper behavior by NRC
officials and staff, it reported no evidence of misconduct or impropriety.
Parks and King testified in late April before a committee of the House of Representatives,
elaborating on their concerns about the TMI cleanup. Gischel, in an effort to avoid all-out war with
his employer, declined to appear. In addition to appealing to the NRC for assistance, Parks, King,
and Wenger complained to the Department of Labor (DOL) about being suspended or discharged
as a result of cooperating with the NRC. The NRC staff and the NRC Office of Investigations
agreed that Parks had been harassed by Bechtel and GPUN. In mid-May, the DOL formally
concurred in this appraisal and ordered Bechtel to reinstate Parks to his TMI job. This order was
never carried out because an appeal by Bechtel delayed matters to the point where financial
pressure induced Parks to accept an off-site transfer.
Wenger reached an out-of-court settlement with GPUN in which she received $3740 in back
pay and was given a new job elsewhere in the company. In King’s case, the NRC 01 found that he
had not violated conflict-of-interest rules and had been unjustly discharged. But the NRC staff,
without disputing King’s account of the events, concluded that he had not been harassed and that
his discharge was not improper. In October, 1984, King too reached an out-of-court settlement
with GPUN, receiving an undisclosed sum of money.
In Gischel’s case, the NRC 01 and staff again disagreed. The 01 found that he had been
improperly treated in that there was no justification for requiring him to take the
neuropsychological test; the minor impairments he suffered would not impair his job performance.
The staff, without disputing his account, saw no indication of harassment, and no connection
between his dispute with upper management and their pressing him to be tested.
On August 12, 1985 (the wheels grind slowly!) the NRC Office of Inspection and Enforcement
issued a violation notice to GPUN for acts of discrimination against Parks. A civil penalty of
$64,000 was proposed. This notice went out 2 years after Parks had been transferred by his
employer (Bechtel) to a coal gasification plant in the Mojave Desert (Daggett, California) and then
fired 6 months later (as he had predicted). GPUN appealed the penalty. In 1987 the company finally
paid—but only $40,000, as the NRC agreed to reduce the fine in an out-of-court settlement.
In September, 1986, the same NRC office issued another violation notice against GPUN. This
was for having improperly added a hand release mechanism to the polar crane that “directly
affected the ability of the main hoist brakes to properly function.” The proposed fine was $40,000.
This violation had occurred in 1982. Polar crane malfunctions had occurred when it was used in
1984 to lift the reactor head. Indeed one of the two sets of brakes failed. Had both sets failed, the
head could have dropped. Although these malfunctions delayed the operation, they did not,
fortunately, result in any damage being done. It may well be that a serious accident was averted as
a result of the attention focused on the crane by Parks, Gischel, and King.
In the midst of all the charges, public protests, ongoing investigations, violation notices and
other misdeeds (only a part of the story has been related here), the NRC, by a 4-1 vote on May 29,
1985, authorized GPU to restart TMI-1, the undamaged unit on Three Mile Island. It had been in
a shut-down state since the 1979 accident. On October, 9, 1985, it was back in operation.
The phrase that comes to mind in evaluating the performance of the NRC in this case is “too
little, too late.” When three conscientious engineers stuck their necks out on behalf of the
procedures that the NRC was mandated to uphold, they received minimal support from that
agency. All three were forced out of the operation and, even in the case where the regulators agreed
that a wrong had been done, they did no more than propose a trivial fine long after the event. This
paper tiger performance will do little to deter employers from retaliating against other responsible
engineers in the future.

The Engineers

The TMI cleanup case is interesting in that it is not simply a situation in which one or a few
engineers dispute the views of their managers. We have here a situation in which a line engineer
and another engineer in a management position both were concerned about what they regarded as
a potentially dangerous situation, and where they were fully supported by their superior, another
engineer at a high level of management. (A fourth high-level engineer at the site, who was
interviewed by a New York Times correspondent with the understanding that he not be named,
agreed with the positions taken by King and Parks.) It is worth looking a bit more closely at the
three who spoke out.
Rick Parks, a native of Missouri, first learned about nuclear reactors in the navy, where he
served for 7 years as, among other things, an instructor in the nuclear power program, and was
qualified as an engineering watch supervisor for nuclear power plants. Subsequently his experience
included working on the construction of one commercial atomic energy facility, as a shift
supervisor in another, and as a senior startup and test engineer in a third plant. He was well
respected as an engineer. Parks was firmly convinced of the need to “go by the book” when dealing
with matters related to nuclear power equipment. An enthusiast for nuclear power, he was very
much concerned about the consequences of another accident at Three Mile Island, not only to the
public, but also to the industry. In addition to being a very competent, conscientious engineer, Rick
Parks impressed me as an unusually well-balanced, good-natured man who stood up remarkably
well to some very rough treatment without becoming embittered.
 Parks’s exile to the Mojave Desert was professionally a severe setback, but there was a
splendid, unanticipated side effect . While there he met and subsequently married Donna Folger.
In recognition of his courageous behavior as an engineer, he received the IEEE SSIT Award for
Outstanding Service in the Public Interest in 1986. (SSIT’s limited resources is the essential reason
that Edwin King and Laurence Gischel were not co-recipients.)
After trying unsuccessfully for 2 years to get a regular position as a nuclear engineer. Parks
concluded that he was being blackballed. Parks sued Bechtel and, in 1987, accepted an out-of-
court settlement for an undisclosed amount. He began a new career in the precision tool industry
and eventually established a small business providing services to manufacturers using such tools.
Parks reports that, while his income in the power industry would have been greater, he enjoys his
work and appreciates being his own boss.
Ed Gischel also began his professional career in the navy, with nuclear-powered submarines.
After leaving the navy he spent 10 more years working on nuclear submarines for General
Dynamics Corporation. For the next decade, he worked for two companies involved with
commercial nuclear power plants prior to joining GPUN. He is a registered Professional Engineer.
Gischel showed great organizational skill in this affair, managing to remain within the GPU
organization while not yielding his principled position. But he was relegated to a dead-end position
and never got back into the nuclear power field.
Larry King had more than 20 years of engineering experience prior to joining the TMI cleanup
operation in 1980. His previous employer described him as “frank, hard-nosed, operationally
oriented.” GPUN’s management must have been very favorably impressed with his performance
as plant operations director (his initial position) since, after less than one and a half years on the
job, he was promoted to director of Site Operations. In that position he was in charge of nearly 300
employees, over one-third of all those engaged in the cleanup. Even after King’s suspension, GPU
spokesmen, including GPUN President Arnold, acknowledged that King was a very smart,
competent engineer and manager.
His reputation with his subordinates was excellent. Parks, in his sworn affidavit, says that
“Larry King’s ethics are beyond reproach.” Later, in a sworn statement to NRC investigators, Parks
described King as “dynamic; he has a great deal of fortitude. King also does what it takes to get
the job done. However, King only operates within legal boundaries.” Gischel, in his sworn
affidavit, describes King as “a decent, hardworking, competent, extremely dedicated individual
who routinely ‘moved mountains’ to maintain progress in the recovery program.” Both Parks and
Gischel dismiss the conflict-of-interest charge against King as being without foundation—a pretext
to get rid of him because of his stand on the polar crane issue.
Following his dismissal by GPUN, King had difficulty finding another position in industry.
In the summer of 1984, the NRC hired him as an inspector at a South Carolina nuclear power
facility, and, at this writing, he is still working for the NRC.
An interesting aspect of this case that has echoes in many other cases pertains to the flow of
information and responsibility in hierarchical organizations. King told NRC investigators that his
immediate superior, John Barton, had issued a memorandum instructing him not to send
memoranda to President Arnold or Vice President Clark without first going through the proper
chain of command. This may be part of the reason that Arnold, on the occasion of King’s dismissal,
said that he was unaware that King had raised questions about the safety of the operation.

2.8 VIOLENCE VS. APPROPRIATE TECHNOLOGY:

THE BEN LINDER STORY
 As a boy growing up in San Francisco and then Portland. Oregon, Benjamin E. Linder was
always tinkering with tools and mechanical gadgets. An excellent student, his mechanical bent led
him to enroll in the Mechanical Engineering Department of the University of Washington. From
the outset, he intended to apply his engineering skills to help better the lives of poor people in
underdeveloped countries. This idea was furthered in a course he took entitled “Appropriate
Technology,” taught by Professor Philip Bereano. The goal in this course was to show how the
needs of people in relatively primitive environments can be met by the application of technology
intelligently adapted to their human and material resources. Among the concepts considered when
Linder took the course was that of small-scale hydroelectric plants.
Ben Linder Making Measurements al the Site of the El Cuá Plant
Photo Supplied by Elizabeth and David Linder
A Need—Electric Power in the Mountains

Ben spent the summer of 1982 in Nicaragua and decided that this would be a good place to
put his skills to work. After graduating in 1983, he headed for Nicaragua to work as a volunteer
under the sponsorship of the Nicaraguan Appropriate Technology Project (NICAT). After working
for a public utility in the capital city, Managua, he became involved in a small-scale power project
in a mountainous area of northern Nicaragua in the spring of 1984. This was the kind of work he
really wanted to do. Plunging in with great enthusiasm, he soon became the lead engineer.
The region in which Linder’s project lay is known as Cuá-Bocay. It is covered with mountains
and forests, with many rivers and streams. The great bulk of the population (perhaps 33,000)
consisted of small farmers living and working without benefit of modern technology. Access to
the outside world was via dirt roads. Medical facilities were minimal. Electric power in the region
was available only from a few small diesel-powered electric generators that were often inoperative
due to malfunctions or lack of fuel (which was trucked in irregularly).
Lacking a reliable electricity supply, there were no machine shops, no refrigerators, no electric
lighting. The consequences of the absence of refrigeration go well beyond the unpleasantness of
warm beer. Modern medical practice requires a variety of products that must be refrigerated.
Vaccination programs, for example, are heavily dependent on refrigeration. Without machine
tools, the repair of even simple farm implements becomes difficult if not impossible. Evening
classes to raise the educational level of local farmers are not feasible without electric lights.

An Appropriate Solution

Meeting the need for electricity via a large-scale hydroelectric project, for example, could not
even be considered for this sparsely populated, impoverished area of a poor country. However, the
prevalence of running water is a rich resource that can be tapped, in an incremental fashion, with
only a modest investment of materials and skilled human effort.
A project to accomplish this and several associated objectives was initiated by the Nicaraguan
government in conjunction with various international volunteer groups, such as NICAT (based in
Bellingham, Washington). It was called the Cuá-Bocay Integrated Development Project. A first
step was to be the construction of a small hydroelectric unit 5 km from the center of the hamlet of
El Cuá. Ben Linder cut his engineering teeth on this enterprise, which had been languishing since
1980.
The technical difficulties were substantial. The 25-year-old engineer was inexperienced and
there was little opportunity to consult with more knowledgeable people. In this isolated community
of 1500, even the simplest tools and materials were often unavailable. It was a 3-hour jeep ride
over 70 km of rough dirt road to the nearest city, Matagalpa, a metropolis with 30,000 inhabitants.
From there to Managua was another 6-hour drive. There was no regular delivery service. Minimal
funds were available.
Skilled mechanics were not to be found. In fact, few in the area were familiar with the use of
even the simplest tools. An important objective of the project was to teach the local people the
skills necessary in the construction, operation, and maintenance of the system. The idea was to put
them in position to build additional plants themselves and gradually to master the skills needed to
develop other technological facilities to improve their lives.
An American-made 100-kW generator was purchased with funds donated by the United
Nations. A 1929 vintage governor came from Sweden. Linder designed a simple turbine, which
was then built to his specifications in Nicaragua. At the selected site the stream was, in Linder’s
language, “two sidewalks wide and a foot deep.” The vertical drop from the dam to the turbine
was 50 yards. The turbine and generator together were smaller than a desk.
At every step in the construction process, Linder involved local people. He taught them how
to work with concrete, how to use wrenches, grease bearings, and so forth. This was not classroom-
type instruction, but hands-on learning. He would typically begin an operation, and then, under his
supervision, one or two trainees would continue it. For example, if the installation of a part required
the use of four bolts, Ben would put in two and then watch his pupils put in the other two. As
people became more skilled, they would help others to get started. By the time the El Cuá plant
was completed, there were several peasants from the area fully capable of operating and
maintaining it, and many others had acquired various new skills.

A Lot of Work—But Also Some Play

A member of a family that was often involved in liberal causes such as antiwar activities and
the civil rights movement, Ben Linder had a strong social conscience. This was coupled with a
lighter side. He had a good sense of humor and a wide range of interests, including music, chess,
and dancing. He was a member of a not very successful high school swimming team. One of his
more unusual hobbies was clowning. In line with his generally fun-loving nature, Ben learned to
juggle, ride a unicycle, and walk a tightrope. He once rode his unicycle from the Canadian border
all the way to Santa Barbara, California.
In addition to the long hours he spent working on the hydro project, which included a lot of
traveling to and from the site, Ben found time to exercise some of his other talents. He occasionally
donned his clown suit and delighted crowds of children with his juggling and unicycle
performances. Sometimes the performances were meshed with public health campaigns dealing
with issues such as inoculations against measles. More often it was just a matter of having fun.

Next Steps

The El Cuá hydro plant went into operation in May, 1986. It was used, as planned, to power
a small machine shop, including welding apparatus, support a medical center (with a refrigerator),
and, after dark, to illuminate a classroom for an evening school. Future plans for the project
included the construction of a saw mill so that the local people would be able to make boards for
building construction out of local timber, which was abundant. Associated with this would be a
carpentry shop and facilities to make cement blocks, bricks, and roof tiles for local use. The value
of small hydro plants, and the feasibility of constructing them in the region was now established.
Linder felt that he had learned a great deal during this initial phase and would be able to put this
knowledge to good use. He was slowed down somewhat by a bout of hepatitis, and later by a leg
infection, but was eager to begin work on the next hydro plant.
This was to be located about a mile outside San José de Bocay, in the northern part of the Cuá-
Bocay region. In the spring of 1987, Ben began the preliminary work of measuring rainfall, and
estimating flow rates at the site during wet and dry seasons. But he never completed the job.

A Different Kind of Obstacle

 The difficulties discussed above pertained to physical factors and the impoverished condition
of the people. But there was another obstacle of a rather different nature. All during the 1980s, a
guerrilla army, known as the Contras, supported by the U.S. government, fought against the
Nicaraguan Sandinista government. One of their principal tactics was to attack farmers, teachers,
technicians, physicians, and the like in the countryside in an attempt to weaken the government
economically. They killed hundreds of Nicaraguan professionals and at least seven European
volunteer workers. The Contras were active in the Cuá-Bocay region, where they constituted a
serious problem for Linder and those he worked with. In fact one reason that the El Cuá
development project was at a near standstill when Linder began work on it was the reluctance of
Nicaraguan engineers to venture into the region for fear of being killed. In 1985, two nurses from
the El Cuá health center were killed by Contras. The El Cuá power plant was attacked, but
successfully defended by local people. Army patrols and armed militia defended the area, but
working there was still risky.
Linder was, of course, well aware of this situation. When an organization of American citizens
living in Nicaragua filed a lawsuit to stop U.S. aid to the Contras in September, 1986, he
contributed a supporting affidavit. In it he stated that he believed his life was in danger as a
consequence of this aid. The suit was unsuccessful. But he felt too committed to the work he was
doing to back off.
On April 28, 1987, Ben, two assistants, and an escort of four armed militia men went to the
San José de Bocay dam site to continue making rainfall and flow rate measurements. Shortly after
their arrival, a contra unit attacked them from ambush with hand grenades and automatic rifles.
One of the assistants, one of the militia men, and Ben Linder were killed.

Aftermath

The family, colleagues, and friends of Ben were grief stricken and outraged by his violent
death. He was a man who inspired great affection and respect among those who came in contact
with him. Although the probable objective of his killers was to discourage others from doing the
kind of work that Ben did, the actual effect seems to have been the reverse. MIT graduate Rebecca
Leaf took over as lead engineer and other associates of Ben, including Mira Brown and Don
Macleay, played key roles in continuing the work. The Ben Linder Memorial Fund was organized
by his family to help finance the Cuá-Bocay project.
By the end of 1992, the El Cuá generator was still operating successfully, powering a well-
equipped machine shop, among other things. The shop has proved to be an immensely valuable
asset to the people in the area. It is used to make simple parts for the repair of tools, trucks, farm
equipment, and the like. The San José de Bocay plant, with more than twice the capacity of the El
Cuá facility, was expected to go on line in 1993. It will be named after Ben Linder. Many of the
parts for its turbine were made in the El Cuá machine shop. Other projects that the same group
have completed in the area include a gravity-fed potable water system, a small facility for making
rammed earth bricks, and the installation of an electric corn mill. Many local people have received
practical training and operate the power plant and other facilities. There are also ongoing projects
related to agriculture and to the environment: for example, efforts to prevent deforestation that
would adversely affect the watersheds of the streams that power the turbines.
The next small hydro plant is expected to be constructed in Pita del Carmen, a community
near El Cuá It is interesting that the population of this area consists largely of cx-Contras.
Furthermore, a number of ex-Contras are included in the work force completing the Benjamin
Linder plant. Nevertheless, the situation is still an uneasy one, with occasional outbreaks of
violence still occurring.
In 1988, the IEEE SSIT Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest was
posthumously awarded to Benjamin Linder in recognition of his “courageous and altruistic efforts
to create human good by applying his technical abilities.”

2.9 JUDGES VERSUS ENGINEERS

Background and Opening Round

Nuclear power plants, jet airliners, factories producing pesticides, dangerous large dams —
these are what we usually envision as background for cases where engineers get into trouble trying
to defend public safety. But important and interesting ethics cases can also stem from less dramatic
“low” technology, as is illustrated below [1].
In January 1991, David Monts, an experienced, licensed electrical (and nuclear) engineer,
began working for the Physical Plant Services Department (PPSD) of the New Orleans campus of
the University of Louisiana (UNO). This department was responsible for building construction and
renovation. Monts’ immediate supervisor was John Michael Parnon, an architect, but the
administrative head, Frank Schambach, had no technical background. On a number of occasions,
Schambach, without consulting his engineers, underestimated the costs for certain jobs.
When these projects threatened to go over budget, Schambach insisted on various cost-cutting
measures. In some cases, these measures entailed improper practices that put people at risk. There
were also situations in which engineering changes were made by people not licensed to practice in
the technology involved.
Monts repeatedly objected to these tactics. In particular, he protested when fire alarms were
deleted from plans to renovate certain space to accommodate offices, and in another instance, the
omission of emergency exit lights. A less obvious hazard involved a design with inadequate circuit
overload protection. These, and other instances of corner-cutting, involved more than a difference
of opinion as to what was required for safety. They violated state building codes.
When these objections, though supported by his colleagues and supervisor, were repeatedly
ignored by Schambach, Monts went to see the UNO attorneys. He reported the problems and asked
for help. But before anything came of this, and just before another conversation was scheduled
with them in July of 1996, he was summarily dismissed in a letter signed by Parnon and
Schambach. The stated grounds for the dismissal were that Monts had a negative attitude with
regard to his employment and that he disrupted weekly staff meetings by complaining and arguing
about non-project related matters.
Monts asserts that the real cause was his repeated protests about the shoddy practices
mandated by director Schambach and his assistant Gus Cantrell, a civil engineer. Apparently, his
discussions with the UNO attorneys about such matters as the building code violations precipitated
his discharge.
Monts initiated a wrongful discharge suit. Since he was not a civil service employee and had
no written contract, he was what is legally termed, an “at will employee,” meaning that he would
have to carry a substantial burden to win his case. The principal ground for his lawsuit was that he
was discharged for exercising free speech when he protested to management and the UNO
attorneys about the improper practices on the projects that he was responsible for. He argued that
engineers have an ethical obligation to speak out when they encounter practices in their work that
endanger the public. In his case, as a licensed engineer, this obligation was clearly spelled out in
the law.
The deposition process now began a long, drawn out legal process. It was Monts versus the
UNO, so that he not only had to pay the full cost for presenting his side of the case, but, as a
taxpayer, he was helping pay his opponents’ costs. The battle began with the taking of legal
depositions. This went on for several years, during the course of which, all the managers and
engineers involved, except for Cantrell, left the employ of UNO.
There seemed to be unanimous agreement that Monts was an excellent engineer. Even Frank
Schambach admitted this. Allen Anderson, an experienced EE (and PE), who worked with Monts
for a number of years, characterized him as, “one of the most competent, industrious, and
conscientious electrical engineers I have worked with.” John Ehlers, a licensed mechanical
engineer, who also worked with Monts, concurred with this assessment. Both supported Monts’
contention that management often overruled the directives of the design professionals on safety
related issues. Anderson and Ehlers had left UNO prior to the time they were deposed.
Regarding the grounds stated for Monts’, firing, the engineers agreed that Monts never
disrupted a departmental meeting or otherwise interfered with his co-workers’ performance of their
duties. Confirming this is the fact that, on Monts’ employment record, there are no negative entries
of any kind (prior to the termination note), and there are eight commendations.
A key figure in the case is architect John Parnon, Monts’ supervisor. In his deposition, his
comments about Monts were, at best, ambiguous. Subsequently, he left the employ of UNO and
was then more forthcoming with respect to what happened to Monts. Parnon prepared a written
statement in the form of an affidavit, which provides us with a fascinating view of the situation. In
general, his statement fully confirms the claims made by Monts and the other engineers regarding
the behavior of management, the issue of code violations, and the spurious nature of the charges
on which the firing was based. He states that “David is one of the most competent, industrious,
and conscientious design professionals I have ever worked with.” Not only did Parnon deny that
Monts’ complaints about management’s behavior were disruptive, he asserted that he encouraged
Monts to speak out about such matters at staff meetings and at other times, and he expressed
admiration for his courage.
How then can we account for the fact that Parnon, apparently without protest, added his name
to the letter discharging Monts? The explanation is in the same draft affidavit. “Had it not been for
Pat [Patrick Gibbs, Vice Chancellor for Business Affairs] and Frank ordering me to do so, I would
not have fired David.” Parnon did argue with Schambach and Cantrell about such matters as their
corner cutting, but he felt powerless to influence them. He appears to be a very decent, honest man,
but not one willing to take risks on matters of principle. “I personally may have been indecisive
for not taking a more proactive approach on these issues, but...I did not want to do anything to
jeopardize my job.” Parnon explains why, in the course of his original deposition, which took place
while he was still a UNO employee, he “was not inclined to speak volumes”: “I was concerned
about keeping my job based on...” and he then lists various instances of intimidating behavior by
his UNO superiors, followed by: “I was very close to getting a promotion from the position of
Manager of Facility Renovation and Design to the position of Director of Facility Renovation and
Design” (a promotion that did indeed subsequently occur). Sad to say, Parnon declined to sign the
affidavit, expressing concern that doing so might cause the university to attack his reputation.

Judges Take Over

 In April of 2001, the trial court judge granted the defendant’s motion for summary judgment,
dismissing the case with prejudice, without a trial. The judge stated that there was no evidence
supporting Monts’ claim that he was dismissed for reporting the code violations to the UNO
attorneys. UNO’s view of the case, apparently accepted by the judge, might be summarized by the
following quotation from a letter from defense attorney Alexander McIntyre, Jr.:
“... Mr. Monts was terminated for no other reason than his inability to timely complete his
duties and engaging in disruptive behavior. (For example, shortly before his termination, Mr.
Monts photocopied and distributed a list of his co-workers’ salaries, with its concomitant negative
effect on morale in the Department.)”
Note that Anderson, Ehlers, and Parnon denied that Monts was disruptive and concurred that
he “was never slower than other design professionals at completing any task.”
Based on depositions by Schambach, Cantrell, and Gibbs, the judge also accepted the
contention of the defense that those responsible for firing Monts were not aware that he had met
with UNO attorneys. The fact that evidence had been introduced that Gibbs had received billing
records from the attorneys dealing with interviews with Monts was not deemed significant. The
affidavit by Parnon, which clearly established such knowledge, was dismissed on the grounds that
it was not signed, and the sworn affidavit by Ehlers that he had overheard Schambach “angrily
telling someone on the telephone, ‘Dave went to go [sic] see an attorney’” was also not deemed
sufficient proof. Finally, as a point of law, the judge stated that there is no public policy exception
to Louisiana’s employment-at-will doctrine. That is, in Louisiana, it is not improper to discharge
an employee for acting to protect the public interest, e.g., by pointing out a violation of a safety
code.
Monts appeal of this ruling to Louisiana’s Fourth Circuit Court of Appeal was denied on
2/27/02 in a unanimous verdict of three judges. There are two important and interesting
components of the opinion [2] supporting this ruling. One is that Monts’ complaints about safety
issues do not constitute protected speech because he did not carry these beyond the PPSD, except
for having gone to the UNO attorneys, which the court decided was not a factor because
management stated that they were unaware of this. The concept embodied by this reasoning clashes
sharply with the advice generally given to engineers to try to resolve problems internally, going
outside only after exhausting all possible internal remedies. It puts engineers in a catch-22
situation. If they go outside their organizations they are vulnerable to charges of irresponsibly
impugning the reputations of their organizations, but if they do NOT go outside, then, according
to this opinion, this may be considered as evidence that their issues are not matters of public
concern.
The other point is embodied in the following excerpt from their opinion:
“In the instant case, review of the alleged code violations with which Monts was concerned
— if they were code violations at all — cannot be said to be major matters of public safety. Monts
complained of wire size, plumbing, and leveling issues and the like. It would not appear that, even
if they were present, these seemingly minor deviations from the purest building practices suggest
great threat to the public health and safety.”
This statement was lifted verbatim from the defendant’s brief, where it appears without
substantiation. It is incorrect in detail in that Monts did not mention plumbing issues. Most
significant is that three appeal court judges, citing no documents or expert testimony, have decided
that, contrary to the opinions of professional engineers, building code violations (including, as
mentioned above, such points as inadequate overload protection, and the omission of fire alarms
and emergency exit lights,) are obviously of no consequence. Note that this is a finding by an
APPEALS court, NOT based on a verdict of a jury that heard evidence.
Two years prior to this decision, the Louisiana Engineering Society (affiliate of NSPE)
endorsed Monts’ case, provided $100 support, and requested NSPE to help Monts with money,
legal support, and an amicus brief. An article on the case was published in the NSPE newspaper,
Engineering Times [3]. The shocking nature of the Appeals Court opinion induced the NSPE to
take action. Arthur Schwartz, NSPE legal counsel, filed an excellent amicus curiae brief [4]
strongly supporting Monts’ appeal to the Louisiana Supreme Court. Unfortunately, the response
of that court on May 31, 2002, to Monts’ request for a hearing was very concise: “Denied”. More
recently, Monts’ last effort in the legal arena was rebuffed when the U.S. Supreme Court declined
to hear his appeal. Rubbing salt into his wound, UNO is now seeking about $5000 in legal costs
from Monts.

Low Pay and Abuse

As in most real-world cases, there are secondary issues involved in the Monts case. Monts’
supervisor, John Parnon, felt that he and those working under him were significantly underpaid in
terms of standards prevalent in the area, and even within the university.
Parnon’s complaints to his superiors about this went unheeded. During the early 1990s,
several engineers resigned from the department on these grounds, and efforts to recruit
replacements were unsuccessful until 1998, when salaries were significantly raised. Monts also
protested about the low salaries, and, with the support of his supervisor, obtained, and distributed
to other interested parties, data on University salaries. Because of the unfilled positions, the
workload on the remaining engineers was substantially increased and became another contentious
factor.
Another problem was the overbearing attitude of Frank Schambach and his assistant Gus
Cantrell. There were numerous incidents in which they verbally abused subordinates, often using
vulgar language. Engineer John Ehlers was amazed when Cantrell, threatened to fire him for
wearing a vest. On several occasions, women employees were reduced to tears by Cantrell’s
bullying. Finally, according to Ehlers, Cantrell, while pressing for various economies that violated
good practice, insisted on the installation of a “grossly overpowered air conditioning system” for
his own offices.

Some Conclusions

The Monts case is a sad example of the failure of the courts both to do justice to an individual,
and to protect the public safety. The summary dismissal concept, intended to weed out frivolous
cases, was used to deprive David Monts of his right to a trial by jury (as specified in the Seventh
Amendment of the U.S. Constitution.) I personally find it hard to believe that any jury would not
have found in favor of Monts.
One could always second-guess Monts’ attorney and argue that he could have done more, or
that he made some mistakes. But it should be remembered that he had limited time and resources
and did not have a lot of experience in cases of this type.
With hindsight, one could argue that it would have been better to have initiated action in the
federal rather than in the state court system. Another decision was not to press the issue of the code
violations in a wider arena, or to seek publicity in general. For example, telling UNO students
about what was happening might have generated a wave of public opinion that might have made
the judges hesitate before making rulings that would be hard to justify in a public forum.
With respect to David Monts, one can only admire his courageous devotion to principle. Apart
from spending over $140 000 in legal costs, he expended an enormous amount of time and energy
over a period of six years. In September, 2002, the Board of Governors of the IEEE SSIT voted to
present him with the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest.
About three decades ago, the BART case [5] served to illustrate dramatically the dilemma of
employee engineers whose professional judgments were overridden by managers placing financial
considerations above the public welfare and safety. That case lead directly to the formation of the
IEEE Member Conduct Committee (MCC) and provisions in the IEEE bylaws authorizing the
IEEE to come to the aid of engineers who get into trouble as a result of efforts to abide by the
IEEE Ethics Code. Since that time the cause of ethics support has had its ups and downs. With
respect to the IEEE, we are certainly in a “down” mode [6]. It is interesting that, at the outset of
the BART case, the California Society of Professional Engineers began with a strong position and
then faded away under pressure from large engineering firms, with the NSPE doing essentially
nothing. It was the IEEE that picked up and carried the ball. In the Monts case, to switch metaphors
a bit, it is the NSPE that stepped up to the plate, while the IEEE left the ball park five years ago.
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring 2003

REFERENCES

(I have not listed the many documents that I used but which are not publicly available to
readers.)

[1] D. Monts, “Summary of Case,” 3/3/02, on line:

http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/monts/summary.html
[2] Court of Appeal Opinion on Monts Case. 2/27/02 on line:
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/monts/appCtRuling.html
[3] J. Ganz,, “NSPE, Louisiana Society inform Court of PE’s public safety role,” Engineering
Times, May 2002. On line:
http://www.nspe.org/etweb/15-02montscase.asp
[4] A. Schwartz, NSPE Amicus Curiae Brief. On line:
http://www.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/monts/amicus.html
[5] S.H. Unger, Controlling Technology: Ethics and the Responsible Engineer, 2nd ed. New
York: Wiley, 1994, pp. 20-27.
[6] S.H. Unger, “The assault on IEEE ethics support,” IEEE Technology & Society Mag., pp.
36-40, Spr. 1999. On line

2.10 MAN RESCUES COAST GUARD

When I think of the Coast Guard, the image that comes to mind is that of heroes putting out
to sea in heavy weather to search for and rescue people clinging to disabled vessels. Search and
rescue is indeed a primary mission of the Coast Guard, though it also plays important roles as a
maritime police force and as a military branch. I am therefore outraged at the idea of such heroes
being forced to operate with defective equipment
 Unfortunately, just such an outrage is being perpetrated. After many years during which little
had been done to upgrade Coast Guard boats, planes, and other equipment, or even to replace aging
apparatus, a major project to re-equip the Coast Guard was launched in 2002. This is the Deepwater
program, initially budgeted at $17 billion, now at $24 billion. The plans called for 91 new ships,
124 small boats, 195 new or rebuilt helicopters and 49 unmanned aerial vehicles. Sadly, virtually
every aspect of this project that has been investigated seems to have been bungled. This article is
about a different kind of hero, engineer Michael DeKort, who made extraordinary efforts, which
now seem to be bearing fruit, to expose and correct a number of significant defects in Deepwater
subsystems.

DeKort’s Background

Michael DeKort was an electronics technician in the US Navy for 6 years, specializing in
communication systems. After leaving the navy, he worked for about eighteen months in private
industry as a civilian electronics technician. DeKort then worked for the US State Department as
a communications engineer for about eighteen months. During his last eight months he was lead
telecommunications engineer for a State Department counter- terrorism team. In 10/92 he joined
Lockheed Martin (LM) as a hardware and systems engineer, working on various projects including
the Aegis naval weapons system, eventually as a project manager and lead engineer. In 6/03 (still
with LM), he joined the Deepwater project, soon becoming a project manager and lead engineer
for C4ISR (Command, Control, Communications, Computers, Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance) for the project developing the 123 (foot class) Coast Guard Cutter. The project
was at an advanced stage when DeKort arrived, with most of the components for several ships
already ordered.

Radios in the Rain

Soon after beginning work, he learned that the radios ordered for the Prosecutors (25-foot
open patrol boats carried usually by the 123’s and used for rescue and boarding operations) were
not designed for outdoor use, i.e., they were not waterproof. At this time, four had been ordered.
Surprised at this, DeKort checked with the manufacturer, who confirmed that these radios should
not be used in open boats. But when DeKort informed higher management of this, expecting, of
course, that the purchase orders would be changed, he was informed that these radios were
included in the “design of record” accepted by the customer. Therefore no changes would be made,
as this would negatively impact costs and schedule. Subsequent to DeKort’s report to management,
five more of these radios were ordered. DeKort tried for several months to get this error corrected,
with no success, except to get authorization for ordering “raincoats” and better microphones for
them. Then the Coast Guard asked for a test of the boats about to be delivered. Fortunately, it
rained on the day of the test and several of the radios failed. This finally led to the requested change
being implemented. The story lines for other errors that he found started out the same way but,
sadly, had different endings.

Things Get Worse

The radio blunder was the first of a series of serious problems that DeKort found. The next
was the discovery that many of the cables installed on the 123 were of the wrong type. They were
not “low smoke”, as specified, meaning that they incorporated materials that might emit deadly
fumes if a fire broke out on board. He then found that the video surveillance system designed to
protect the cutters from intruders while in port was defective in that there were significant blind
spots. An additional video camera (costing about a thousand dollars) would have solved this
problem.
Another issue was the failure to use properly shielded cables for various communication
systems on board the 123’s. Without proper shielding, signals are vulnerable to interception. This
is a national security issue. There are generally accepted guidelines called “Tempest” standards
for guarding against such signal leakage. These were not followed by LM in its work on the 123
cutters.
Because of the nature of the missions undertaken by Coast Guard vessels, subsystems used
must be designed to operate properly over a wide range of environmental conditions. For example,
units exposed to outside weather must be able to operate at temperatures down to -40 degrees F.
DeKort ordered environmental checks on the relevant equipment. The first item tested was the
FLIR (Forward Looking Infra-Red) unit, used for navigation when visibility was poor. He learned
that this unit would fail at -5 degrees F. When he reported this up the management chain, he was
told that they would not change the design of record, and that no further tests of this nature should
be made. It later became known that many other subsystems did not meet environmental standards.

Working Within the System

In these cases, DeKort was concerned about the safety of Coast Guard crews, the ability of
the Coast Guard to carry out its missions, threats to national security, and the reputation of LM.
He brought the issues to the attention of his immediate management, and then to higher and higher
levels as his concerns were brushed off. He appealed several times to LM’s internal ethics office,
but they declined to support him in any way. Eventually he notified CEO Robert Stevens and then
the LM Board of Directors, again with no constructive result. Over and over again, he was told
that schedule and cost considerations precluded any changes in “the design of record”. Contacts
with Coast Guard people also did not result in any effective action.
One incident, related by DeKort in an email to CEO Stevens highlights the differences
between higher level LM managers and Michael DeKort. In his words:
In December of 03 the security inspector for the CG performed an inspection of our boat and
said, in his report, that he noticed the implementation, with 4 fixed cameras, was different than he
was used to seeing, but it looked like he had 360 degree coverage. I felt this open the issue back
up. I immediately went to management and suggested we tell that inspector that we had less than
360 degree coverage and see what he wanted to do. I was then told, in a room with witnesses, that
if he thought he had 360 degree we weren’t going to tell him otherwise and that it was his fault he
made a mistake and ran a faulty test. I told the group I thought that approach was unethical and
put the USCG and LM at risk.
In August of 2004 DeKort was transferred to another division of the company. But he
continued to call attention to the Deepwater issues. Two years later, he was discharged by LM.

Stretched Ships Buckle

The issues raised by DeKort were not the only problems that surfaced with respect to the
Deepwater project. Several years ago, a high level Coast Guard engineer warned that plans for
adding 13 feet to the length of 110-foot cutters to produce the 123-foot cutters were not well
conceived and that this operation should not be implemented prior to further study. His advice was
ignored. Eight cutters were delivered and then, as a result of structural failures, had to be taken out
of service. (See “Ships that don’t dare to sail”.) The Coast Guard is now asking for a refund.

Going Public

Having exhausted all internal LM mechanisms for correcting the problems, DeKort, in 2006,
took a high-tech path to address the general public. He produced a You Tube video. This was
viewed by tens of thousands of people and got the attention of the media in a big way. DeKort was
interviewed on a number of radio and TV programs, (including 60 Minutes). More substantial
consequences were an investigation by the Inspector General of Homeland Security (IGHS), and
a congressional hearing on the entire Deepwater project, at which he testified.

What Went Wrong?

It should be understood that responsibility for the problems found by DeKort, and for the
inordinate delay in dealing with them belongs not only to LM management (all the way to the top),
but also to the top officials of the US Coast Guard, who seemed to have a need to not know about
Deepwater defects.
A fundamental problem with the Deepwater Program is the unusual way that it was organized.
Integrated Coast Guard Systems (ICGS) was formed as a joint venture of Lockheed Martin and
Northrop Grumman. It was awarded the Deepwater project to manage in complete detail, with
minimal Coast Guard oversight. The idea was that ICGS, having a deep understanding of the
technology, would be able to provide the Coast Guard with the most advanced systems in the most
efficient way. What actually happened, in the words of CBS correspondent Steve Kroft, is that,
“the $24 billion project has turned into a fiasco that has set new standards for incompetence”.
A compounding factor that probably increased the degree to which the interests of the Coast
Guard were compromised, not to mention the inflated monetary cost, is the well-known revolving
door process that has led to so much grief with respect to military contracts. That is, high-level
company executives take governmental positions where they can influence the awarding and/or
monitoring of contracts with their former (and often also future) employers, and military officers
retire to assume positions with companies whose contracts they monitored or helped award. The
extent to which this has happened in connection with the Deepwater project is outlined in a recent
news article, Coast Guard’s Purchasing Raises Conflict-of-Interest Flags.

Conclusions

We can reasonably assume that, given the serious nature of the charges made by DeKort,
which, as indicated above, impugns the competence and integrity of a large number of important
people both in the company and in the Coast Guard, every effort was made to dig up information
to discredit him. It is a tribute to DeKort’s character that such efforts have apparently yielded
nothing at all. None of the points he made about defects in Deepwater systems have been seriously
challenged. The IGHS report validated most of DeKort’s points and, where it did not, it appears
that the issues had to do with terms of the contracts involved. That is, which of the company’s
actions violated contract provisions. So, if it did not state explicitly in a contract that the FLIR
must be functional down to -40 degrees, then LM was not in violation if it failed at -5 degrees F.
DeKort’s concern was not simply about whether his company was violating contracts, but rather
about whether its behavior was ethical. For example, is it ethical to send sailors out in a winter
storm with equipment that is likely to fail. He put this very well in a message to CEO Stevens:
The question here is not whether we are contractually or legally covered—it is whether or not
we are doing the right thing. In the court of public opinion or if reviewed by experts in the industry
or under the scrutiny of a federal investigation would it be viewed that we met our moral, ethical
and professional obligations?
DeKort went to great lengths to follow company rules about handling disputes, and to give
LM every opportunity to correct its errors quietly, at minimal cost in terms of money and
reputation. None of his colleagues or organizational superiors gave him any support during this
struggle. But, no matter how often he was rebuffed, he never gave up. In my judgment, he
displayed great strength of character, acting courageously in the highest traditions of engineering
professionalism, under the most difficult circumstances.

Addendum (5/21/09)

In January, 2008, Michael DeKort received the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in
the Public Interest from the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology. The award
citation reads:
Michael DeKort was a lead engineer working for a prime contractor on the Deepwater Project,
whose purpose was to modernize the US Coast Guard fleet. Joining when the 123-foot patrol boat
project was at an advanced state, he discovered several bad decisions endangering Coast Guard
sailors and compromising their ability to carry out missions. One decision posed a potential threat
to national security. When his efforts to correct these problems were rebuffed, he exhausted all
appeals procedures within the company and eventually outside, even after being removed from the
project and eventually being fired. His allegations were subsequently validated by the cognizant
investigatory agency.
Michael DeKort’s courageous and competent adherence to the highest ethical standards under
difficult conditions set an inspiring example for his fellow engineers.

References

Michael DeKort, You Tube presentation (note that there are two updates)
House Committee on Transportation and Infrastructure, Transcript of House Hearing on
Deepwater (pdf file), April 18, 2007
Spencer S. Hsu and Renae Merle, Coast Guard’s Purchasing Raises Conflict-of-Interest
Flags, Washington Post, March 25, 2007, Page A09
International Herald Tribune, “Ships that don’t dare to sail”, December 14, 2006
Steve Kroft, 60 Minutes—The Troubled Waters Of “Deepwater”, May 17, 2007
Not working: Richard L. Skinner, Homeland Security Inspector General Report, February
9, 2007

2.11 THEY SAID IT SHOULDN’T BE DONE

 There are important situations in which engineers are asked to apply their professional talents
to accomplish ends that they consider inherently bad. They do not object merely to how the ends
are to be achieved or to undesirable side effects that might be eliminated by changing the
approaches. Rather, they regard the basic objectives of the projects as pernicious.
Victor Paschkis, a professor of mechanical engineering, was director of Columbia
University’s Heat and Mass Flow Analyzer Laboratory in the early 1960s. (Reference is made
elsewhere in this work to his key role in the development of engineering ethics.) This facility
centered on a unique direct analog computer, developed by Dr. Paschkis, that, among other things,
was capable of solving difficult heat flow problems. In addition to being a valuable research tool,
the computer was also applied to practical problems arising, for example, in the metal working
industry. This type of work was undertaken on a contract basis.
Although many military-related problems fell within this sphere, Dr. Paschkis refused to work
on any of them because of his basic opposition to violence in any form. He did not, however, forbid
his associates in the laboratory to accept such projects, as he felt that they must act in accordance
with their own consciences. On one occasion, when asked to review a report dealing with the
operation of a rapid-fire cannon, he declined, stating publicly his view that “the engineering
profession degrades itself by participating in weapons research and production. On purely moral
grounds, war never was an acceptable means for settling international disputes.”
Electrical engineer Viron E. Payne, Sr., expressed a different, though related, position on the
issue of military applications of technology. In 1975 he wrote: “My personal ethics allow me to
work on developing battlefield weapons, but not on weapons of mass destruction.” He went on to
relate an episode that had occurred a number of years earlier, when he was engaged in the
development of antiaircraft missiles. Upon termination of that project, he was assigned work on a
long-range surface-to-surface missile. He told his employer that he would not feel right about
helping to produce a mass destruction weapon capable of being used against cities. When told that
no other work was available, Payne quietly resigned, found another position after about 3 months,
and was quite successful in his subsequent career.
There are relatively few cases of this type that receive publicity since, as a rule, if an engineer
objects to certain end uses of technology, he or she simply does not seek employment involving
such applications. Problems can arise, however, in several ways. Individuals may be reassigned
within their organizations from acceptable to unacceptable projects, as was Viron Payne. Or their
views may change with time, possibly as a result of certain events, in such a manner that their
judgments about the acceptability of particular applications change.
An instance in this category was the dramatic resignation of three high-ranking engineers from
the Nuclear Energy Systems Division of the General Electric Company. George C. Minor, Richard
Hubbard, and Dale Bridenbaugh had, until February 2, 1976, spent their entire careers with GE
(16-23 years), rising to the ranks of middle management, so that their resignations could not be
taken lightly. Briefly put, in Minor’s words: “My reason for leaving is a deep conviction that
nuclear reactors and nuclear weapons now present a serious danger to the future of all life on this
planet. I am convinced that the reactors, the nuclear fuel cycle and waste storage systems are not
safe.”
Although originally believing that nuclear energy would be beneficial, the three engineers
subsequently concluded that the inherent difficulties in making such systems sufficiently safe
could not be overcome. At that point, regarding the building of such devices as harmful, they saw
no alternative to giving up their jobs and speaking out on the issue. They formed a small consulting
firm and became actively involved in campaigns to mobilize public opinion against this approach
to the energy problem.
The point of interest here is not whether their conclusions regarding nuclear energy are valid—
this is a highly complex matter over which there is great controversy—but rather that when they
changed their views about the desirability of the product they had devoted their careers to, they
acted in accordance with their beliefs. Note the contrast with the situation of Carl Houston (Section
2.6). Both before and after his discharge, Houston felt that nuclear reactors were beneficial devices.
He objected only to certain substandard practices that he observed on his particular project. His
efforts were directed toward upgrading those practices so as to improve the quality of the product.
There is yet another way in which problems related to end use can arise for an engineer or
scientist. For example, if the particular situation in which the product is to be used changes or the
individual’s perception of that situation changes. There are many people who, not being pacifists,
have no inhibitions about helping to produce weapons, provided that they are satisfied that the
weapons will be used in a just manner. (Some argue that the existence of mass destruction devices
in the proper hands serves the cause of peace by deterring less responsible powers from starting
wars.) Should such individuals, perhaps as a result of certain events, lose confidence in those
empowered to use the products of their work, they may decide that what they have been doing is
harmful. During the Vietnam War period, a number of American engineers engaged in work on
military projects quit their jobs on the basis of such reasoning, and many graduating engineers
avoided accepting jobs that were in any way military related.
When an engineer, on grounds of conscience, says that a proposed assignment is unacceptable
on the basis of the end use, the engineer should be given a respectful hearing. While it would be
unreasonable to expect that this would result in the cancellation of the project (although the
possibility cannot be altogether excluded), the engineer should certainly not be punished. On the
contrary, the employer should make every effort to find an alternative assignment for the engineer
within the organization. Should this prove to be impossible, a graceful resignation should be
arranged.

2.12 THE SELF-EMPLOYED CONSULTANT

Forced to Bribe?

“I Gave Up Ethics—To Eat!” is the title of an article that originally appeared in the December
1957 issue of Consulting Engineer. The author’s name was withheld, but the editors stated that he
was a prominent engineer and that they had verified the essentials of his story.
Following an extensive period of employment with a well-established engineering firm, this
anonymous author, a civil engineer specializing in public works (highways, bridges, sewage
plants, etc.), went into business for himself in the late 1940s. But for a period exceeding 2 years,
during which a great deal of postwar construction was initiated, he was unable to obtain a single
contract from any public agency in his state.
Finally, a knowledgeable friend explained that only those who engaged in “political
engineering” were considered for such work. Faced with what seemed to be a choice between
giving up his venture into private practice and seriously violating his ethical principles, the
engineer selected the latter alternative. He made an arrangement with a “public relations counsel”
who, for a 10 percent commission, made the deals necessary to get contracts for the firm. The
engineer, while being careful not to learn too much about the details of these negotiations, observed
that both cash and various political favors were involved. He also became a substantial patron of
the local political apparatus, making major contributions to the dominant party, and smaller,
“hedging” donations to the opposition.
Although not proud of these practices, the anonymous author justified his behavior by arguing
that he was forced into it and that, once he obtained a contract, he carried it out to the best of his
ability. That is, although admittedly behaving unethically in the business arena, he claimed to be
scrupulously ethical in his engineering work. He contended that all government jobs in his state
(unnamed) were awarded in the same corrupt manner and that in some districts this was true for
federal work as well.
More precise information is available about civil engineer Allen Kammerer, who found
himself in a similar predicament as chief operating officer of a small, young consulting firm. In
1967 he was asked by the county engineer for a 25 percent payoff in return for being retained for
some highway work. Otherwise, Kammerer was told, he would get no work in the county. As an
upright, respectable man. active in community affairs and an elder in his church. Kammerer was
startled by this proposal. But after conferring with his partners, his father, and his minister, he
decided to pay the bribes, which amounted to $100,000 over a 4-year period.
In 1971 a federal investigation of the county government was launched. Kammerer’s
involvement became known and he offered to cooperate with the prosecutor. In return he was
given immunity from prosecution. The county engineer was convicted of extortion, receiving a
sentence of 5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Neither Kammerer nor the county engineer was
summoned before the State Board of Registration.
The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Committee on Professional Conduct
investigated the case and recommended that Kammerer be expelled from the society. But the Board
of Direction, impressed by his youth (he was 32 at the time of the initial incident) and by his
contrition, reduced the punishment to suspension. Unlike the subject of the previous case,
Kammerer never attempted to justify his behavior. He freely admits that he was wrong and has
been appearing at mock ethics hearings conducted by ASCE to dramatize the subject of
professional ethics.
Kammerer’s firm was almost, but not quite, wiped out by the scandal. He doggedly insisted
on staying in business under the same name and. 5 years after the investigation, claimed that,
working exclusively in the private sector, the business was beginning to show a profit.
No survey of corruption in engineering would be complete without mentioning the Spiro
Agnew case. The circumstances closely resemble those described by the anonymous engineer
referred to earlier. It appeared to Lester Matz, one of the engineers involved, that no firm could
get public engineering work in Baltimore County, Maryland, without paying kickbacks to county
officials. During the period from 1962 to 1972, Matz and his associates paid tens of thousands of
dollars in bribes in order to get county and state contracts.
(Numerous other Maryland engineers were playing the same game.) The prime recipient was
Spiro Agnew, first as county executive, then as governor of Maryland. Payments continued after
the 1968 elections, and Matz actually delivered $ 10,000 in cash to Vice President Agnew in his
While House office. When Agnew and his associates were prosecuted, Matz turned state’s
evidence, thereby escaping prosecution. He was later expelled from the ASCE.
The general defense made of engineers behaving as in the instances related above is of the
“When in Rome, do as the Romans” type. It is argued that those who don’t “go along” are not able
to remain in business. The very fact that people who appear in other respects to be honorable
succumb to these pressures suggests that they are indeed powerful. But. in the words of one
consulting engineer commenting on the case of the anonymous engineer, “I do not believe that one
has to give up ethics to eat, but he probably does have to give up eating very well.” Note that
Kammerer, after the scandal broke, was able to rebuild his practice without resorting to bribery,
and in fact without being able to get any public work. Matz’s firm was quite successful doing
business entirely in the private sector before he chose the crooked road. Ultimately, these men,
perhaps reluctantly, elected to participate in schemes to enrich themselves at the expense of their
fellow citizens.
The argument by the anonymous engineer that he did his engineering work honestly is a shaky
one. Once one is involved in dishonorable practices, it is difficult to limit them to one sector of
one’s activity. The step from getting a contract illegally to accepting kickbacks in return for
choosing a particular subcontractor whose competence might be marginal is not a long one. This
in turn could lead easily to the condoning of substandard practices on a project. Even if one desires
not to go any further than the original bribery, commission of that act exposes one to pressure,
backed by blackmail, to go along with a broader class of unethical practices.
An engineer who agrees to participate in a corrupt system of allocating contracts thereby
makes it even more difficult for other engineers to avoid being drawn in. Clearly such a situation
calls for joint action to break the system itself. A logical focal point for such action is the
engineering society most prominent in the region.
A very small number of determined engineers—perhaps even one would, by threatening
public exposure if necessary—compel that society to act. Once the engineers in an area joined
together in refusing to acquiesce in corruption, they would almost certainly prevail.

Risk and Responsibility

There are some situations in which conscientious consulting engineers feel that the proper
fulfillment of their professional obligations necessitates that they perform certain functions that
may not have been clearly allocated to them in the contracts made with their clients. Failure to
carry out those functions could have consequences such as financial losses to clients, injuries, loss
of life, and damage to the reputations of the engineers. But by taking on these added functions, the
engineers may thereby expose themselves to serious legal hazards.
An example illustrating one side of the dilemma is the following. An engineering firm was
engaged to design a flood control system for a municipality. Actual construction was assigned to
a different company, the engineering firm having no contractual obligation to supervise or inspect
the construction process. However, while the work was in progress, one of the design engineers
visited the site. He noticed that the steel reinforcing rods had not been inserted far enough into the
concrete detaining walls. This significant departure from the specifications resulted in a greatly
weakened structure that would have failed following a heavy rainfall, with serious consequences
to life and property. Immediately after the engineer reported his observation to his office, the client
was notified and the situation was rectified.
Had the engineer not carried out his extracontractual inspection, a secondary victim of the
resulting disaster would have been the engineering firm. Although a post accident investigation
would probably have established that the fault was not theirs, they would almost certainly have
become entangled in costly, time-consuming litigation and would have suffered a loss of reputation
as a consequence of being associated with the failure of one of their projects.
There are situations, however, in which engineers have found themselves in trouble as a result
of conscientious behavior of the kind just illustrated. A case that came before the Maryland Court
of Appeals in 1978 (Krieger v. J. E. Greiner & Co., Inc., et al.) is in this category. During the
construction of a bridge designed by Greiner, some carelessly placed steel bars fell over, injuring
Krieger, a worker employed by the construction company. Krieger sued the engineers.
The court pointed out that, in principle, the engineers could be held liable only if they could
be shown to have been responsible for safety on the job site “by virtue of a duty under contract,
conduct or law.” No claim was made that there existed a law applicable to the case. The court
further found that the contract defining the role of the engineers in the project could not reasonably
be construed to make them responsible for supervising the work to ensure compliance with safe
practices.
However, the court ruled, if it could be established (as the plaintiff had alleged) that the
engineers had in fact on prior occasions inspected the work site, pointed out hazardous conditions,
and even stopped the work in order to prevent the continuation of practices that they considered
dangerous to the workers, then by their conduct they incurred responsibility for job safety and
could indeed be held liable for the injury to Krieger.
Concern over legal reasoning of this kind sometimes makes consulting engineers hesitate to
intervene when they observe faulty practices for which they are not responsible. They fear that
such an intervention may confer upon them liability for the consequences of similar faulty
practices on the same job that may have escaped their notice. To the extent that it discourages
engineers from monitoring, in a general way, the implementation of their designs and calling
attention to errors or hazards that they thereby observe, this is obviously a most undesirable state
of affairs.
Engineers can best protect themselves by ensuring that their contracts clearly delineate their
areas of responsibility, specify procedures for calling attention to problems, and explicitly state
that the exercise of such procedures does not imply an enlargement of general responsibilities. It
would also be useful if, in recognition of the public interest involved in encouraging engineers to
speak up about dangerous situations they observe, Good Samaritan laws were passed reducing the
legal risks associated with such acts. (These would be analogous to existing laws shielding
physicians who treat people in emergency situations.)

2.13 SOME ADDITIONAL CASES

The foregoing includes only a sampling of the known engineering ethics cases. Other famous
examples of swallowed whistles would be the Corvair and Pinto cases or any of a number of
chemical waste disposal scandals such as the Kepone episode or the Love Canal disaster.
Another case in which an engineer stuck his neck out is that of civil engineer Charles Pettis.
As an employee of the construction firm of Brown and Root, he was the resident engineer on a
Peruvian road construction project between 1966 and 1968. Pettis objected to deficient engineering
practices on the part of Morris-Knudsen, the company constructing the mountain road, but his
warnings were ignored. Shortly after his concerns were validated by landslides killing 31 men,
pressure was brought to bear on his own company that culminated in his discharge and subsequent
difficulties in finding new employment. Although he received no formal support from the ASCE,
a former official of the society did try to help Pettis.
In 1985, electrical engineer Timothy Reid, a civilian employee, was ignored when he told his
superiors at the Naval Electronics System Engineering Center at Point Loma, California, that work
they were contracting out could be done for much less money in-house. When he finally reported
this to his congressman, two things happened. Reid was subjected to a harassment campaign by
his employer that resulted in his suffering a disabling stress disorder. And the cost of the contract
to the taxpayer was reduced by $192 million. Reid was the recipient of a Cavallo Award (See
Section 5.4) in 1989.
The well-known Goodrich air brake case, in which data resulting from tests on brakes
designed for the landing gear of a military aircraft were falsified, is another instance of trouble in
the military systems area. Within the NRC in the mid-1970s, several engineers calling attention to
deficiencies in regulatory practices resigned (Robert Pollard and Ronald Fluegge). Pollard has
since been working on the same problem through a different channel. He has been working for the
Union of Concerned Scientists, a public-interest group that has been monitoring the NRC and the
industry it regulates. Other NRC engineers were involuntarily transferred within the agency
(Demetrios Basdekas, Evangelos Marinos, and James Conran). Conran’s transfer occurred after
he called attention to what he regarded as inadequate regulations to safeguard nuclear power plants
against terrorist acts or theft of fissionable materials. Rather than discuss all of these cases, a brief
summary of one of them is presented below.
Demetrios Basdekas is a highly regarded electrical engineer who has been with the NRC (and
its predecessor the Atomic Energy Commission) since 1972, after having worked for about a
decade in the nuclear power field in various capacities. He gradually realized that the organization
was putting more emphasis on promoting the industry than on ensuring that it followed safe
practices. Matters came to a head in 1976 when he was subjected to internal pressure to approve
the design of the Clinch River breeder reactor despite his strong concerns about the adequacy of
the proposed control system. Following his refusal to bow to the pressure, Basdekas was
transferred to other work and replaced by an inexperienced staff member who would be likely to
do as he was told.
Unable to get an adequate hearing within the NRC, Basdekas went to members of the U.S.
Senate with committee jurisdiction in this field. He succeeded in persuading four of his colleagues
(including Marinos) to join with him. This may explain why he was able to hold on to his job. The
issue was aired publicly and the Clinch River Reactor project was ultimately canceled.
Basdekas continued to speak out publicly on various safety-related issues involving nuclear
power plants through the mid-1980s. Since then he has confined himself to a more conventional
approach to his work within the NRC. In 1991 he received the IEEE SSIT Award for Outstanding
Service in the Public Interest in recognition of his long-standing efforts to improve the regulatory
process in the nuclear power field in the face of powerful opposition.
Another recipient of the above mentioned IEEE award (in 2012) was Marc Edwards, Professor
of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University. In
the course of his research on water distribution systems, Edwards found that many homes in
Washington, DC, were receiving water contaminated with lead to an extent far exceeding
acceptable levels. The health of many thousands of people, especially children, was thereby
jeopardized.
The very agencies whose mission it was to protect the public against such hazards used faulty
data and analysis to reject his conclusions and his recommendations for remedial action. Despite
a loss of funding, and attacks on his competence, Edwards refused to back down. He probed more
deeply into the subject, paying for student assistants and other expenses out of his own pocket. His
work discredited a defective Centers for Disease Control report that, in effect, encouraged water
suppliers all over the nation to underestimate the problem of lead in drinking water. Eventually the
erring agencies backed down and took appropriate action along the lines suggested by Edwards.
 Marc Edwards did not confine his efforts to his home grounds. When somewhat similar water
supply problems were being mishandled in Flint, Michigan, he responded to appeals from
residents. Again, at his own expense, Edwards intervened, in 2016, to help get the local water
supply decontaminated, once again demonstrating courageous, persistent, unselfish dedication to
the public welfare.

See https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/inspired-life/wp/2016/01/26/meet-the-heroic-
professor-who-helped-uncover-the-flint-lead-water-crisis/

2.14 CONCLUSIONS

As mentioned in connection with the Fitzgerald case, the number of situations in which
engineers are intimidated into silence, or in which their protests fail to gain public attention, is a
matter for speculation or further research. Given the generally harsh penalties suffered by whistle
blowers, it is fair to infer that we see only the tip of the iceberg. Some corroboration of this is
contained in the results of a 1972 survey by James Olson of 1100 employee members of the
National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE), which drew over 770 responses. Of those
responding, 11 percent felt they were “required to do things which violated their sense of right and
wrong,” and 60 percent reported that they had at some time expressed their disapproval of a project
on public-interest grounds.
In all of the cases of ethical dissent discussed or referred to in this book, the engineers made
great efforts to resolve the problems within their organizations. They repeatedly appealed to their
managers, and often to higher-level management, in efforts to correct problems they perceived as
being threats to the public well-being. The BART engineers ultimately contacted a member of the
BART Board of Directors, Virginia Edgerton sent a memo to the committee of New York City
officials that her manager reported to, Carl Houston reported first to the plant management and
then to the head office. Rick Parks, whose immediate manager concurred with his position, went
to the NRC only after upper-level management intervened to cut him off from work in the area of
controversy. In subsequent chapters, other cases are presented with similar patterns.
A critical factor affecting employee engineers in ethical jams is their isolation. Engineers are
not considered ordinary workers and seldom belong to unions. On the other hand, they are not
usually part of management, although many do become managers. Until the mid-1970s,
engineering societies did not even consider the idea of backing up members involved in ethics-
based conflicts with employers. There is a tradition of rugged individualism suggesting that
engineers are on an equal footing with their employers when it comes to any sort of work-related
dispute.
Perhaps this concept is valid under some special circumstances, but the chances of lone
individuals winning arguments with organizations such as Convair, DOD, Stone and Webster, or
the City of New York are not very good. Where basic principles of professional ethics are involved,
it is not reasonable to depend exclusively on heroic acts by people willing to incur the kinds of
economic and psychic burdens shouldered by the outstanding individuals cited in this chapter.
Unless mechanisms are developed to give principled engineers some meaningful help, we can
expect more DC-10 disasters, environmental catastrophes, and perhaps even worse. (The
preceding sentence was in the first edition of this book, written in 1981. Subsequent events, some
of which are described in the next chapter, underscore the point made.)
2.15 SUMMARY

Repeated warnings by engineers involved in the design of the DC-10 were brushed off by
management. The engineers did not take the matter outside of normal intra-organizational
channels, and the cognizant regulatory agency failed to protect the public. A catastrophe resulted.
In a number of other cases, courageous engineers refused to let matters rest after their
immediate supervisors ignored their professional judgments. Acting on behalf of the public interest
and the long-term interests of their employers, they took nonroutine measures. In varying degrees
they succeeded in alleviating the situations of concern, but at least in the short run, the personal
cost to these individuals was high.
All acted alone, at least initially, but professional societies became involved in the BART and
Edgerton cases. These involvements varied in effectiveness, as no formal procedures applicable to
such matters were in place. The cases themselves (as related in Chapter 5) contributed to the
development of such procedures.
In the BART, Fitzgerald, and TMI cases, some belated compensation resulted from litigation.
Only Fitzgerald, a civil servant, was eventually reinstated.
During the cleanup operation following the accident at the Three Mile Island nuclear power
plant, three experienced engineers, including the director of site operations, protested against a
pattern of rules violations and “short cuts” that they believed were unnecessarily increasing risks
to the public, to plant workers, and to the nuclear power industry itself. High-level management in
the companies involved responded by retaliating against the engineers in a variety of ways and by
expelling all three from the project. The response of the NRC was weak, and regulations designed
to protect employees calling attention to problems were of very limited value.
Benjamin E. Linder was an idealistic young mechanical engineer who went to Nicaragua to
help poor people improve their lives through the use of technology. Specifically, he led a
successful effort to construct a 100-kW hydroelectric plant in a mountainous region, at the same
time teaching local people the skills necessary to build, operate, and maintain such systems. In
1987, while initiating work on a second such facility, he was ambushed and killed by contra forces.
A different kind of ethical problem is faced by engineers who decide that the objectives of the
projects they are working on, or have been assigned to, are pernicious. Dilemmas of this type can
arise in any of several ways. They can be solved by resignations or intra-organizational transfers.
Engineers in private practice are often subjected to temptations or pressures to offer bribes in
order to secure contracts. Such practices are clearly unethical, although it sometimes requires great
strength of character to eschew them.
Consultants may also encounter situations in which ethical behavior can expose them to
serious legal risks. This is where, by calling attention to hazardous conditions for which they have
no contractual responsibility, they may thereby incur legal liability for other such conditions
connected with the same project. This is an area requiring revision of the relevant laws.

2.16 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What further steps might have been taken by the engineers involved with the DC-10
episode to avert the disaster? Consider, for each such step, what the most likely outcomes
might have been for the DC-10 passengers, the companies involved, and the engineers
themselves.
 2. It is sometimes argued that every activity entails some risk; no technology can be made
risk-free. Attempts to reduce risks to unreasonable low levels are likely to price many
useful devices out of the market. In some cases such efforts may even increase risks to
people by forcing them to use cruder devices. Therefore, according to this argument,
judgments as to when a device or system is sufficiently safe should be left to the
marketplace, without interference from overzealous engineers. Discuss this argument in
the light of the cases presented in this chapter.
3. It is not uncommon for engineers, or engineering managers, to have differences of opinion
with their superiors with respect to technical issues. Devise some practical mechanism for
dealing with such disagreements in a civilized manner that is likely to result in a sensible
decision being made. Consider how your mechanism would work if the subordinate were
some sort of troublemaker or a crackpot. What if the higher-level manager were irrational
or badly motivated?
4. Discuss “appropriate technology” solutions to the problem of electricity generation in a
South Pacific country whose inhabitants are thinly scattered over a number of small islands
that do not rise very far above sea level.
2.17 SOURCES

Background material about the position of engineers in society can be found in Weil (1979)
and in the work of Perrucci (1969).
There are a number of published collections of cases of organizational disobedience (the term
was coined in Otten 1980), many of which involve engineers or applied scientists. These include
Baum (1980a), Nader (1972), ASCE (1975), Westin (1981a), Peters (1972), and Glazer (1989). A
similar work focusing on government employees is Leahy (1978). Some interesting hypothetical
cases are presented and discussed in Kohn (1980a, 1980b), Perry (1981a), and Mascone (1991).
The types of ethics cases of traditional interest to engineering societies can be found in Alger
(1965) and NSPE (1976a). Parker (1978) has compiled a collection of ethical dilemmas in the
computer field.
A very fine, comprehensive account of the DC-10 case, the principal source relied on here, is
Eddy (1976). Another useful work on this subject is Fielder (1992). In addition to the article in
Section 2.3 (Unger 1973), information about the BART case may be found in three articles:
Anderson (1974), Anderson (1975), and Friedlander (1974). A book, Anderson (1980) contains a
great deal of background information on the case. It presents the situation from a variety of
viewpoints, though it is weak on the technology aspects and is biased in favor of the management
position. For my own review of the book, see Unger (1980a). I have met with Robert Bruder on a
number of occasions, obtaining his views firsthand, and had an extensive telephone conversation
with Max Blankenzee. The award to the BART engineers is reported by Kotasek (1978).
The basic material on the Edgerton case consists of the two reports (Unger 1978; Fairman et
al. 1978) reproduced in Appendix A.4. During the course of the investigation of her case, and
subsequently, I had numerous telephone conversations with Virginia Edgerton and met with her
on a few occasions. An account of the CSIT Award presentation to her is in Lindsay (1979).
The most comprehensive source of material on the Fitzgerald case is his own books
(Fitzgerald 1972, 1989). Additional material is in Nader (1972), Ewing (1977), Leahy (1978), and
Weaver (1981). I have heard Fitzgerald speak on two occasions and conversed with him briefly in
person and later at greater length on the telephone. The leading scholar in what might be called
“Pentagon analysis” is Seymour Melman; see, for example, Melman (1983). The Houston case is
treated by Nader (1972) and ASCE (1975), the latter item being reprinted on pages 116-120 of
Baum (1980a).
A great deal of information on the TMI cleanup case was assembled by the late Carl Barus in
his capacity as chairman of the SSIT Awards Committee. This includes a file of NRC documents,
affidavits, and newspaper accounts. The most important of these were the affidavits and sworn
statements of Parks (1983a, 1983b) and Gischel (1983a, 1983b), NRC documents: Hayes (1983),
Taylor (1985), Christopher (1983), and newspaper articles: an extensive account by Susan
Fitzgerald and Jim Detjen (1985), Lyons (1983), Detjen (1986), and Wall Street Journal Staff
Reporter (1986). The SSIT Awards committee requested comments from NRC, GPUN, and
Bechtel, but they declined to comment on the TMI-2 case other than to send some documents. I
did have a brief, informal telephone conversation with an NRC staff member.
Carl Barus also compiled an extensive collection of material on Ben Linder. A commentary
by Samuel Florman (1987) was an important factor in the decision to consider Linder for the SSIT
award. Linder’s own account of his activities is in Linder (1986). Informative newspaper articles
are Polman (1987), Boudreaux (1987), and Miller (1987). Rebecca Leaf, an engineering colleague
of Linder’s, supplies background information in Leaf (1988). Letters from Linder’s parents and
from Mira Brown updated me with respect to the current status of the Cuá-Bocay project.
The Paschkis incident is related in Spectator (1961), and Viron Payne describes his experience
in Payne (1975). An account of the resignation of the three GE engineers is by Barnett (1976).
Extensive discussions of the moral aspects of doing military related technical work is in Mitcham
(1989).
Material on the bribery of engineers is in Anonymous (1975), Fairweather (1978), Matz
(1980), and Cohen (1974). The subsection on risk and responsibility is essentially abstracted from
the work of Alderman and Schulz (1980).
Accounts of the Pinto and Corvair cases can be found in Westin (1981a) and Dowie (1977),
and in Nader (1972) and Wright (1977), respectively. The Pettis case is discussed in Nader (1972)
and also in Peters and Taylor [1972; reprinted in Baum (1980a), pp. 191-96]. The Reid case is in
Institute (1989). The Goodrich air brake episode is treated in Vandivier (1972, 1975), Proxmire
(1969), and Stone (1975).
Discussions of the cases of the NRC engineers are in Leahy (1978) and Durniak (1976), and
a firsthand account of the experience of Peter Faulkner, a nuclear engineer in private industry, is
in Westin (1981a). The survey of NSPE members is in Olson (1972).
CHAPTER THREE: THE ABUSE OF TECHNOLOGY

Given the imperfection of human nature, it is not surprising that we can find many examples
of blundering and wrong doing that have led to costly failures of complex technology-based
projects. Greed, pride, conceit, short-sightedness, carelessness, incompetence, stupidity,
laziness—probably every human failing can contribute to a disaster under certain circumstances.
It is essential in a well-managed project that there be adequate safeguards to ensure that disastrous
mistakes cannot result from one or a few errors. Similarly, a well-designed system will not fail in
a dangerous way as a consequence of a few human errors or of the failure of one or a few parts. In
this chapter, some technological disasters are described and analyzed. These episodes indicate how
terrible consequences can ensue from the misuse of technology, even when the overall purposes
are benign. (No need to point out the effects of hi-tech warfare.) We begin with the first major
technological disaster of the twentieth century.

3.1 TITANIC—FIRST AND LAST VOYAGE

It represented the last word in luxury ocean liners. Built to accommodate millionaires (at a
time when that word had real meaning), the White Star liner Titanic had all the facilities of a great
hotel, including a Turkish bath, a squash court, and a swimming pool. The world’s largest ship
(882 feet long, gross tonnage 46,328), it also embodied the latest in maritime technology. In
addition to being fast, the ship was considered to be unsinkable due to its 16 watertight
compartments, any two of which (or the forward four) could be flooded without sinking it. The
touch of a button would seal these off from one another.
Consider now the circumstances of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, a westbound Atlantic
crossing, starting April 11, 1912, from Queenstown, Ireland, with 2227 people on board. Just over
900 were crew members, including 290 stewards and stewardesses. Included among the 337 first-
class passengers were such wealthy luminaries as John Jacob Astor, Benjamin Guggenheim,
George B. Widener, and Isidor Straus. There were also 271 second-class passengers and 712
people in steerage.
On April 14, at 11:40 p.m., on a clear night, in a dead calm sea, while racing through the North
Atlantic at its top speed of 22.5 knots, the great ship grazed an iceberg . This resulted in opened
seams and hull punctures along a 300-foot stretch below the waterline that spanned 6 of the
watertight compartments starting at the bow. After two and a half hours, during which lifeboats
were launched, the ship went down by the head. Over two-thirds of those on board, about 1522
people, perished. About an hour later, summoned by a radio distress signal, the liner Carpathia
arrived to pick up the 705 survivors. (As is often the case in such situations, there are minor
discrepancies among various records with respect to the number of people originally on board, and
the number rescued.) This was the first instance in which radio technology was responsible for a
major rescue at sea.

Imagination, Lifeboats, and Binoculars

“I cannot imagine any condition which could cause a ship to founder . . . Modern shipbuilding
has gone beyond that” So said Edward J. Smith, the premier captain of the British owned White
Star Line. This was the man chosen to command that organization’s magnificent new ship, the
Titanic. The lack of imagination suggested by that quotation, a lack by no means confined to
Captain Smith, was the single factor that best accounts for the disaster that followed. Perhaps this
attitude is better characterized as arrogance. In numerous ways, the management of the White Star
Line and its favorite captain acted as though they were somehow insulated from the forces that
seafarers have struggled with for millennia.
Because they could not conceive of the ship sinking, the managers and captain seriously
neglected the most basic traditional tool for coping with such an event: the lifeboat. The Titanic
was equipped with 16 lifeboats and 4 other, smaller boats, capable of carrying only 53 percent of
those on board. (This capacity actually exceeded that mandated by the British Board of Trade, the
agency responsible for regulating shipping safety.) Furthermore, no lifeboat drills were held,
passengers were not assigned to specific boats, and crew members were not trained to launch or
handle the boats. There were no standing plans for getting passengers into the boats, and no scheme
for launching the boats in orderly sequences.
Thus, when the crisis came, there was great confusion, and the actual number of people taken
on board the lifeboats averaged only 60 percent of their capacity. A general policy of “women and
children first” was followed—but with some strange variations. A 10-year-old boy was forced out
of a lifeboat at gunpoint by an officer who apparently considered him to have attained manhood.
But J. Bruce Ismay, Chairman of the White Star Line, somehow managed to qualify for a lifeboat
seat.
While neglect with respect to the lifeboats significantly amplified the consequences of the
disaster, other factors brought it on. It was apparently not unusual for the pressures of competition
to cause captains of big liners to behave recklessly in order to meet or exceed their schedules. For
example, they would often run at high speed through fog shrouded waters. Fishermen whose boats
were in the way sometimes turned up missing as a result. This attitude, amplified by a firm belief
in the invulnerability of the Titanic, may account for the behavior of Captain Smith. He paid little
or no attention to radio warnings from ships in the waters ahead of him about the prevalence of
icebergs.
No orders were given to the Titanic’s radio operators to give special priority to such messages.
The ship’s officers were not briefed with respect to the reports received. No effort was made to
estimate the location and extent of the ice field and to plot a safe course through it. No orders were
given to increase the number of lookouts or to reduce speed. At 10:30 p.m., 70 minutes before the
Titanic’s fatal collision, the Rappahannock passed it going east and warned (via signal lamp) that
it had just emerged from a great ice field that had damaged its rudder. Captain Smith was not
impressed. The Titanic continued to move at the greatest speed it had yet attained (or ever would
attain).
The problem was clearly not idiosyncratic behavior on the part of the captain. That he was
acting in accordance with company policy is clearly confirmed by the lack of any protest from the
chief executive officer of the White Star Line, who was on board and fully informed of the
situation.
At the time of the collision, the temperature was just above freezing, there was no wind or
fog, and no moon. Two lookouts were posted aloft. For unknown reasons, they were not issued
binoculars. They sighted the iceberg dead ahead at a distance of about 500 meters. First officer
William Murdoch (the captain was not on the bridge) immediately ordered the helm put over hard
and the engines reversed. But there was not enough time to steer the huge ship around the obstacle.
The Titanic grazed the iceberg, suffering the injury that proved fatal.
Had the lookouts been equipped with binoculars, they would almost certainly have seen the
iceberg in time for the ship to have avoided it. There is also reason to believe that lookouts on the
bridge might have been in a better position to see icebergs than were those higher up. Ironically,
if the lookouts had not seen the iceberg at all, the collision would have been head-on, and though
severe damage to the bow would have resulted, no more than two compartments would have been
flooded, and the Titanic almost certainly would not have gone down.
Despite all of the evidence pointing to gross negligence on the part of the White Star Line (a
British corporation owned by the American financier J. P. Morgan), the company got off
remarkably lightly. No penalties were assessed by the regulating agency, and, after several years
of litigation and negotiation, the company settled out of court for damages to the victims and their
families totaling only $664,000. Clearly the market value of human life has risen considerably
since 1912.

A Lack of Balance

Following the location and underwater photographing of the wreckage of the Titanic in 1985,
it was conjectured that the loss of life might have been greatly reduced—or even eliminated—had
a different tactic been used after the collision. Since the punctured compartments were at the
forward end, only the forward pumps could be deployed, and these were quickly over-whelmed
by the rapid influx of water. Furthermore, the imbalance caused by this uneven distribution of
weight caused the ship to rotate forward, sub-merging the bow end and thereby soon allowing
more water to enter via openings in the hull that were normally above the waterline (principally
one designed for the anchor).
Suppose the watertight doors between compartments had been opened, and water permitted
to flow through to the aft compartments. This would have reduced the tilt and also permitted
additional pumps to be used. The Titanic might then have remained afloat for at least a few hours
more, enough time for the Carpathia to have arrived and taken everyone off the ship. The idea
seems very plausible. Why wasn’t it carried out? What makes this question particularly intriguing
is that among the passengers was Thomas Andrews, one of the chief designers of the Titanic
According to testimony at hearings dealing with the disaster, Captain Smith did indeed consult
with Mr. Andrews about how to cope with the damage to the ship, but there is no indication that
this idea was considered. Since both the captain and the designer, unlike the board chairman, went
down with the ship, this mystery will probably remain unsolved.

To the Rescue

Another interesting phase of this episode is the rescue operation. A key aspect was the use of
the relatively new technology: wireless telegraphy—or radio. The Titanic, along with most other
large vessels was equipped with this marvelous new device, operated by employees of the Marconi
Company. As mentioned above, had Captain Smith heeded the iceberg warnings broadcast by
ships in the waters he was entering, the tragedy would probably have been averted altogether.
Immediately after the collision, the two radio operators were instructed to broadcast a distress
signal, specifying the Titanic’s condition and position. They did so, and remained at their posts
until personally released by the captain shortly before the ship went under. Chief operator Jack
Phillips perished from exposure and cold in the water. Assistant operator Harold Bride jumped
overboard shortly before the ship went down, reached an overturned boat and survived. He and
Phillips were justifiably lauded as heroes of this unfortunate event.
 A number of ships responded, several offering to come to the scene. Of these, only the
Carpathia, 58 miles away, was close enough to be useful. Arthur Rostron, the captain, responded
in a highly competent, seamanlike manner. When the radio operator burst into the captain’s cabin
with the message from the Titanic, the half-asleep Rostron, who had just retired for the night,
immediately ordered his ship turned around at the same time that he instructed the operator to get
more information. Without even waiting for confirmation, the captain, while working out his new
course, had his crew take every measure to get the engines going at the maximum possible speed.
This included cutting off heat and hot water, and calling out the off-duty stokers to help fire up the
boilers to the maximum possible extent. They managed to get the ship’s speed up to 17 knots,
several knots above its normal top speed. Meanwhile he prepared his officers (including the ship’s
doctors), crew, and passengers to retrieve and care for the survivors. Boats were readied for launch,
nets, ladders, and chair slings were rigged to help survivors get on board. Hot beverages and
blankets were made ready. Unlike Captain Smith, he posted extra lookouts on the bridge and on
the bow. Captain Rostron maneuvered through the ice field with great skill, slowing to half speed
when necessary. The Carpathia arrived three and a half hours after receiving the distress signal—
about an hour after the Titanic went under—and took on all of the 705 survivors.
But all during this time another ship, the Californian, lay dead in the water about 10 miles
from the Titanic, having previously hove to because of the ice. Its radio operator was not on duty
that night. The captain, also not on watch at the time, took no action when his officers reported
sightings of the Titanic’s distress rockets (eight were fired). This behavior was never adequately
explained at the hearings held following the tragedy and was widely regarded as a grave violation
of the most basic obligation of sea-farers: to come to the aid of those in distress. Possibly, the
California’s captain, Stanley Lord, felt a “need to not know” what was going on so that he could
avoid becoming involved in a night rescue operation in a dangerous ice field.

Arrogance and Authoritarianism

Neither the design nor the construction of the Titanic caused the disaster. (Its sister ship, the
Olympic, operated reliably for several decades.) No doubt there was room for improvement. For
example, the watertight bulkheads might have been extended up another 10 or 20 feet to improve
the isolation of the watertight compartments, and recent studies suggest that low-quality steel
plates amplified hull damage. But the Titanic was in no way below standard for its day.
Considering the circumstances, it is remarkable that there were no reports of significant
instances of panic on the part of either the passengers or the crew. Many behaved heroically. For
example, the engine room officers stayed at their posts until the last moments in order to supply
power for the lights and pumps. None of them survived. The Titanic’s musicians kept playing
almost to the very end. They too went down with the ship.
Nor could blame be justifiably attributed to the cruelty of nature—the weather was unusually
benign.
Rather the root cause was a lack of understanding of the limitations of the technology on the
part of those who should have known better. The catastrophe was brought on by a combination of
poor judgment (excessive speed, not posting extra lookouts), bad management (inadequate lifeboat
capacity, no lifeboat drills, no binoculars for lookouts), and perhaps near criminal malfeasance (on
the part of the California’s captain).
One element is absent from this story—at least from the published accounts. No
“troublemakers” or “malcontents” surfaced to annoy those in command either on land or at sea.
 Alexander M. Carlisle, managing director of Harland & Wolff, the Belfast shipyard that built
the Titanic, believed that the number of lifeboats should have been greatly increased so as to
accommodate all on board. But he did not press the point with White Star’s management. They
had a more important use for the deck space that these boats would have occupied: glass-enclosed
observation lounges, suites, palm courts, and other features to attract wealthy travelers. In 1911,
Carlisle, as a member of a committee advising the British Board of Trade, urged that more lifeboats
be mandated for large liners. When the committee rejected his advice, he not only did not protest
publicly but actually signed a committee document recommending a reduction in lifeboat
requirements.
Board of Trade inspector Captain Maurice Henry Clarke approved the Titanic’s “lifeboat
drill,” which consisted of lowering two boats while the ship was docked. He subsequently testified
that, at the time, he did not consider this to be a satisfactory system. When asked why he
nevertheless approved it, his reply was, “Because it was the custom.”
No White Star Line employee seems to have objected to the procedures followed by the
captain and the company that led to the disaster. If any of the ships officers, all experienced
seamen, were concerned about the lack of lifeboat drills or the orders to proceed at top speed
through perilous waters, they kept those concerns to themselves. The chain of command was
meticulously observed.
On board the Californian, the officer on watch who observed the distress rockets launched by
the Titanic did not raise any objections when his captain gave no orders to investigate. He did not
even take the simple initiative of awakening the radio operator to check for distress signals.
Perhaps there is a lesson here about the efficacy of authoritarian management of complex
technological systems.

3.2 BHOPAL—A MULTINATIONAL DISASTER

On December 3, 1984, shortly after midnight, there occurred the greatest industrial disaster in
history, measured in terms of prompt deaths. Tens of thousands of people were seriously injured
and several thousand were killed as a result of an explosive leak of poisonous gas from a plant
manufacturing Sevin, an agricultural pesticide, in the city of Bhopal, capital of Madhya Pradesh,
the largest state of India. The plant was operated by Union Carbide of India, Limited (UCIL), a
company controlled (via 50.9 percent stock ownership) by the Union Carbide Corporation (UCC),
an American chemical company.
An important substance used in the manufacture of Sevin (also known as carbaryl) is methyl
isocyanate (MIC), a volatile (boiling point 39.1°C), flammable, poisonous liquid that reacts with
many other substances, including water, and that, in the presence of certain catalysts (e.g., iron
oxide) reacts violently with itself in a chain reaction. In some manner, never clearly established,
water seems to have entered a tank storing over 30 tonnes of MIC. The ensuing reaction caused
great clouds of MIC and other chemicals to spew out of the tank and form a deadly cloud that
engulfed a large part of the city of 900,000. Several hundred thousand people, in an area of about
25 square miles, were exposed to some extent.

Some Economic Background

When modern agricultural methods were introduced to India, it became necessary to supply
farmers with large quantities of pesticides. Importing pesticides would cause a drain on India’s
limited supply of foreign exchange. This led to the idea of manufacturing pesticides locally. Union
Carbide, which had a previous history in India, was therefore permitted to set up a subsidiary for
manufacturing Sevin and was allowed to hold a controlling interest in that subsidiary, an exception
to Indian laws requiring Indian control of domestic firms.
The Bhopal plant started operation in 1969 as a small facility to dilute and package Sevin. It
was gradually expanded and given additional tasks until it became a full-fledged manufacturing
plant in 1980. By 1984 the facility occupied over 80 acres and was valued at $25 million. Initially,
American personnel were in key positions. The technology was that developed by UCC in the
United States. As mandated by Indian regulations, local people were trained to operate the plant.
Gradually, Indian employees of UCIL took over management of the operation. Nevertheless, UCC
maintained an overall supervisory role and kept a corporate eye on the situation. All important
decisions, as well as the annual budget, had to be approved by UCC.
At no time, however, was the Bhopal plant very profitable. As a result of extended drought
conditions and competition from cheaper pesticides, sales were well below what had been
expected; annual production never reached half of its capacity. The operation had been financially
in the red since 1981. At the time of the accident, Sevin was not actually being produced, and UCC
planned to dismantle the Bhopal plant and send the components to Brazil and Indonesia.

Laying the Groundwork for a Disaster

One consequence of the financial ill health of the Bhopal plant was that operating staff was
cut to a minimum, training programs were reduced, and equipment was allowed to deteriorate.
Apparently, instrumentation at Bhopal was so unreliable that it was common for gas leaks of
various types to be detected by workers reporting tearing and burning sensations in their eyes. A
report by UCC inspectors in 1982 indicated many serious problems, but there was no follow-up
inspection to verify that these had been cleared up. Instead, reliance was placed on paper
assurances that the observed defects had been remedied. The system of pipes and valves at the
plant was very complex, and the valves were poorly marked. As a consequence, most technicians
at the plant (who were, for the most part, poorly trained and inexperienced) had little understanding
of that system. Valve maintenance was minimal and failures common.
In general, all indications are that the Bhopal facility was in poor condition, housekeeping was
substandard, and important subsystems and pieces of equipment were inoperative. This in a place
where quantities of very dangerous substances were routinely processed.
Of particular significance is the issue of the handling of MIC. The questions of how much
MIC should be kept on hand and how it should be stored were vital. Since it was a key factor in
the production of Sevin, manufacturing it in quantity and keeping large stocks on hand was
economically advantageous. However, due to its instability and toxicity, this was a dangerous
course of action, particularly where the competence of the organization was questionable. This
point is underscored in a post-accident affidavit filed by Edward Munoz, an American who had
previously been a managing director of UCIL. He stated that UCIL had opposed storing large
quantities of MIC but had been overruled by UCC.
Three large stainless steel tanks, each with a capacity of 45 tonnes, were used to store MIC.
UCC had developed a series of rules and safety systems to cope with malfunctions. One of the
three tanks was to remain empty to serve as a reserve storage space in the event of an accident. No
tank was to be filled to more than half of its capacity. A refrigeration unit was to keep the tank
temperatures below 5°C. A flare tower was installed to enable certain gases that might escape to
be burned off. Provision was also made for a water curtain to douse leaking gases and for a vent
gas scrubber to neutralize small leaks with caustic soda. Whether or not these could have prevented
the disaster is not known because the rules were violated and all of the safety systems were either
inoperative or improperly designed. The reserve tank was not empty, and the tank in which the
reaction occurred was almost three quarters filled. The refrigeration unit, the flare tower, and the
scrubber had all been turned off, and the water curtain was unable to reach the height at which the
gas was exiting the tank.
There had been several serious accidents at the Bhopal plant starting in 1981 when a worker
was killed by phosgene splashed from a leaky valve. In 1982, there were several accidents that
hospitalized other workers. Labor union officials had complained on a number of occasions about
unsafe conditions, most recently about air quality in the plant in August of 1984, but they were
curtly rebuffed by the management.
It seems fair to say that conditions were such that a major accident was almost certain to occur.
In fact, a freelance journalist, Raj Kumar Keswani, who lived in Bhopal, had been writing about
this likelihood since 1982. In an article published in June, 1984, Keswani predicted a catastrophe
resulting from a gas leak.

Non-Barking Watchdogs

Where were the government officials whose responsibility it was to safeguard worker and
public safety? It is clear that both national and state governments repeatedly overlooked serious
deficiencies at the facility. People were permitted to live in the neighborhood despite the obvious
potential for disaster. Inspectors did not inspect, regulators failed to regulate. Part of the problem
was simply budgetary. For example, the inspectorate of factories of the state of Madhya Pradesh
had only 15 inspectors to monitor 7000 factories. Transportation and communication facilities
available to them were limited, and most were mechanical engineers, not knowledgeable about
chemical processes. (The situation in this respect is not all that different in the United States, where
the analogous agencies are similarly understaffed with respect to their workloads, many employees
are inadequately trained, and supporting staff and facilities are insufficient.)
There was often (again, as in the United States) too close a relationship between the regulators
and the people being regulated. At a higher level, the desire to encourage technology transfer and
local manufacture with a view toward easing trade imbalances led government officials to
minimize annoying restrictions on the operations of transnational corporations. One area in which
they did enforce restrictions was counterproductive. This was in pressing to have Indian nationals
running the plant as soon as possible, and discouraging the use of foreign advisors.
Finally, while the crisis was in full swing, the local government did a poor job in assisting
people to escape from the afflicted area and in organizing medical treatment for the victims.
Physicians were handicapped by a lack of information as to how best to treat those exposed to
MIC.

Triggering the Disaster

What follows is a likely outline of the scenario that culminated in the disaster, but no hard
evidence has been found to establish firmly the precise sequence of events. As happens so often,
death struck in the dark of night. At about 9 p.m. on December 2, a workman was instructed to
wash out a pipe by turning on a valve that sent water through it. Another valve kept this water
from reaching the MIC storage tanks. However, the metal disc (slip blind) that normally should
have been inserted in that valve as a precaution against its failure was not in place. This was very
dangerous since MIC reacts violently with water. Apparently there was indeed a leak through this
valve as night shift workers observed elevated pressure readings for tank 610 at about 11 p.m.
(Note that the plant was not in the production mode. The MIC in the tank had been there for about
3 months.) Accustomed to erratic instruments, they did not take this too seriously. But, within the
next hour, they had more authoritative evidence in the form of eye irritation, which they reported
to the night shift supervisor.
The night shift supervisor said he would look into the matter after the tea break. By about
12:30 a.m., a combination of pressure and temperature readings as well as visible liquid and gas
leaks clearly indicated that matters in tank 610 were getting out of hand. Efforts were made to
deploy various safety features, such as the scrubber and the water tower, but these were inoperative
or ineffectual. An audible alarm directed at the general public was sounded briefly, and then
replaced with an alarm for the plant employees. The latter fled upwind, thereby escaping harm.
The plant management initially denied that anything had gone wrong, made confusing statements
to the police, and did not turn on the general alarm again until 2:15 a.m. (Apparently, the plant
manager first heard about the accident from the police!)
A general evacuation of the population was officially ordered at 2:30 a.m. Hundreds of
thousands of people fled their homes or were overcome by the deadly cloud that rolled over the
city. The immediate effects of the cloud (whose precise composition is not clear) were on the eyes
(this could be effectively countered by applying water) and on the lungs. The latter effect was the
most severe, capable of causing major permanent damage including death.

Counting the Cost

Estimates of deaths and casualties are necessarily uncertain because of the chaotic nature of
the situation. Many of those affected lived in shanty towns near the plant and were not registered
with the government. Whole families were killed, leaving nobody to report the deaths. Hospitals
were overwhelmed during the event and could not keep records of patients treated. Cremations
and burials took place without official notice, and some were taken to different municipalities by
their families before they died. People continued to die as a result of lung damage for months after
the fateful day. Apart from the difficulty involved in identifying the individuals who were
obviously victims of the gas, there are problems in defining deaths attributable to the disaster.
Consider, for example, an elderly man who, prior to the accident, was suffering from a severe lung
disease that was expected to end his life within a few months. Exposed to the death cloud, he dies
immediately, and is thus included in the death toll. On the other hand, consider the case of a healthy
young woman whose lungs were severely damaged by the fumes. She survives only to die in
another city a few years later from pneumonia. She might not have been counted among the Bhopal
victims. One can imagine many intermediate cases. Thus, even in principle, there is no precise
number to describe how many people lost their lives as a result of this accident. To a greater or
lesser extent, such fuzziness applies to virtually all events of this type.
Nevertheless, for comparison purposes, it is useful to make some estimate. In 1987, in legal
proceedings, UCC made a compensation offer based on an estimate of 2600 deaths, and the
government of India made demands based on the number 2850. A more recent estimate, offered
by government officials in Bhopal, is that 4000 people died. It is generally believed that about
200,000 people were exposed to the cloud, and perhaps 30,000 were seriously injured; of course,
there is room for much variation in the definition of “serious.”
Monetary losses were mainly due to the disruption of normal human activities. Except for
injuries and deaths of livestock, there was essentially no direct damage to property. Losses were
incurred in the form of lost working hours, business not transacted, legal expenses, medical costs,
and funeral expenses. These, according to one estimate, totaled somewhat under $100 million. Far
more controversial is the question of translating into monetary terms the harm done in the forms
of deaths, injuries, and pain suffered by human beings. This is discussed in the next section in
connection with the legal issues.
But first a bit more should be said about the real effects of such a disaster. When we read
about a tragic episode in which a little girl perishes in a fire despite the desperate efforts of her
parents to save her, we tend to empathize with them. The depth of our feelings depends in part on
how much detail we are given, and the form in which the story is told. How can we properly
appreciate the meaning of a whole volume of such stories? Attaching numerical coefficients, no
matter how large, to the elements involved seems inadequate. One should take a moment to
consider how terrible it is to have thousands of such incidents occur in a short span of time: sons
losing mothers, sisters losing brothers, wives losing husbands, old friends seeing one another die.
Death was not the only generator of grief; the lives of whole families were shattered by crippling
injuries suffered by one or more members. In addition to any losses of friends or family, many
survivors were shaken by the nightmarish experience of having to flee before the deadly fog. There
were apparently long-term neurological consequences to many of those who suffered only
marginal lung or eye damage.

The Legal Battle

How should the victims of the catastrophe be compensated? How should the blame be
assigned? Here is where the law comes into the picture. The first issue that had to be resolved in
the Bhopal case was one of jurisdiction. The disaster occurred in India, but the corporation
involved, UCIL, is controlled by an American company. Should the case be tried in India under
Indian law or should it be tried in the United States under American law?
One might think at first that each side would seek the “home court advantage,” that is, that the
victims would want the case decided in their own country under Indian law, with Indian judges
and juries, while UCC would fight tooth and nail to have the legal dual fought the American way.
But the positions were in fact exactly the reverse. We had the spectacle of attorneys representing
the government of India presenting briefs arguing the inadequacy of the Indian courts in such
cases, while American attorneys praised the competence and integrity of that same system.
There were two reasons for this reversal. First, under American law, the plaintiffs have less
of a burden in such cases. Under the strict liability doctrine, they need only prove that they suffered
damage. They need not show that the defendant was negligent, as would be necessary in an Indian
court (whose rules are closer to those of Great Britain). The second point is that cases of this type
were much more common in American courts, and they tend to award much more to defendants
than do Indian courts in comparable cases.
Another aspect of UCC’s case was their claim that the Bhopal operation was solely controlled
by UCIL under Indian laws and regulations. They denied any responsibility for the behavior of
their subsidiary. They blamed the local, state, and national government for having permitted so
many people to live near the plant and argued that government inspectors had approved of the
plant’s design and operational procedures.
On the issue of jurisdiction, UCC prevailed when, in the State of New York, Federal District
Court Judge John F. Keenan ruled, in May 1986, that it would be most appropriate to have the trial
in India, where the incident had occurred, and where most of the evidence, documents, and
witnesses resided. He did specify in his ruling, however, that UCC itself, not just its .subsidiary,
must accept Indian jurisdiction, that UCC must accept any fair verdict of the Indian courts, and
that UCC must accept pretrial disclosure, proceedings of the type common in American courts. In
general, the legal scene in the aftermath of the disaster was chaotic. Union Carbide Corporation
made various offers to assist the victims immediately while denying responsibility. Company
statements suggested that the cause of the disaster was sabotage, but no real case was ever made
to support this. Local people were angry at their own government for having failed in its
responsibility to ensure safe operation of the plant. Corruption was suspected in some instances.
American lawyers swarmed over Bhopal signing up the families of victims in anticipation of legal
suits to be filed in the United States.
Sevin was also produced by UCC in a plant located in Institute, West Virginia. The company
had claimed earlier that it used the same technology employed in Bhopal. Hence its position with
respect to the Bhopal disaster was undermined when it was learned that a report on a 1984 safety
audit of the Institute plant warning of the danger of a chain reaction in the MIC storage tank had
not been sent to UCIL management. The company’s situation deteriorated further after an accident
at Institute in which 130 residents of the town were hospitalized following the release of a cloud
of noxious fumes from the Sevin plant. This occurred in August of 1985, after the installation of a
computerized safety system. (There were no fatalities.) In response to this episode, OSHA
(Occupational Safety and Health Administration) proposed fining UCC $32,100 for negligence.
Between 1985 and 1987, UCC sold off a large portion of its assets and returned a substantial
amount of money to its stockholders via the mechanism of buying back its own stock. This
apparently was part of a maneuver to prevent a takeover by another firm, but it also had the effect
of reducing the company’s ability to compensate Bhopal victims.
Alfred de Grazia, a former political science professor at Stanford University, calculated that
about $1.2 billion would be a reasonable figure for total compensation from UCC for injuries and
deaths. (Other compensation he added in for such matters as business losses brought his total to
$1.3 billion.) He arrived at this number by estimating the total number of person years of work lost
and multiplying this by a yearly wage of $1500, which he said is a “good wage” in India (it
corresponds to an average operator’s annual pay and benefits at UCIL). His calculation was based
on 3000 deaths, 10,000 people 50 percent disabled, 20,000 people 25 percent disabled, and
180,000 people 10 percent disabled, each group broken down into three age categories. No money
was allocated for pain and suffering, nor did he include punitive damages. Certainly by American
standards this is a very modest assessment.
In 1986, a $350 million total compensation offer by UCC was rejected by the Indian
government, which sued for $3 billion. Efforts of various judges to persuade the parties to settle
the case quickly out of court were unsuccessful. It was not until 1989 that a settlement was reached
obliging UCC to pay $470 million in damages. (Note that the company had liability insurance
coverage totaling about $200 million.) This settlement was approved by the Indian supreme court
in October, 1991, but as of April, 1992 the Indian government had not yet disbursed any of this
money to the victims. A provision of the court’s ruling was that the way was open for the Indian
government to file criminal charges against UCC officials, including the former chairman of the
board. However, UCC refused to accept Indian jurisdiction in this regard. The Indian government’s
response to this refusal was to seize the assets of UCIL (estimated at being worth about $70
million).

Why Did It Happen?

The Bhopal catastrophe was the worst industrial accident in history. Given the background as
sketched above, it would be hard to argue that it was the result of some bizarre and unforeseeable
series of events. Rather it appears that a complex manufacturing process involving the use of
quantities of extremely hazardous and tricky substances was implemented in a careless, sloppy
manner at a site in a heavily populated area. This was done under the aegis of the third largest
chemical company (37th largest corporation) in the United States, which had a relatively good
reputation for industrial safety. It took place in a poor country, but one with a democratic and
socially conscious government. How can this be explained?
No single factor appears to thrust itself forward as the sole cause. But the interaction of several
basic elements seems crucial.
1. The process involved, particularly the aspect involving MIC, was inherently dangerous
with respect to chemical instability and toxicity. The potential for doing harm was great.
(By comparison, it is not easy to see how a textile mill producing cotton cloth could kill
people in the surrounding area.)
2. The process was a complex one involving a complicated maze of pipes, valves, and other
apparatus. Few, if any, of the workers involved could have had a clear understanding of
the system.
3. Particularly because the plant was running at a loss, there was a great emphasis on cutting
costs. This led to skimping on training, reduction of staff, departure of skilled people (who
realized there was no future in this venture), and failure to detect and replace or repair
faulty equipment (such as valves and instruments).
4. Economic and political factors induced Indian government officials to turn a blind eye to
the hazards of the operation, to permit increasing numbers of people to live near the plant,
and to press for the premature replacement of UCC managers and engineers with less
knowledgeable Indian citizens. (In view of the high quality of many Indian engineering
schools, it is not clear why UCIL could not hire more capable people.) It is also true that
municipalities in poor countries seldom have organizations and apparatus to cope
adequately with large-scale emergencies.
5. An important human factor is that, when working in an environment such as that of the
Bhopal plant, surrounded by dangerous materials and routinely encountering malfunctions,
one soon becomes habituated to these factors and does not react appropriately to them.
Thus the shift supervisor was in no hurry to investigate the problem brought to his attention.
No doubt he had often received similar reports in the past.
Government inspectors, by themselves, cannot possibly do an effective job of checking on the
safety of complex systems such as chemical plants. Even if they were experts in the technologies
involved, it is hard to see how they could master the details of all of the systems on their beats to
the extent that they could detect the kinds of subtle problems that often lead to trouble. If there
were enough competent inspectors to make their workloads reasonable, they could at least
recognize many the kinds of gross problems present at the Bhopal, but even highly industrialized
nations such as the United States are generally deficient in this regard. The efficacy of government
regulation can be greatly enhanced if engineers employed by the regulated organizations would
cooperate with them. In the case of Bhopal, there is no indication that any engineering employees
of UCIL or UCC complained about conditions at the facility.
Companies that operate in many nations, that is, multinational corporations (MNCs), are
becoming increasingly common. Manufacturing operations of all kinds are being distributed by
such companies on a worldwide basis. This flexibility is being used to locate production where
costs in terms of wages, rent, and the like are minimized. There are many important implications
of this trend, only one of which is pertinent to the point at hand. Since governments of poorer
countries often see many advantages in hosting branch factories of MNCs (e.g., jobs, acquisition
of foreign exchange, technology transfer), they may be willing to make all sorts of concessions,
both explicit and implicit, in order to outbid other potential hosts. These concessions often include
relaxation of environmental and labor regulations (assuming that these exist in the first place), tax
abatement, and so forth. Under such conditions, it is not surprising to see the manufacture of
hazardous materials in shoddy, unsafe plants such as that at Bhopal.
There is reason to believe that some materials are inherently difficult to produce safely and
without generating significant amounts of toxic by-products. That Sevin may be one of these is
suggested by the difficulties encountered by UCC even at its American facility. Consideration
should be given as to whether some products should not be produced at all due to the danger
involved. Certainly there should have to be some compelling reason to do so. In the case of an
agricultural pesticide, it would seem that such a reason does indeed exist. However, in recent years,
there has been increasing recognition of the drawbacks of pesticides. Insects immune to various
pesticides have been evolving, which has led to a cycle in which larger and larger doses have been
necessary. Apart from raising costs, this has been adversely affecting the health of farmers exposed
to them. As a result, alternative approaches to pest control are coming into widespread use. These
involve more sophisticated techniques such as biological attacks aimed at specific pests, careful
timing of crops, and the breeding of pest-resistant plants. It is interesting that the successful
campaign waged against mosquito-borne diseases in Panama in connection with the construction
of the canal (Section 1.5) was of just this nature.

3.3 CHERNOBYL

Early in the morning of April 26, 1986, reactor No. 4 at the Chernobyl nuclear power station
in the Ukrainian Republic of the Soviet Union exploded and became, in the words of one writer, a
radioactive volcano. It spewed out vast amounts of radioactive material, some of which rose to
altitudes of thousands of meters. The eruption continued for about 10 days. It was a truly
transnational disaster, affecting the lives of people not only in the Soviet Union but all over Europe,
from Sweden to Italy and from Great Britain to Poland. Although numerous books and articles
have been written about this accident, studies made by various agencies, and conferences held,
there is substantial uncertainty and controversy about virtually every aspect, ranging from the
physical events to the costs in human life and in economic terms. A brief outline of the essentials
of reactor technology is presented below, followed by a summary of what happened at Chernobyl.
The causes and consequences are then discussed.

Technical Background
 A nuclear reactor generates electricity by producing heat, which boils water. The resulting
steam then powers a turbine that drives a conventional electric generator. The heat is produced by
the splitting (fissioning), by neutron bombardment, of the nuclei of atoms of some suitable heavy
element. The most common fuel used for this purpose is uranium. But uranium found in nature
consists of two types: 99.3 percent is uranium-238 and 0.7 percent is uranium-235. Since only the
latter type is easily fissionable, the common practice is to enrich the uranium to at least 2 percent
uranium-235, an expensive process.
A nucleus that is split emits several neutrons, each of which can split another nucleus. This
makes possible a continuous fissioning process known as a chain reaction. A neutron emitted from
a nucleus is unlikely to split another nucleus unless it is traveling at a relatively low speed. Thus,
the core of a reactor, in addition to containing fuel in the form of fissionable atoms, must also
include a “moderator” to slow down the neutrons. This, as will be discussed below, is most
commonly water or graphite.
In order to control the nuclear reaction, provision is made to insert in the reactor core varying
amounts of a substance that absorbs neutrons so as to damp down the fissioning process. This is
generally accomplished by means of control rods (made, for example, of boron carbide) that can
be inserted or withdrawn to any desired degree. A cooling material, usually water, circulates
through or around the reactor core to carry off the heat produced by the fission process. As
indicated above, the heated water is then made to do useful work.
The Chernobyl reactor, rated at 1000 megawatts, and designated as an RBMK type, is of
Soviet design. About 15 water-cooled and graphite-moderated, RBMKs were widely deployed in
the USSR, generating over half of that country’s nuclear power (about 11 percent of electric power
in the USSR was produced by nuclear reactors). They evolved directly from earlier reactors used
to generate plutonium for atomic bombs. (It is interesting that the PWR and BWR water-cooled,
water-moderated reactors used in the United States also evolved directly from reactors originally
designed for a military purpose, namely, submarine propulsion.) The RBMK reactor can be
refueled incrementally, without the need for shutting it down. As compared with water-moderated
reactors, the RBMK is less costly to build and runs on a less expensive fuel, namely uranium
enriched to only 2 percent uranium-235 as opposed to the 3.5 percent enriched fuel used in the
United States. But it has some very serious drawbacks.
In the case of a PWR or BWR type reactor, if the cooling water supply is interrupted (e.g.,
due to the rupture of a pipe), then the fission reaction is halted because it depends on the presence
of the moderator, which is the same water used for cooling. Heat is still produced by the radioactive
decay of fission products in the core, but at a much lower rate. The RBMK lacks this built-in safety
feature since it is the graphite, not the water, that does the moderating. In fact, over certain
operating ranges, the fission rate increases in an RBMK reactor as the water boils away. Heat is
thereby generated at a greater rate, further increasing the rate of steam generation, which
accelerates the fission rate, and so on. This dangerous instability is called a positive void
coefficient. In general, the RBMK is less stable when operated at low power levels. The lack of a
strong containment structure enclosing RBMK reactors has been pointed to as another serious
drawback, and undoubtedly such structures can eliminate, or at least significantly limit, radiation
emissions for many kinds of accidents. However, it is very doubtful that any reasonable
containment structure could have withstood the devastating force of the Chernobyl explosions.
A problem shared by all nuclear reactors is that they require a source of electric energy to
drive their control systems, to move the control rods, to operate the pumps that circulate water
through them, and to operate emergency cooling systems brought into play if the normal
circulation system fails. Ordinarily, this energy is obtained from the generators driven by the
reactor itself. But, if it becomes necessary to shut down the reactor, this source is no longer
available. Cooling water is still needed, however, even in a water-moderated reactor, since the core
contains radioactive by-products that continue to generate heat even after the fission process has
stopped. It is therefore necessary to provide emergency backup power sources that can be called
upon if the primary source fails for any reason. One or more generators driven by diesel engines
are used for this purpose in most nuclear power plants. It is important that these backup sources
be able to produce power quickly—within 1 or 2 minutes. This is a very short time, and given the
cantankerous nature of engines, it would be comforting to have another supplementary source of
power. An obvious source is the reactor’s own generator. If the reactor ceases to supply steam for
the turbine, then the turbine gradually comes to a halt. But, due to mechanical inertia, this takes
time. It appears that, for roughly 1 minute during the slowdown, the generator is still rotating fast
enough to produce power sufficient to drive the essential water pumps. It may be necessary,
however, to make certain adjustments in the generator to ensure that the voltage level is adequate
during this “rundown” period. This brings us to the events leading to the Chernobyl catastrophe.

The Fatal Test

After it had been in operation for a little over 2 years, a decision was made to carry out a test
on the Chernobyl No. 4 reactor to determine how well the rundown system worked. The particular
time for the test was chosen to coincide with a planned shutdown of the reactor for scheduled
maintenance and refueling of some of its elements. The shutdown process began at 1:00 p.m. on
April 25 but was interrupted an hour later in response to a request by the power grid managers,
who were reluctant to lose this 1 gigawatt source on a Friday afternoon. At 11:00 p.m., the test
was resumed, reaching a climax about 2 hours later. For reasons not altogether clear, but probably
involving some combination of ignorance, overconfidence, and inexperience (the third shift was
less experienced than the other two), the operators disabled all of the automatic safety features as
they proceeded. They then apparently reduced the power level too much, getting the system into
its most unstable region. In an effort to increase the power again, they next withdrew almost all of
the control rods. Within a few seconds, this led to an enormous uncontrolled surge of power, to
perhaps 100 times maximum rated capacity. The cooling water boiled away and there were at least
two explosions that blew the reactor apart.
Initial explanations of the accident were that there was a steam explosion, one of whose
consequences being the generation of hydrogen, which then combined with oxygen in the air to
produce a second explosion. But further study has convinced many experts, including U.S.
Department of Energy researchers, that there was at least one nuclear explosion, and others
consider this to be a real possibility. (As compared with a nuclear bomb, this explosion, if nuclear,
involved orders of magnitude less energy and was orders of magnitude slower.) The various
investigators have not reached any consensus on exactly what happened.
In any event, some 50 tonnes (a tonne is 1000 kilograms, or about 2200 pounds) of fuel were
released into the atmosphere in the form of vapor and fine particles, and another roughly 70 tonnes
were ejected sideways in larger chunks. Following the explosions, there ensued a number of fires,
including several on the roof of the Chernobyl No. 3 reactor (composed of bitumin, a flammable
material). The roughly 1700 tonnes of graphite comprising the moderating component of the
reactor core was also set ablaze. The initial damage control problem was to extinguish these fires.
Had they spread to the three other reactors at the site, the consequences would have been
correspondingly multiplied.

Taming the Volcano

The situation was terrifying. Essentially no preparations had been made to cope with a serious
accident. There had apparently never been a fire drill at the site. Firefighters in the area had been
given no special training for dealing with a fire at a nuclear power plant. They were not supplied
with even the most elementary equipment, such as respirators and other protective gear. Incredibly,
no instruments were available at the site to measure radiation (the few radiation meters on hand
read off scale; they were capable of registering perhaps one percent of the actual radiation levels).
Nevertheless, despite these hellish conditions, heroic action by firefighters and plant
operators, many of whom subsequently died of acute radiation sickness, succeeded in protecting
units 1,2, and 3 and in extinguishing all of the fires except the graphite fire by about 6:30 a.m. But
the graphite fire proved to be extremely difficult to bring under control. Water was not effective,
as it simply boiled off to become radioactive steam. Eventually the fire was attacked by means of
a massive operation in which military helicopters, hovering a little more than a hundred meters
over the reactor site as radioactive material streamed out of it, dropped about 5000 tonnes of sand,
clay, lead, and other materials into the inferno. Over a 6-day period several thousand sorties were
flown. The helicopter crews suffered from radiation sickness, many requiring intensive medical
treatment.
It was necessary at one point to supplement the aerial effort by pumping liquid nitrogen into
the remains of the reactor core from below. Yet another aspect of the battle to stabilize the situation
was the need to drain a large reservoir of water from underneath the reactor. This highly dangerous
operation was carried out by another team of courageous firefighters. Following the extinguishing
of the fires, the next step was to entomb the remains of the reactor in a “sarcophagus,” made of
400,000 m3 of reinforced concrete. Radioactive emissions continued at a significant, though
greatly reduced, rate until this project was completed about 8 months after the accident.
All of these operations were carried out under the supervision of officials and experts brought
in from outside Chernobyl. The local management seems to have been totally incapable of coping
with the situation. More than 8 hours after the explosions, Station Director Viktor Bryukhanov (or
Briukhanov or Brukhanov—take your pick!) continued to insist that the reactor was intact. His
attitude was a factor in delaying measures to protect the local population. Following a trial held in
July of 1987, he and the chief engineer were convicted of gross violations of safety regulations
and sentenced to 10 years in a prison labor camp. Five lower-level managers and a safety inspector
were convicted of somewhat lesser charges, receiving sentences ranging from 2 to 5 years. Prior
to the trial, a number of government officials involved with atomic power were fired and others
reprimanded.

Cleaning Up

The initial inventory of radioactive material in the core of the reactor prior to the explosion
was of the order of several billion curies (about three orders of magnitude greater than the radiation
released by the Hiroshima atomic bomb). It was composed of a variety of substances produced as
by-products of the fission process. On the first day, the explosions released about 40 million curies,
(40 MCi) in particulate matter, and about 7 times that amount in the form of isotopes of inert gases
(deemed less harmful). The total amount emitted prior to the completion of the sarcophagus,
exclusive of inert gases, was about 120 MCi, by any measure a truly huge quantity. For
comparison, note that a nuclear power plant in good working order would emit about 975 Ci (in
the form of inert gases) annually. The total emissions from the 1957 Windscale accident in Great
Britain were less than 150,000 Ci, and emissions from the 1979 Three Mile Island accident
probably totaled less than 30 Ci. Much of the material from the stricken Chernobyl reactor was
distributed locally, that is, within a radius of 30 km. But even more was carried aloft in the form
of vapor and fine particles and blown great distances, settling eventually over a wide area in the
Soviet Union and elsewhere in Europe. The most important radioactive materials were iodine-131
(8-day half-life), cesium-137 (33-year half-life; cesium is chemically related to potassium),
strontium-90 (28-year half-life; strontium is chemically related to calcium), and various isotopes
of plutonium with half-lives ranging from many decades to many thousands of years.
The local situation was chaotic. Particles of radioactive material settled everywhere. Fruit and
vegetables grown in the area were contaminated as were water supplies, soil, and milk. Some 400
hectares of pine forest were destroyed by radiation. Livestock were contaminated directly and as
a result of grazing in contaminated fields. People were exposed to large amounts of background
radiation, inhaled radioactive particles, and consumed radioactive food and water. The distribution
of radioactivity was uneven due to variations in wind and weather. Near the center of the problem
area, about 4 km from the Chernobyl power plant, was the town of Pripyat (also spelled Prypiat),
population 50,000. By Soviet standards, this was a fine town, built in the early 1970s for the people
who constructed and operated the plant. There were four schools, a sports complex, an art center,
etc.
No warnings or instructions were issued to the people of Pripyat or other neighboring towns
on Saturday, April 26. Schools continued in session, children played outdoors, people worked in
gardens and on farms. Meanwhile radiation levels were rising and radioactive particles were
spreading. During the afternoon of the following day a thousand buses from Kiev were used to
evacuate Pripyat. Large numbers of police, soldiers, and workers of various kinds were brought in
starting on April 26 to maintain order and to carry out an intensive cleanup effort, which took place
over a period of many months. Streets were washed down, pets and livestock destroyed, wells
were cleaned and sealed, layers of asphalt were laid down on streets to cover dust. Thousands of
tons of topsoil, and vegetation were moved to temporary storage sites. Major engineering efforts
were necessary to limit the pollution of the three important rivers flowing through the region (the
Dnieper, Pripyat, and Uzh), as well as the Kiev Reservoir. The area involved steadily expanded as
rain and wind further distributed radioactive material. Major decontamination efforts were
required in towns at least as far as 70 km from Chernobyl. About 130,000 people (including the
population of Pripyat) were permanently resettled. Around May 15, the children and expectant
mothers of Kiev (the capital of the Ukraine, located about 100 km from Chernobyl with a
population of 2.5 million) were evacuated until September. Many adults also left Kiev, where
background radiation levels, thousands of times above normal shortly after the explosion, were
still more than 15 times above normal by the middle of May.
Many people had difficulty understanding that they were in danger and that they should
abandon their property and livestock. On a fine spring day, why should they not continue to work
their fields? Why shouldn’t they eat (or sell for others to eat) fine looking heads of lettuce or
cabbage? Efforts to prevent consumption of tainted products could have had only limited success,
particularly where people were eating what they themselves had grown. There are also many
people who over-reacted to the situation. Some who lived far from the scene of the accident, and
whose neighborhoods were not affected by fallout, nevertheless became afraid to consume dairy
products or fresh meat or produce—in some cases to the point where they or their children suffered
from malnutrition. A sparsity of information from the authorities, combined with a lack of
confidence (often justified) in what the government did tell them, contributed to this attitude.
What should be done with the contaminated furniture, clothing, food, vegetation, water, soil,
animal carcasses, and even cow manure? Many thousands of tonnes of material of all kinds
containing radioactive isotopes were gathered up and brought to various dump sites. But such
material cannot just be piled up in big outdoor dumps. As in the case of toxic waste dumps, various
natural processes such as rain, wind, and consumption by insects or birds would return
contaminated material to the environment. In particular, if it gets into ground water, the
consequences would be particular severe. It is necessary that this material be sealed in place for
several hundred years until the radioactivity has decayed to a negligible intensity. (Note that, for a
substance such as cesium-137, with a half-life of 33 years, after two centuries—about 6 half-
lives—about 1.5 percent of the original amount would be left.) Considering the vast amounts of
material involved, this is an enormous task. Six years after the disaster, the problem of permanent
storage of this material had not yet been addressed.
The sarcophagus entombing the reactor itself was originally expected to last only about 25
years (assuming constant maintenance work were done on it). Ukrainian scientists have expressed
great concern over the integrity of the structure within the sarcophagus. They point out that if the
reactor building, badly damaged in the accident, or the 2000-ton reactor lid, should collapse, then
a huge quantity of radioactive dust would be produced. Much of this would escape into the
atmosphere because the sarcophagus is by no means sealed. It contains many openings to permit
the dissipation of heat produced by ongoing radioactive decay. Such a release would be
comparable in consequences to the original accident. No solution to this problem has as yet been
devised.

Exporting Radioactivity

Substantial amounts of fallout from Chernobyl fell outside the borders of the Soviet Union,
principally in the rest of Europe. For example, a study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy
found that only a third of the 3 MCi of cesium-137 (which has important biological effects) fell
within the Soviet Union. The accident was first announced to the world by Swedish authorities,
who detected the onset of a plume of radioactive vapor coming from the Soviet Union. During the
ensuing months, precautionary measures were taken all over Europe. Milk, produce, and meat was
inspected for radioactivity, and substantial amounts taken off the market. Restrictions were placed
on the grazing of cattle. The Polish government distributed iodine tablets to millions of children
to protect them against iodine-131. In the vicinity of the town of Gavle in Sweden, 100 km2 of
land was so badly contaminated as to necessitate the harvesting and destruction of all the grass on
it. and thousands of gallons of milk were condemned every day. In 1986, most green vegetables in
the vicinity of Munich, Germany, were found to be so contaminated with radioactive iodine and
cesium that destruction was mandated. Restrictions were placed on the sale of vegetables and milk
in northern Italy.
The Lapp people of the northern regions of Norway, Sweden, and Finland depend for their
livelihoods on reindeer herds. These herds graze extensively on lichens, which, taking their
nourishment largely from the atmosphere, soaked up quantities of radioactive cesium fallout. The
reindeer meat thereby became unfit for human consumption, many Lapps received large radiation
doses internally as a result of eating reindeer meat, and the way of life of a large portion of the
Lapps is now in serious jeopardy.

The Cost in Human Life

Exposure to radioactivity (sometimes referred to as ionizing radiation) affects biological

organisms by ionizing atoms within living cells. This process can kill or alter those cells. The
resulting effects can be harmful in two different ways. If, for example, a human being is subjected
within a short period of time (say a week) to a total whole body radiation dose exceeding about
100 rems, then a very large number of cells will be adversely affected and acute effects will ensue.
These may include nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, hemorrhaging, and, in general, the failure of a
variety of body functions. A 600-rem dose is usually fatal within weeks. Nonfatal exposures may
eventually cause a variety of physical problems such as cardiovascular disease, kidney diseases,
and eye cataracts.
Low-level radiation doses have effects of a rather different nature. Note first that we are all
exposed to annual radiation doses of about 200 milli-rems, mostly from natural sources such as
cosmic radiation and radiation from terrestrial deposits of radioactive minerals, but also including
artificial sources such as medical X-rays. At such low levels, there are no immediate observable
effects. But there is a probability, generally considered to vary linearly with the dosage, that the
result of ionizing an atom in a cell may affect that cell in such a way as to produce a cancer. This
does not become evident until many years have elapsed. A related effect is genetic damage that
may adversely affect the descendants of those afflicted. There is much debate over the detailed
mechanisms, whether the effects are strictly linear, and over the quantitative aspects. For example,
various authorities estimate the expected number of cancer fatalities per 10,000 person rems of
radiation exposure to be anywhere from 1 to 5 (2 seems to be the number accepted by the U.S.
Nuclear Regulatory Commission).
The number of prompt deaths due to the Chernobyl disaster was officially reported as being
31. However, no list of victims was given, and it is believed by many investigators that the actual
number is significantly greater. (For example, although many soldiers were observed during the
initial cleanup handling chunks of graphite from the reactor and were almost certainly exposed to
lethal radiation doses, none were reported as having died.) Four years after the accident, a Soviet
spokesman stated unofficially that the number of deaths in the cleanup exceeded 300. Estimates
of the number of people who will eventually die as a result of exposure to nonlethal radiation
doses, particularly low-level exposures over a long period of time, vary widely. One source of
disagreement stems from the great difficulty in determining radiation exposures over the vast area
involved. There were different forms of exposure, for example, exposure to external radiation as
compared with the inhalation of radioactive particles. Different isotopes were involved, and there
was much variation over time. Cardiovascular damage, referred to above as one consequence of
large but nonfatal radiation exposure, has reportedly lead to many fatal heart attacks within a period
of a few years after the accident.
It is estimated that, in the Soviet Union, by 1989, about 600,000 people participated in cleanup
operations. About 50,000 were estimated to have been exposed to doses exceeding 50 rems
(normal exposure over a lifetime would be about 15 rems), and 10,000 to doses exceeding 100
rems. The accident exposed hundreds of millions of people, both inside and outside that country,
to low-level radiation exceeding background levels by varying percentages. Estimates of the
expected number of deaths worldwide over the next 50 years range from a few thousand to between
50,000 and 250,000. A study sponsored by the U.S. Department of Energy predicted 12,000 deaths
in the Soviet Union and 21,000 elsewhere in Europe. This seems to fall within a range acceptable
to most experts, but that does not mean that it is accurate. There are also expected to be comparable
numbers of nonfatal cancers and substantial numbers of genetic defects as well. Concern about
this latter point caused many women in the general area of the accident to undergo abortions. Tens,
or perhaps hundreds, of millions of people are worrying about whether they or members of their
families will eventually be stricken.
Four years after the accident, it was reported that childhood leukemia rates in some areas of
the Ukraine were two to four times the normal rate, and that, in one hospital in Minsk (about 330
km from Pripyat) one or two children were dying of leukemia every week, whereas the normal
rate had been one or two per year. A Ukrainian scientist stated that data existed indicating that
150,000 people suffered some form of thyroid illness, including 13,000 children with very serious
problems. For 1.5 million Soviet citizens in the most affected areas, Soviet officials stated that
thyroid cancer rates were expected to go up by a factor of 5 to 10. Evacuations from communities
as far as 80 km from Pripyat were still going on after 5 years. Perhaps 200,000 people were
involved.

The Monetary Cost

Estimating the financial cost of the Chernobyl disaster is perhaps even more difficult than
estimating the number of lives lost. Consider the losses of the following: the destroyed facility
itself (unit 4) and the nearly completed, but never to be finished, reactors No. 5 and 6, the buildings
and infrastructure of the town of Pripyat and of the other abandoned municipalities in the area and
the personal property of residents, the abandoned farms with associated livestock and equipment,
contaminated food stocks, lost electric energy from the four Chernobyl reactors (Nos. 1 and 2 were
restarted in October, 1986, and No. 3 was restarted in December, 1987, despite the fact that
radiation levels at the site were still well above normal). Now add labor costs involved in the
cleanup process, which continues 7 years after the accident. Hundreds of thousands of people were
involved: police, firefighters, miners, soldiers, and a great variety of other laborers. These people
came from all over the Soviet Union, many being paid premium wages to compensate for the
hazards involved. Transportation and living expenses for them must also be included. Special
machinery was ordered, such as remote controlled tractors from Germany. Operating and fuel costs
for the massive helicopter operation described above. Medical treatment for those who suffered
from radiation sickness and other injuries (e.g., in 1988, 1500 Ukrainian MVD police officers
suffered chronic respiratory or digestive problems, and more than 4000 others showed other
symptoms as a result of service in the Chernobyl area). In addition, hundreds of thousands of
people who were exposed to excess radiation have been included in a register and will be the
subjects of follow-up studies. Many are children. Now we must add costs incurred in other
European countries. Many of the costs parallel those listed above, such as destruction of
contaminated food and rehabilitating contaminated land. In some areas, lost tourist income must
be added. The European Community imposed a 90-day ban on the import of agricultural produce
from Eastern Europe, which implies losses both to the importers and the exporters (but how
much?). There were no acute radiation sickness cases outside the USSR, but substantial costs were
incurred due to the need for monitoring food supplies, and, in some cases, checking the conditions
of people who might have consumed contaminated food in substantial quantities.
 The difficulties in quantifying such factors (not to mention translating them into a common
currency) seems to have inhibited investigators from exploring this issue in detail. The official
government estimate of costs to the Soviet Union as of 1988 is 11 billion rubles (translated by one
author as $19 billion). This is believed to be very much on the low side. Four years after the
accident, the Supreme Soviet allocated $26 billion to be spent during the following 5 years on
matters related to the Chernobyl accident. The Soviet government denies that any costs were
incurred outside their country—an understandable, if absurd, effort to avoid liability. In any event,
it seems reasonable to say that the worldwide financial cost of the Chernobyl accident is in the
many tens of billions of dollars.

Why Did This Happen?

The immediate cause of the accident has been outlined above: a test carried out carelessly on
a system with inherent instabilities. But how can that carelessness be accounted for, and why were
reactors of this type installed? Several different factors are involved.
The test of the rundown system was claimed by the Soviet government to have been an
“experiment” designed to enhance safety by maintaining the supply of electricity to the reactor
during an emergency shutdown. The implication was that a new feature was being developed.
However, a strong case has been made by Zhores Medvedev (see Sources at the end of this chapter)
that the ability to supply power during rundown was actually a design feature of the RBMK reactor,
and that tests to ensure that it worked properly were part of the test series normally carried out
before putting a reactor into commercial service. He argues that the Chernobyl No. 4 reactor was
illegally put into service, ahead of schedule, in March, 1984, before it had been fully tested. The
motivation for doing this was the system of political and financial bonuses that accrued to
organizations that met or exceeded their production targets. Acquiescence by high-level officials
in the nuclear energy program in this shortcutting operation might be explained by their desire to
satisfy urgent demands for electric energy. Delaying this test was particularly unfortunate since,
had it been carried out at the beginning of the reactor's fuel cycle, the core would have contained
a far smaller quantity of fission by-products that continue to generate heat even after the fission
process has been halted.
There is evidence that the operators were not adequately trained in the basics of reactor
technology, and that they had not been properly drilled in emergency procedures. The test plan
seems to have been carelessly put together and was not scrutinized properly by those responsible
for plant safety, nor was the execution of the test properly supervised by competent engineers.
More generally, it appears that technical incompetence was rampant at all levels, beginning with
the top officials in charge of the Soviet nuclear power program.
An even more basic factor is the secrecy and the restrictions on dissent that characterized
Soviet society prior to the Gorbachev era, which commenced just before the Chernobyl disaster.
Information about previous accidents at Soviet nuclear power plants had been almost totally
suppressed, becoming available in bits and pieces only after the advent of glasnost. Not only was
the general public not informed but even technical people in the industry were kept in ignorance.
The government claimed a virtually perfect safety record in the nuclear power field. The falsity of
that claim is exposed in a recent book about Chernobyl by Grigori Medvedev, a senior Soviet
nuclear engineer. He summarizes 10 serious accidents between 1966 and 1985 and states that they
represent just the tip of the iceberg. Included is a 1975 partial meltdown in a Leningrad RBMK
reactor that released 1.5 MCi into the environment, an incident at the Chernobyl No. 1 reactor in
1982 in the course of which repair workers were exposed to severe radiation and radioactive
material was released near Pripyat, and a relief valve failure at the Balakovo pressurized water
reactor that took the lives of 14 people in 1985.
Related to this is the 1957 disaster at Kyshtym in the Ural Mountains. A major explosion
(chemical or steam) occurred at a site used for the disposal of nuclear wastes resulting from atomic
bomb production. It distributed tens of millions of curies of strontium-90 and other radioactive
materials that necessitated the abandonment of some 1000 km2 of land in the area, and the
evacuation of about 10,000 people. The Soviet government did not acknowledge this accident until
1988.
A rather blatant example of the use of secrecy was the official order, dated May 19, 1985,
signed by Minister of Power and Electrification Anatoly I. Mayorets, proclaiming that
"information about the unfavorable ecological impact of energy related facilities . . . shall not be
reported openly in the press or broadcast on radio or television." Another form of secrecy, going
beyond the use of words, is embodied in the fact that it was a criminal offense for an unauthorized
individual in the Soviet Union to possess a radiation meter.
One obvious consequence of this secrecy is that it impeded the process by which engineers
and scientists learn from the failures and errors of others and thereby develop better and safer
reactors. A second consequence is that it fostered a feeling of overconfidence on the part of
managers, engineers, and reactor operators. This encouraged the kind of recklessness that
destroyed Chernobyl No. 4. It also accounts for the abysmal lack of training and equipment for
dealing with emergency situations. If we believe that fires never break out, why should we buy
fire extinguishers? A third consequence was that by covering up the failures of RBMK reactors in
particular, it made it more difficult to argue that water-moderated reactors were inherently less
dangerous (although their failures were also covered up). A fourth consequence is that
incompetence on the part of managers and engineers was often concealed, which made it harder
to weed out the inept.
It should be noted that the Soviet Union did not have a monopoly on secrecy in the nuclear
power field. The French, who generate about 70 percent of their electric energy with nuclear power
plants, are not very open either. No studies have been published concerning the safety of French
nuclear facilities. The attitude of the French nuclear power establishment toward the public may
be summarized by a statement made by M. Remy Carle, director of Electricite de France: "You
don't tell the frogs when you are draining the marsh." Secrecy concerning nuclear power problems
is common in many nations, including, to some extent, even the United States.
The absence of a free press and the suppression of free speech and dissent in the Soviet Union
further inhibited the processes whereby technology could be properly controlled. There could be
no open debate as to how effectively a given technology is being implemented or as to what
technical means would be most appropriate in a given situation. The Soviet government was
committed to a steady expansion of nuclear power, and no publications contesting its policies or
even discussing questions related to the safety of nuclear reactors appeared in that country during
the 1980s until after the Chernobyl disaster.
What could engineers or scientists do if they saw violations of important safety regulations?
Or if they felt that a bad choice was being made that would have significant consequences? They
could talk to their immediate superiors (assuming they are not the ones at fault) or, at most, quietly
appeal to higher ranking people—hoping that this will not lead to retaliation. Dissenting engineers
in the United States have a difficult enough time. Imagine the situation that their counterparts faced
in the Soviet Union!
 A few people did go on record with warnings that proved prophetic. Dr. Ivan Zhezherun, who
played an important role in the development of early Soviet nuclear reactors and who was very
well respected in the scientific community, wrote numerous letters to officials at all levels about
the unstable nature of the RBMK reactor, beginning in 1965, calling attention very specifically to
its "positive steam coefficient," which he warned could lead to an explosion. In the early 1970s,
Borys Paton, a prominent Ukranian scientist, warned officials about the risk involved in building
a nuclear power station at Chernobyl, where an accident could contaminate three major Ukrainian
rivers. Both scientists confined their arguments to official circles, and both were simply ignored.
The lack of independent public-interest organizations meant that there was no effective outside
check on the actions of those making and executing public policy.

Porous Borders

Technology-related decisions are often made, or at least justified, on the basis of trade-offs.
Benefits and opportunities are balanced against drawbacks and risks. It is certainly true that
nothing that we do is risk free. It is impossible to avoid risks because even doing nothing has its
risks. Hence, in one way or another, if only in a qualitative sense, we are forced into balancing,
usually in a probabilistic sense, expected advantages and disadvantages of various alternatives in
any given situation. If we believe in democracy, then it would seem to follow that the people
affected by a decision ought to have a chance to play some role, even if very indirect, in making
that decision. That is what lies behind that very potent slogan, "No taxation without
representation." It would also seem only fair that the risks and drawbacks entailed in any decision
be borne by those who stand to benefit by it.
But an aspect of modern technology that is made very clear by the Chernobyl catastrophe is
that people's lives are often greatly affected by decisions that they knew nothing about made by
people in a far off place over whom they have no control at all. They may be put at risk in situations
where they will, under no circumstances, have even a chance to reap any benefits. There are Greeks
who will die of cancer 25 years from now as a result of choices made by the Soviet government.
Hundreds of thousands of Scottish people in regions where fallout from Chernobyl was significant
are suffering from anxiety over whether they or their children will someday be afflicted with a
disease brought on by exposure to that fallout. The people of Poland see their government spending
large sums of money to decontaminate meadows dusted over by radioactive cesium—money that
might otherwise be spent on such activities as building better schools or roads. Thousands of Lapp
people of northern Sweden may have to give up their traditional way of life because the reindeer
herds that are their mainstay have been poisoned by radioactivity emanating from a place they
never heard of.
Of course, nuclear reactors are not the only mechanism whereby decisions made in one nation
may, even if inadvertently, harm people in other places. Coal burned in British power plants may
contribute to the acid rain that is destroying the forests of Germany. Poisonous wastes from Swiss
paper mills may pollute water supplies in Italy. The use of deodorant sprays in the United States
may, by contributing to the depletion of the ozone layer, cause skin cancers in New Zealand.
Selling off the trees of the Brazilian Amazon to Japanese timber firms may enhance the greenhouse
warming effect enough to cause flooding in the Netherlands.
It would seem reasonable to consider the strengthening of international regulations dealing
with situations in which the consequences of decisions made within national boundaries may spill
over borders to affect others. The basis for such regulations would be the principle that a person’s
liberties should not extend beyond the point where they infringe on the rights of others. Developing
acceptable and effective mechanisms to deal with this type of problem is indeed very challenging,
particularly in an era when nationalism seems rampant. But the need is also great and growing,
and there are precedents in the form of international agreements (however weak) in such areas as
the ozone depletion problem, whale protection, and the testing of nuclear bombs.

3.4 FIRE IN THE SKY:

THE DESTRUCTION OF THE CHALLENGER

Although only seven people perished on January 28, 1986, when the space shuttle Challenger
exploded and plunged into the sea shortly after launch, this episode is appropriately considered as
a disaster. Millions of people witnessed the event (the twenty-fifth shuttle launch), some from the
vicinity of the launch site, many more via television. Few if any other accidents have ever been
seen in real time by so many people. In addition to the pain and horror felt by these onlookers, this
failure of American space technology had severe consequences with respect to the entire space
program in terms of money and credibility.
Challenger Crew en Route to the Launch Site
Photo Supplied by NASA
The Technical Issues

Subsequent investigations (principally by the presidential commission chaired by William P.

Rogers) clearly established that the immediate cause of the crash involved the two solid-fuel rocket
boosters (SRBs) used to assist the liquid-fueled engines in the lift-off. Because these are too long
(about 149 feet) to be transported in one piece, the SRBs are made in four sections that are
assembled at the launch site. It is essential that the joints between sections (called field joints) be
sufficiently tight to keep burning gases from leaking out. The inevitable mechanical gaps at the
joints are sealed by means of synthetic rubber O-rings and zinc chromate putty.
The sequence of events leading to the disaster was as follows: Due to the unusually low
temperature that day (about 28°F at the joints), the resiliency of the O-rings was degraded to the
point where they did not function to seal the joints sufficiently. This led to the escape of burning
gases from the right SRB starting within a second of ignition. The external liquid-hydrogen tank
(part of the fuel system for the main rocket engines) was damaged by the resulting blowtorch
effect. This in turn led to the failure of the liquid-oxygen tank and an explosion that broke up the
Challenger about 73 seconds after launch. The crew was apparently killed when the space capsule
struck the surface of the sea.
The O-rings had been recognized as a possible source of trouble for several years by engineers
working on SRB design at Morton Thiokol, the contractor that supplied these units to the National
Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). The engineers involved in the design of the field
joints were particularly worried about the behavior of the O-rings at low temperatures.

Engineers versus Vice Presidents

Concerned because the launch site temperature on the morning of January 28 was expected to
be more than 20°F below the lowest temperature for any previous launch (53°F), Allan J.
McDonald, Thiokol’s manager of the SRB project, set up a teleconference the night before. The
34 participants included the Thiokol engineers involved in the joint design, several Thiokol
managers, including four vice presidents, and a number of managers and engineers from NASA’s
Marshall Space Flight Center who had also been involved with the SRB design. The Thiokol
engineers made a formal presentation showing why, in their judgment, it would be dangerous to
allow a launch at a temperature below 53°F. The technical issue was complex, and there was no
way to predict with confidence what would actually happen at lower temperatures. The engineers’
judgment was based on extrapolations of data obtained from previous shuttle flights. None of the
engineers argued against this position. Their arguments were accepted by Thiokol’s management,
but the NASA managers expressed dismay. Lawrence B. Mulloy was quoted as having said, “My
God, Thiokol, when do you want me to launch—next April?” George B. Hardy said he was
“appalled” by this recommendation.
As a result of the reaction of the NASA managers, Thiokol vice president Joseph Kilminster
called for a brief recess of the meeting so that the Thiokol people could reconsider their
recommendation. During this “caucus,” senior engineer Roger Boisjoly and engineering
supervisor Arnold R. Thompson, key people involved with the field joint design, urged that
Thiokol stick to its position in opposition to a launch at the expected low temperature. The four
vice presidents then, after some debate during which Jerald E. Mason urged engineering vice
president Robert K. Lund to “take off your engineering hat and put on your management hat,”
decided to reverse Thiokol’s position and withdraw the company’s objections to the launch. None
of the Thiokol engineers concurred with this decision, which was then conveyed by Kilminster to
the reconvened conference (and shortly thereafter put in written form). At the NASA end, the
engineers involved seemed to have been in agreement with the Thiokol engineers. None, according
to the testimony of veteran NASA engineer Ben Powers, were “appalled” at the idea of postponing
the launch.
Later that night, Allan McDonald continued to oppose the launch in discussions with NASA
managers Stanley Reinartz and Lawrence Mulloy. In addition to his doubts about the performance
of the field joints, he pointed out that the ships that were to recover the boosters were being forced
back to shore by stormy weather (failure to retrieve the boosters would mean a loss of about $50
million). He also expressed a more serious concern, namely that ice on the launch pad might be
shaken loose during the launch and cause problems, such as damage to the space capsule’s heat
protection tiles. McDonald’s latter argument was reinforced the next morning when officials of
the Rockwell Corporation (prime contractor for the orbiter) informed the mission management
meeting that, because they could not analyze the trajectory of the ice, “Rockwell cannot assure it
is safe to fly.” (Subsequent testimony by Robert Glaysher, Rockwell vice president of orbiter
operations, was that this was the first time that Rockwell had ever recommended against a launch.)
Unfortunately, none of these arguments prevailed.

The Rewards of Being Right

As was the case for the McDonald-Douglas and Convair engineers in the DC-10 episode, after
having followed normal procedures and having their engineering judgments overruled by their
managers, the Thiokol and NASA engineers took their case no further. One difference is that the
consequences of the override occurred within half a day in the Challenger case, as compared with
2 years in the DC-10 case.
The effects of the disaster on Roger Boisjoly (48 years old at the time) were particularly
severe. He claimed that his employer, Morton Thiokol, effectively demoted him in retaliation for
his testimony before the Rogers Commission (a charge the company denied). Except for his
immediate co-workers, he was ostracized at work and in the small Utah town in which he lived.
Many Thiokol employees and fellow townspeople dependent on the company’s payroll for their
livelihoods, felt that, by testifying so frankly, Boisjoly had been disloyal to the company and had
thereby jeopardized their well-being. Subjected to intense pressure, he fell victim to what was
diagnosed as posttraumatic stress disorder and took sick leave. Eventually he left the company,
saying he could never work on the shuttle again. Boisjoly unsuccessfully sued Thiokol on various
counts alleging improper conduct in connection with the design of the booster rockets and the
certification, on the night preceding the launch, that they were safe. For about 2 years after the
disaster, he received long-term disability payments from Thiokol’s insurance program.
Whereas, to my knowledge, none of the DC-10 engineers spoke out publicly, even after the
disaster, Mr. Boisjoly, in addition to testifying frankly before the Rogers Commission, has made
substantial efforts to inform other engineers (and engineering students) about the ethical dilemma
he faced, in the hope that something might be done to deal more effectively with such situations
in the future. When asked after a presentation before a large group of IEEE members why he did
not go public with the problem after the fateful teleconference on the eve of the launch, Boisjoly
replied that he felt that it would have been of no avail—that he would have been dismissed as a
crackpot. One can only speculate as to whether this is a correct assessment. There is no doubt that
this would have been a highly risky proposition. If Boisjoly had gone outside of normal channels
(e.g., by contacting the astronauts or high-level NASA officials), it is by no means clear that his
warning would have been heeded. The only way he could have been clearly vindicated would have
been if the Challenger had been launched as scheduled and physical evidence then found of severe
field joint deterioration (most decisive being the destruction of the Challenged). Nevertheless, in
retrospect, it is hard to see how things could have turned out worse for him. An obviously very
decent man with a strong sense of responsibility, Roger Boisjoly suffered greatly.
It is gratifying to be able to report that, after the painful period outlined above, Boisjoly made
a remarkable comeback. Encouraged by the receipt of a number of awards (including the Cavallo
Award and one from the IEEE), he made a fresh start. After an intense summer of studying, he
passed the exams necessary to obtain certification as a Professional Engineer, and then started a
private consulting practice in the field of forensic engineering. Within a few years, he was able to
earn a very decent income, mainly by providing expert testimony in such matters as a helicopter
crash, nail gun accidents, and an occasional patent dispute. He recovered his health and is now
living in Mesa, Arizona. Boisjoly still lectures, and occasionally writes, about engineering ethics
and is very pleased with his present circumstances.
Allan McDonald and Arnold Thompson, the other two Thiokol engineers who spoke out
clearly in an effort to postpone the launch, appeared to have been less damaged in the short run by
the affair than was Roger Boisjoly. Probably as a result of the enormous amount of publicity
resulting from their testimony before the Roger’s Commission, they were able to retain their
positions at Morton Thiokol. However, it appears that, in the longer run, their careers with the
company have not prospered to the extent that one might have expected, given their outstanding
professional abilities.
Little is known about the effects of the Challenger affair on the lives of the other nine or so
engineers who attended the crucial evening teleconference and played rather passive roles. An
interesting sidelight is shed on this point by Roger Boisjoly. A significant factor that induced him
to take a strong position with respect to the field joint problem was an experience he had while
employed by the Rockwell Corporation. In the late 1970s, one of his colleagues there began to
behave in an erratic manner. Upon inquiry, Boisjoly learned that this man had, in his previous job,
been one of the designers of the cargo door latch that was a key factor in the 1974 DC-10 disaster.
He was torn by remorse over what had happened, no doubt assigning to himself an unwarranted
amount of blame for the tragedy. Boisjoly resolved that he would never allow himself to stand by
silently in an analogous situation.

Burdens and Pressure

The space shuttle is an immensely complex system. Failure of any of a wide range of
components or subsystems can cause a fatal accident. In such systems it is necessary to exercise
extreme care in verifying every detail of design, manufacture, and operation. The normal
procedure in the space program was for NASA to compel contractors to prove that their
components or subsystems met the specifications and were safe. This was the policy followed in
Project Apollo (the manned flight to the moon).
But in the case of the 1986 Challenger launch, it appeared that the situation was reversed.
NASA seemed to be taking the position that it was all right to launch unless a contractor could
prove that it was unsafe. When asked during testimony before the Rogers Commission why “you
changed your mind when you changed your hat,” Robert Lund replied: “We have dealt with
Marshall for a long time and have always been in the position of defending our position to make
sure we were ready to fly ... But that evening ... we had to prove to them that we weren’t ready . .
. and were unable to do that” [emphasis added]. Allan McDonald’s testimony was similar: “The
contractor always had to stand up and prove that his hardware was ready to fly. In this case we had
to prove it wasn’t.”
Why this change in management philosophy? Several factors probably were involved.
Budgetary constraints were exerting severe pressure on NASA, whose goals had not been scaled
back to fit them. In order to make the space shuttle economically competitive with ordinary
expendable rockets for such missions as putting communications satellites in orbit, it was
necessary to fly many more missions per year than had previously been accomplished. (There were
9 shuttle flights in 1985, 15 scheduled for 1986, and 19 planned for 1987.) The goal, in effect, was
to make space shuttle operation equivalent to a commercial airline with respect to reliability and
regularity of schedules.
A measure of the desire to treat the space shuttles as ordinary transports is the change in the
nature of the crews. Originally, space vehicles were manned by former fighter pilots and test pilots,
men accustomed to risking their lives in highly dangerous enterprises. But after the space shuttles
became operational, “mission specialists” were added. These were people in occupations not
normally regarded as entailing physical danger, for example, physicists, biologists, chemists, and
engineers. These people were included so that their special skills might be utilized, for example,
to perform certain physics experiments in space. Another category of space voyager,
euphemistically called “payload specialists,” is closer to that of pure tourist. These passengers,
such as members of congress, a Saudi prince, and, in the case of the last Challenger flight, a high
school teacher, were carried for political or public relations reasons.
The desire to portray shuttle flights as routine led to pressure to lower estimates of failure
probabilities. When Dr. Richard P. Feynman, a Nobel laureate physicist and member of the Rogers
Commission, informally polled a number of NASA engineers and managers as to their estimates
of the likelihood of a space shuttle being lost, the differences in the responses from these groups
was striking. Roughly speaking, the engineers said one per-cent, while the managers’ estimate was
less by a factor of a thousand. Dr. Feynman concluded that “the management of NASA exaggerates
the reliability of its product to the point of fantasy.” No doubt past success, as measured by the
number of rockets that did not explode, was another factor that encouraged a superficially based
optimism. Feynman summarized the fallacy of this type of reasoning: “When playing Russian
roulette, the fact that the first shot got off safely is little comfort for the next.”
Space flight schedules are also sometimes affected by the need to conform to the schedules of
planets. On NASA’s agenda for May 1986 was the launch from Challenger of Ulysses, a space
vehicle intended to observe the poles of the sun. In order for Ulysses to achieve the desired orbit,
it required a boost from the gravitational field of the planet Jupiter. If the Challenger’s May flight
were to be delayed too much, then Jupiter would no longer be in the right position, and the Ulysses
mission would have to be postponed for 13 months. But a further delay in Challenger’s January
flight (originally scheduled for December 23, 1985, and delayed by weather and minor mechanical
problems) might have made it necessary to slip the schedule for the May flight by an amount that
would take it out of the time frame required for Ulysses.
Other factors that may have added to the pressure to launch on January 28 were of a more
subjective nature. Many dignitaries, both foreign and American, customarily assemble to view
shuttle launches. It is always embarrassing when the expected great event is postponed. In the case
of the 1986 Challenger flight, there was an added subjective factor in that President Reagan was
expected to refer to the inclusion in the crew of high school teacher S. Christa McAuliffe in his
State of the Union speech to be delivered that evening. Although the Rogers Commission found
no evidence of specific pressure exerted because of this point, it may well have been at least a
minor consideration in the minds of the decision makers.

Early Warnings

The booster rocket field joints had been the subject of concern for many years. In fact, when
bids for the booster rocket were first solicited in 1973, the Aerojet Solid Propulsion Company
proposed a single-unit rocket, claiming that this would be much safer than having to rely on the
integrity of O-rings. But such a rocket would have been too large to ship overland. It would have
necessitated the manufacture of the SRBs at a plant specially built for that purpose on a waterway
connected to the launch site. NASA therefore elected to go with a segmented rocket. The low
bidder, Thiokol, based its design on that of the Titan III missile, considered to be a very reliable
rocket.
But the field joints for the Thiokol boosters did not quite behave as intended, and concerns
were expressed by Marshall Space Center engineers in memoranda written during the late 1970s.
These concerns were validated as, during various shuttle flights, O-rings were found to have been
eroded by hot gases. In 1985, Thiokol set up a task force to develop an improved joint design, but
it was not given high priority. Roger Boisjoly, a member of that task force, urged that more of an
effort be made, saying, in a July 31 memo, that not dealing with the seal problem would lead to “a
catastrophe of the highest order—loss of human life.” About the same time, Richard C. Cook, an
auditor working as a NASA budget analyst, wrote a memorandum calling attention to the field
joint problem, warning that flight safety was at risk and that the necessary redesign process would
paralyze the shuttle program and have an immense financial impact. These assertions were based
on what he had learned from NASA engineers. (Shortly after the accident, Cook, in a second
memo, was one of the first to point a finger at the O-rings as the cause.) Later memos written by
others at both Thiokol and NASA confirm both the seriousness of the problem and the lethargic
manner in which it was being addressed. But Thiokol management did not heed these warnings,
nor did NASA’s management compel them to accelerate their efforts.
The most likely explanation hinges on money and time. The cost of redesigning the SRB
would have been very high, and existing inventories of rocket sections would have been devalued.
The design, manufacture, and testing of new SRBs might have taken years. A new design would
also mean opening the door to different contractors, so that Thiokol might lose its lucrative position
as sole source of boosters to the shuttle program. Factors such as these probably led the managers
involved to stand pat and hope that, since 24 shuttle flights had been made without a disaster,
perhaps the problems were really not serious. Maybe the engineers were exaggerating the risks.
Thus, as in the DC-10 case, a long-standing problem, known in advance, was neglected for
financial reasons. (One difference is that, unlike the situation in the DC-10 case, the solution was
not obvious and inexpensive to implement.)

Under the Manager’s Hat

The Challenger episode illustrates very well several aspects of the problems involved in large
technological enterprises. A basic underlying cause of the Challenger tragedy was the rigid nature
of the organizations involved. Individuals were expected to respect the chain of command,
reporting only to their superiors and accepting the decisions made by those superiors, regardless
of how unreasonable they might consider those decisions to be. Thus even competent,
conscientious engineers such as Boisjoly and Powers felt that, while they might argue strenuously
with their bosses, they had to accept their decisions like good soldiers. The idea, for example, that
the astronauts had a right to know that they were being sent up in a vehicle under conditions
deemed unsafe by many of its designers was apparently not given serious consideration by
anybody in NASA or in Morton Thiokol.
The managers involved testified that they passed along information to their superiors only
through official channels. Jesse Moore, NASA’s associate administrator for space flight, was the
top decision maker responsible for giving the go-ahead for the launch. Arnold Aldridge was one
level below him in that process, and Stanley Reinartz was at the third level. In response to questions
by the Rogers Commission, Moore and Aldridge said they were unaware that the Thiokol
engineers had opposed the launch. Reinartz, who was present at the crucial teleconference, testified
that he did not inform Aldridge that the Thiokol approval of the launch had been opposed by the
Thiokol engineers.
More generally, Moore, Aldridge, and other high-level NASA officials stated that they had,
at most, only a vague awareness of the long-standing problems with the field joints. Although the
field joints had been formally classified by NASA as critical, these officials said that they paid
very little attention to them.
A similar situation existed with respect to the Rockwell Corporation’s opposition to the launch
due to the ice. Arnold Aldridge testified that he regarded Rockwell’s position as a “concern, not
an objection to the launch.” This is how he interpreted the situation to Moore. In both situations,
information was blurred as it was passed up the chain of command. NASA officials at various
levels testified that their decisions or recommendations with respect to the launch would have been
different if they had been fully and correctly informed with respect to the joint and ice issues. The
same factors were at work with respect both to the immediate question of whether to launch
Challenger on the morning of January 28 and to the problem of allocating adequate resources and
time to solve the basic booster joint problems that caused the disaster.
Note how the combination of strict discipline with regard to reporting channels and subtle
pressures to make things look a little better can lead to disaster with nobody to point the finger of
blame at. People involved at any level can claim either (or both) that they were responsible only
for passing information and/or judgments to someone higher up or that they were misinformed by
someone lower down. Commission Chairman Rogers, on several occasions during the hearings,
expressed exasperation at the rigidity of the system. For example, when Reinartz testified that he
did not pass upward the fact that the Thiokol engineers opposed the launch, Rogers said, “I gather
you were going by the book. But doesn’t that process require some judgment? Don’t you have to
use common sense?” It may be that there are appendices to the book that Mr. Rogers had forgotten
about.
Perhaps, though, we should not accept at face value the picture presented above, in which the
upper level managers plead ignorance of crucial facts. Richard Feynman’s view is that, “the guys
at the top . . . didn’t want to hear about the difficulties of the engineers . . . It’s better if they don’t
hear it, so they can be much more ‘honest’ when they’re trying to get Congress to OK their
projects” [emphasis in original]. In an article in the IEEE Spectrum, Hans Mark, formerly a NASA
deputy administrator, is quoted as saying he found it “awfully hard to believe” Moore and others
saying “they didn’t know about the O-ring problems ... I mean, hell, I knew about it two years
before the accident and even wrote a memo about it.”
 Consider again the testimony of Reinartz. He concurred with Rogers’ characterization of his
testimony as being that he, Reinartz, and his boss, Hardy, “didn’t realize that all the engineers at
Thiokol were against the launch, even then.” This despite the fact that both Reinartz and Hardy,
along with Reinartz’s subordinate Mulloy, participated in the teleconference at which these
engineers presented their case against the launch at great length. When asked how he would have
reacted if he had known that the engineers still opposed the launch, Hardy replied, “I would not
have accepted it.” He was not asked why, if continued opposition by the engineers would have
altered his judgment, he did not inquire as to whether the engineers had endorsed Kilminster’s
communication reversing Thiokol’s original recommendation. A plausible interpretation of this
incident is that, having pressured Thiokol’s management into overriding the judgments of its
engineers, the NASA managers were happy simply to pass up the results they believed would make
their superiors happy, omitting unpleasant details.

The Return of the Space Shuttle

Following the investigation of the Challenger disaster, about two and a half years elapsed
before the next launch of a space shuttle. In the interim an extensive review was made of the design
of the entire system, and some important design changes were made. The SRB field joints were
redesigned to make them safer. In addition, the wings, landing gear, and brakes were significantly
strengthened. Finally, a system was added to allow the astronauts to escape from the capsule under
a much wider range of emergency conditions.

Some Additional Questions

Some other interesting points will be mentioned only briefly here. The Rogers Commission
commented on the absence of a strong, independent safety group within NASA. Such a group, the
commission suggested, should report directly to top management, should include astronauts, and
should be represented on the mission management teams making key decisions during
countdowns. There are some who oppose this approach on the ground that safety considerations
should be integral to every phase of the design, manufacturing, and operational aspects of the space
program, and that having a special safety group might make others feel less concerned about safety.
Finally, there is a more overarching question. Is manned space flight justifiable at all?
Unmanned space vehicles have been eminently successful in bringing (or sending) back scientific
information of all kinds about the earth and other planets. Communications and observation
satellites are easily launched and operated without putting people in orbit. The need for life support
systems and the much higher reliability standards that accompany human space flight escalate
costs enormously—to the point where many question whether we can afford to continue such
expenditures. (It is estimated that the overall cost of each shuttle launch is about $350 million.) As
has been suggested above, budgetary constraints played an important role in the Challenger
disaster. There is something inherently discomfiting about the idea of launching people into space
on a rocket supplied by the low bidder.
It is indeed true that human operators aboard space vehicles can exercise judgment and adapt
to unexpected conditions in a manner that is beyond the reach of automated systems. But it is
highly doubtful if these capabilities are worth the enormous increase in cost. I suspect that a more
powerful motive is public relations. The first astronauts, who were little more than passengers on
rockets controlled by others (which is not to deny their great courage), were hailed as the
equivalent of great explorers of the past. It is not as easy to glamorize the engineers and applied
scientists who are the real pioneers.

3.5 SUMMARY

The luxury liner Titanic, supposedly unsinkable, went to the bottom two and a half hours after
its hull was ripped by an iceberg on its maiden voyage in 1912. The captain ignored radio messages
warning of ice fields in his path. Over 1500 lives were lost as there were not enough lifeboats, and
those on board were not fully utilized due to a lack of preparation. There were apparently no
protests made in advance concerning unsafe procedures and conditions.
Several hundred thousand residents of Bhopal, India, were exposed to a deadly cloud of gases
emitted from a plant owned by Union Carbide of India Limited at which the pesticide Sevin was
manufactured. Thousands died and tens of thousands were seriously injured. The principal owner
of the plant was the multinational corporation, Union Carbide. Although dangerous chemicals
were used in this facility, it was poorly maintained and not well staffed. The proximate cause of
the accident was apparently an unintended flow of water into a tank storing a large quantity of
MIC. Union Carbide settled out of court, paying damages totaling $470 million.
An RBMK nuclear reactor at the Chernobyl power plant in the Ukrainian Republic of the
USSR exploded April 26, 1986, as a direct result of careless operation during a test of a technique
for extracting electrical energy from the generator during the minute or so that it takes for the
turbine to grind to a halt after a shutdown of the reactor. Vast amounts of radioactive material were
released in the initial explosions and for the following 8 months that it took to put out fires and
entomb the reactor in a concrete sarcophagus. The RBMK reactor, water cooled and graphite
moderated, has inherent instabilities that were an important cause of the disaster. The operators
and the managers at Chernobyl were incompetent and overconfident. Perhaps several hundred
people were killed by acute radiation effects, and the number of people expected to die over the
next 50 years as a result of low-level radiation exposure is of the order of several tens of thousands.
The monetary costs are likely to be of the order of many tens of billions of dollars. Most of the
victims will be outside the former Soviet Union. An obsessive concern with secrecy and a general
lack of civil liberties in the Soviet Union made it very difficult for engineers and others to learn
from previous accidents and mistakes (there were many), fostered reckless attitudes, and inhibited
serious consideration of alternative policies involving energy. Those who recognized the
precursors of disaster in the nuclear energy program had no opportunity to make their concerns
public.
The space shuttle Challenger exploded and crashed as a result of a long-standing problem
involving the joints between sections of the solid-fuel rocket boosters (SRBs). Burning gases
penetrated seals around O-rings made rigid by exceptionally cold weather. This caused a fuel
explosion. Engineers at Morton Thiokol, the contractor for the SRBs argued against allowing the
launch, but were overruled by company officials who, in turn, felt pressured by NASA managers
to give their approval. Earlier efforts by engineers to get support for a thorough redesign of the
booster joints were fruitless, probably because of pressures of time and money. An effort by the
Rockwell Corporation (the contractor for the space capsule) to stop the flight because of danger
from fragmenting ice was also unsuccessful. All those involved played strictly by the rules, never
taking their arguments to anyone outside normal reporting channels. Thiokol engineer Roger
Boisjoly was one of those most outspoken in calling attention to the joint problems. Nevertheless,
he accepted the decision of Thiokol’s management. Later he testified very frankly before the
Rogers Commission and eventually left the company. Pressures to launch stemmed from such
factors as the desire to portray the shuttle fleet not as a risky experimental operation but as an outer
space transportation organization, capable of operating on a regular schedule and safe enough to
carry ordinary citizens as passengers. Other issues raised by the Challenger episode are desirability
of independent safety groups within NASA and the question of whether a manned space program
is justifiable.

3.6 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. It has been suggested that the widespread use of effective airbags in autos might lead to
increased numbers of accidents as drivers would be less deterred by fear of injury.
Generalize this concern and apply it to the Titanic episode. What measures might be taken
to deal with it?
2. In ships at sea, a good case can be made for requiring unquestioned obedience to the
captain’s orders. Formulate a statement describing conditions under which this requirement
should be waived, and justify it.
3. Consider what mechanisms might be developed to reduce the likelihood of poorer nations
being used (perhaps by multinational corporations) to evade environmental protection and
worker safety regulations enacted in richer countries.
4. Liability lawyers, who work on a contingency basis, have been pilloried as vultures,
seeking to profit from disasters such as that at Bhopal. Discuss the merits and demerits of
this charge.
5. Discuss the similarities and differences between the devastation wrought by the Chernobyl
accident and that which might be expected if a missile tipped with a single nuclear warhead
were to be accidently launched and detonated over a city.
6. What qualitative differences would there be between the effects produced by the detonation
of a single warhead and that of several hundred nuclear warheads in a country such as
Russia or the United States?
7. Compare the causes of the Chernobyl accident with the causes of the 1979 Three Mile
Island accident in the United States.
8. Discuss the effect that public-interest organizations such as the Union of Concerned
Scientists have on the nuclear power industry in the United States.
9. What are some of the things that Roger Boisjoly might have done after the January 27
teleconference to stop the launch, and how effective do you think each might have been?
10. What mechanisms can you think of that might encourage people in organizations such as
NASA and Morton Thiokol to report bad news to their superiors?
11. What mechanisms can you think of that might encourage managers in organizations such
as NASA and Morton Thiokol to seek out information about trouble conditions from their
subordinates?
12. Elaborate on the arguments for and against a NASA safety organization.
13. Elaborate on some of the arguments for and against manned space flight.
3.7 SOURCES

A very interesting general discussion of the fundamental aspects of technology-related

disasters in complex systems is by Perrow (1984).
 The Titanic story can be found in books by Ballard (1987), Marcus (1969), Lord (1955, 1986),
Davie (1987), and Pellegrino (1988).
The principal sources used for the account of the Bhopal disaster were the books: Bogard
(1989), De Grazia (1985), Dembo (1990), Hazarika (1987), Morehouse (1986), Shrivastava
(1987), Sufrin (1985), and Weir (1987). Additional data came from some newspaper accounts:
Gargan (1991) and Hazarika (1992).
An important source of information on the Chernobyl accident is in a book by Russian nuclear
engineer, Grigori Medvedev (1991). Another useful source is by the unrelated Russian scholar
Zhores Medvedev (1990), who had previously described the earlier disaster in the Urals in
Medvedev (1979). From the outside we have an account by an American physician who helped
treat Chernobyl survivors, Gale (1988), and books by other authors, Haynes (1988), Marples
(1988), and Shcherbak (1989). An analysis of the nature of the explosions is in Sweet (1989).
Additional information came from newspaper accounts: Barringer (1990/1991) and Clines (1990).
Information about the status of the sarcophagus is in the transcript of a NOVA television
documentary, Briffa (1991).
Important books about the Challenger episode are by Lewis (1988) and McConnell (1987).
The article by Bell (1987) is very informative about management attitudes and other aspects of the
case. Firsthand information about the operation of the Rogers Commission investigation of the
disaster is supplied by Feynman (1988). An interesting explanation of the field joint problem and
other background material on the case is in Boisjoly (1992). I have heard two formal talks by Roger
Boisjoly and have spoken with him at length. Some additional information about Roger Boisjoly
is in the news-paper article, Boffey (1987) and in Moore (1989).
CHAPTER FOUR: CODES OF ENGINEERING ETHICS

4.1 WHY ETHICS CODES?

A code of professional ethics may be thought of as a collective recognition of the

responsibilities of the individual practitioners. When specified in a clear, concise form, it can be a
major factor in the creation of an ambiance in which ethical behavior is a norm. Drafting, debating,
and perhaps voting on a code are in themselves valuable exercises, stimulating thought on the
subject. The code can serve as a focal point for discussion in classes and at meetings.
Of course, a principal use of an ethics code is as a guide or reminder with respect to behavior
in specific situations. This is not to say that it can be used in cookbook fashion to resolve complex
problems. But it is valuable in outlining the factors to be considered.
Ethics codes play fundamental roles with respect to other mechanisms such as support or
enforcement procedures of professional societies or licensing agencies. They may also be brought
into play in lawsuits. Even where no formal processes are involved, a provision of an ethics code
can sometimes be pointed to by an engineer to help justify a decision to colleagues or managers
when there are countervailing pressures to meet a deadline, cut costs, cover up a blunder, make a
sale, and so on. There is thus a sense in which a formally stated rule can provide an “excuse” for
ethical behavior.
A secondary value of a good ethics code is to indicate to others a concern within the profession
that its members practice in a responsible manner.

4.2 SCOPE AND FORM

An ethics code should be designed primarily to inspire, encourage, and support ethical
practitioners, rather than to serve as a basis for proceedings against wrongdoers (although it can
also be used for this purpose). Unlike a set of laws, which must precisely define prohibited
behavior, an ethics code should have a positive emphasis, advocating desirable modes of
professional conduct, although there are some important negative provisions that should be
included.
Care should be taken to confine the domain of the code to the realm of professional conduct
and not to make it into an all-encompassing moral guide. There is great diversity among engineers
with respect to religion, politics, and general values. The ethics code must be based on a generally
acceptable (and hence necessarily small) set of ethical postulates, leaving ample room for
interpretation in the light of the individual’s own set of general moral values. People with widely
varying political, social, and religious views must feel comfortable with the same set of rules. But
the code must also have genuine content going beyond a few pious admonitions. It must have
substantial provisions applicable in real situations. That this is possible, given the constraints of
the previous paragraph, is a consequence of the significance of the ethical core acknowledged by
virtually everyone. This is discussed in the next section. But first a few words on length and format.
At one extreme an attempt might be made to catalog, for some branch of engineering, all of
the detailed situations calling for ethical decisions, supplying rules for each case. Particularly in
view of the dynamic nature of modern engineering, it is of course not feasible to do this completely.
One problem with overly specific codes is that few will care to read them. Another is that
omissions, which are inevitable, become significant “loopholes.” For example, suppose the code
contains a detailed list of hazards against which the public is to be protected. Then if a question
should arise about some hazard not on this list, it might be inferred that there is no obligation to
protect against it. A more general provision would avoid this problem. An additional drawback of
lengthy codes is that important points may be buried in a mass of less significant items, thereby
losing much of their impact.
At the other extreme, consider the following comprehensive statement proposed by William
H. Wisely as a compact replacement for more conventional ethics codes: “The engineer shall apply
his specialized knowledge and skill at all times in the public interest, with honesty, integrity and
honor.” Virtually every provision that properly belongs in an engineering ethics code is implied
by this statement. Furthermore, it does not imply any objectionable rules. Since it is eminently
readable and concise, why not stop right here and accept it as our ethics code?
The problem is that, although this statement could serve well as an introduction or summary,
it does not specify the principal elements of ethical engineering, does not call attention to those
classes of situations calling for ethical judgments, and provides no guidance as to priorities when
conflicts occur between different considerations. (Wisely suggests a supplementary listing of the
elements of professional responsibility that would tend to serve these functions.) In constructing a
good ethics code, a balance must be sought between over-specificity and sweeping generality.
A useful, common practice in the field of ethics codes, and one followed here in a fairly
conventional manner, is to subdivide the rules into sets corresponding to the objects of concern.
Thus, the proposed code (see Section 4.4 and Appendix A.5.1) presents the engineer’s ethical
obligations in four parts, directed toward society (including posterity), employers and clients,
professional associates (colleagues, co-workers, subordinates), and “the profession” (an
abstraction of a somewhat different nature from the others).

4.3 BASIC PRINCIPLES

Familiarity with the principal theories of moral philosophy can help clarify one’s thinking
about the subjects treated here, although it is not essential to an understanding of what follows.
Readers interested in exploring the foundations of ethics will find a reference to a good
introductory text in the Sources section at the end of this chapter.
Despite wide variations among the values held by engineers, there are a few that are virtually
universal, probably because they are essential to the preservation of society as well as to progress
in science and technology. Such a set would include:
1. Truth, honesty, trustworthiness
2. Respect for human life and welfare, including that of posterity
3. Fair play
4. Openness
5. Competence
Virtually all human achievements depend on an infrastructure that is the result of cooperative
efforts extending over substantial periods of time. Even those who work as individuals, such as
some painters, writers, and scientists, depend on the past and present efforts of other people for
their subsistence, for their basic tools and materials, and for criticism and appreciation. This
necessitates the harmonious coexistence of communities of people. But stable communities can
exist only if the members can reasonably assume that their neighbors and associates will, as a
general rule, treat them fairly and not knowingly do them harm. Each must be able to rely on others
to carry out their assignments in complex enterprises. They must be able to rely on the truth of
what others tell them and to depend on others to fulfill agreements. Without a regard for the well-
being of posterity, the long-term stability of civilization, which gives meaning to humanity’s
greatest achievements, would be undermined.
The above considerations justify the first three principles. Note that the cooperative nature of
science and technology further amplifies the importance of these principles. Engineers and
scientists who could not, for example, rely on the validity of information supplied by colleagues
would be unable to function.
Respect for the integrity of the environment is an immediate corollary of principle 2, since
both contemporary society and posterity depend on the environment in many ways, including, but
not limited to, obtaining adequate amounts of needed materials. A rich environment, replete with
a variety of species of life, tends to be more stable and is also stimulating to the imagination, as
well as serving the more mundane purposes of a raw materials warehouse.
Respect for the democratic process follows from principle 3 (fair play) and can also be
justified directly by the argument that a social system in which everyone has a voice in the
decision-making process is likely to function better in the long run.
In every aspect of society in general, and in science and technology in particular, we require
knowledge and data generated by others. Hence the need for principle 4 (openness), which is also
closely related to principle 1 (truth, etc.) and is necessary for fair play to prevail.
Since members of a profession are relied upon by others to carry out important tasks requiring
special ability and knowledge, it is essential that they should indeed be professionally competent.
The results of incompetence and of malice are often indistinguishable. This justifies principle 5
(competence).
The above principles pertain to ethical as opposed to other aspects of behavior. Matters such
as professional courtesy, public image, and standards of compensation are deliberately excluded,
although they have always had an important—if not dominant—place in traditional engineering
ethics codes. This exclusion does not necessarily imply opposition to those elements, but simply
implies recognition that such admonitions as “uphold the dignity of the engineering profession or
support the activities of their professional societies” (both of which I heartily endorse) belong
elsewhere than in a code of ethics.
There is another dimension to the problem of professional responsibility (or, for that matter,
of personal responsibility in general). Although people should be encouraged and urged to do good
and prevent harm, it is difficult to specify for any individual how many such acts and which ones
specifically should be performed. On the other hand, there is a much stronger and easier-to-
delineate duty to refrain from doing harm. (There may, of course, be substantial difficulties and
disputes over whether a given act is on balance harmful, but that is a different question.) It follows,
therefore, that acts in conformity with the positive admonitions of an ethics code tend to draw
praise, while the absence of such acts is seldom cause for criticism. Violations of the prohibitions
of a code clearly open the way to censure (formal or informal). Not committing an act prohibited
by a code may be praiseworthy if great pressure to commit it was resisted.

4.4 A CODE OF ENGINEERING ETHICS

Presentation of the model code in this section is accompanied by interspersed comments and
examples.
The text of the code is in italics—the entire code is reproduced compactly in Appendix A.5.1.
 Preamble

In the pursuit of their professions, engineers and scientists should use their skills and
knowledge to enhance the quality of life for all and should conduct themselves in an honorable
and ethical manner so as to merit confidence and respect. This code is a guide to the balanced
discharge of their responsibilities to society, to their employers and clients, to their co-workers
and subordinates, to their professional colleagues, and to themselves.

Article I. Engineers shall regard their responsibility to society as paramount and shall:

1.1 Inform themselves and others, as appropriate, of the consequences, direct and indirect,
immediate and remote, of projects they are involved in

For example, an engineer assigned to the design of a computer terminal ought to have, or
acquire, a reasonable knowledge of such matters as how it is likely to be used, who the users are
likely to be, whether the possibility of radiation damage to users has been considered, and what
sort of human factors studies have been made (or are contemplated). The word appropriate in the
text is very important and obviously involves a judgment as to how far it is reasonable to go.
Individual engineers cannot generally be expected to undertake deep sociological or environmental
studies in the course of each assignment. In the above example, most, if not all, of the questions
would probably be answered by relatively brief discussions with those who have made the studies
or by perusals of their reports. A greater effort would be called for if the engineer notices that some
significant aspect has not been explored. The ethical obligation in that event may overlap the purely
technical requirements for doing a good job. The essence here is that true professionals consider
the broad contexts of their work and are not satisfied with understanding only the immediate details
of their parts of a project.

1.2 Endeavor to direct their professional skills toward conscientiously chosen ends they deem,
on balance, to be of positive value to humanity; declining to use these skills for purposes they
consider, on balance, to conflict with their moral values

Given the very considerable areas of agreement on general principles, it follows that in most
cases there will be little controversy involving the application of this rule. Virtually everyone
would consider as desirable safer aircraft landing systems, techniques for reducing the likelihood
of methane explosions in coal mines, and devices that would enable blind people to read ordinary
printed material. Few would approve of apparatus for torture chambers, a heroin substitute easily
made from widely available low-cost materials, or devices for rigging roulette wheels.
There are, nevertheless, exceptional situations. This is the principal area where differing
individual values come into play. Some engineers, asked to design a piece of apparatus for a
whiskey distillery, might decline the assignment on the ground that they consider hard liquor to be
a basically harmful product. Other engineers, who see nothing intrinsically wrong with whiskey,
might have no qualms about accepting the job. Both groups might be acting in this instance as
ethical professionals who took into account the social effects of a project before deciding whether
to work on it. One may argue as to who came to the right conclusion about the net benefits of
alcohol, but this controversy is in a realm outside of engineering ethics.
 Note that there are implied restrictions on what individual moral values are applicable here. It
is assumed that these do not contravene the set of core values enumerated in the previous section
and expressed in other provisions of this code. For example, the fact that one might hold some
bizarre set of beliefs that justifies lying is no excuse for violating an ethics code provision against
falsifying data (such as 2.2 below). In other words, the statement that one should not use one’s
professional skills for purposes at variance with one’s personal moral code constitutes one of a
number of constraints on what is acceptable professional conduct. It does not relieve one of the
obligation to abide by the other constraints in this or perhaps other ethics codes.
Even where two people have very similar basic beliefs, they may still legitimately arrive at
different conclusions regarding the “on balance” value of a product because of differences in
judgment regarding likelihoods of certain events or differences in the weights they assign to certain
effects. For example, two engineers might differ about whether designing a nuclear power plant is
an acceptable assignment only because they differ in their estimates of the likelihood of a
catastrophic accident. Another pair of engineers might disagree with one another regarding the
same question only because they have different views as to the acceptability of trading off an
agreed-on level of risk against an agreed-on set of benefits.
The decision problem is generally more difficult when the product can be used in widely
differing situations. An improved ultrasonic range-finding device could be of direct use for
military submarines, undersea oil exploration, underwater salvage operations, or geologic studies
aimed at understanding earthquakes. If one assigns positive weights to the benefits of some of
these and negative weights to others, then a judgment must be made as to whether the net effect is
positive. One factor would be an estimate of who the actual customers are likely to be. This may
in turn be related to the nature of the organization sponsoring the development. For example, in
the course of my own career, I have tried, on grounds of conscience, to avoid participation in
military applications of technology. One aspect of this effort has been to refrain from working on
any project sponsored by a military agency.
Although it is easy to construct hypothetical examples posing difficult dilemmas, and although
hard cases really do occur, they are not very common, occurring with no greater relative frequency
than other very difficult dilemmas we face in life. The fact that it may be hard in some cases to
define a line between acceptable and unacceptable activities is no excuse for not making the effort.
It is certainly no excuse for not doing so in the more usual, easy cases.

A Right to Engineering Services?

Two alternative concepts of the engineer’s obligations should be mentioned here. First is that
enunciated by Samuel C. Florman: Should professionals work only on projects that they as citizens
approve? If each person is entitled to medical care and legal representation, is it not equally
important that each legitimate business entity, government agency, and citizen’s group should have
access to expert engineering advice? If so then it follows that engineers (within the limits of
conscience) will sometimes labor on behalf of causes in which they do not believe.
There are several grounds on which this position may be challenged. First, the entitlement to
engineering advice, whether on the part of individuals or groups, is certainly not an established
right with the same standing as the right to legal counsel, a basic right stemming from our
Constitution, or the right to medical care, which rests on fundamental considerations of humanity.
Suppose, however, that for the sake of argument we assume that such a right does indeed exist.
What obligations would this confer on individual engineers? Accepting Florman’s analogy to the
medical profession, the answer is none. Article VI of the American Medical Association’s
“Principles of Medical Ethics” (July 1980) reads: “A physician shall, in the provision of
appropriate patient care, except in emergencies, be free to choose whom to serve, with whom to
associate, and the environment in which to provide medical care.” The obligation flowing from
the right to medical care rests with the medical profession as a whole, or perhaps with society as a
whole, rather than with any particular physician.
Similarly, individual attorneys are not required to accept all cases brought to them. (The most
common problem encountered in satisfying the right to counsel is in meeting the needs of the
indigent. This is handled through a combination of governmental and private agencies,
supplemented by volunteer services provided by individual practitioners. Clearly, Florman is not
concerned here with this type of situation.)
The relevant analogy would involve people accused of particularly horrendous crimes. It is
sometimes necessary in such cases for judges to appoint attorneys to represent the defendants. This
must be done because it is basic to our legal system that every defendant be professionally
represented, regardless of how terrible the crime, how overwhelming the case against the accused,
or how obnoxious the accused may be to the community at large. Here again the analogy with
engineering services fails. Even Samuel Florman admits that there are engineering projects (such
as gas chambers in extermination camps) that should not be carried out. As is pointed out in the
closing portion of Chapter 1, if, given the diversity of values and viewpoints among engineers,
conscientious objections create serious problems in staffing a project, then there is good reason
indeed to pause and reconsider the arguments against that project.

Informed Consent

A second alternative concept of engineers’ obligations has been proposed by Robert J. Baum.
Based on the notion of informed consent, it can be stated concisely in terms of their responsibilities
to:
1. Recognize the right of each individual potentially affected by a project to participate to an
appropriate degree in the making of decisions concerning that project.
2. Do everything in their power to provide complete, accurate, and understandable
information to all potentially affected parties; and
3. Carry out to the best of their ability assignments which have been appropriately approved
by the potentially affected parties, even if the engineers believe that they may (or even will)
have harmful consequences.
The basic concept is an appealing one and in certain situations may offer useful guidance as
to the proper course of action. But there are serious problems, both theoretical and practical, that
severely limit its applicability. Most basic, perhaps, is the admonition in point 3 that engineers
must work on projects that they deem pernicious if those affected by it insist. Under the indicated
circumstances, this notion casts engineers in the role of tools to be used or misused by others,
without regard for their own beliefs. This flies in the face of what most people would regard as a
basic human right. There is a possible loophole if the engineers themselves are included in the sets
of people affected by the projects that they work on and are thereby also allowed to participate in
the vote. If the voting rules are such that the engineers have a veto power, then the problem
disappears. But this, of course, essentially nullifies the third point.
 Baum does not suggest what the voting rules should be. If a particular group of people is to
be put at risk in order to gain certain benefits (e.g., the risk might be the possibility of a proposed
dam collapsing and the benefits a recreational lake, some hydro power, and some irrigation water),
what proportion should have to concur before the project can be said to have been “appropriately
approved by the potentially affected parties”? Suppose the question is not about whether the dam
should be built but about a particular trade-off between safety and cost. In that case, those who are
investing money in the project must also have a say in the decision. But how much in relation to
one another and how much in relation to the people in the area? And this is one of the easier
problems connected with the concept of letting the informed consent of the affected parties
displace completely the role of the conscience of the engineer.
C. Thomas Rogers, commenting on this approach, suggests an example in which identifying
the affected parties is much more difficult and where gaining their assent is essentially impossible.
This is the situation where the project is to construct a military aircraft. Apart from the population
of the country that is commissioning the enterprise, one cannot deny that the people who will be
targets of the proposed aircraft may also have an interest in the matter. At the time the plane is
being designed, this group may not be known, and, if they are known, it would scarcely be
necessary to conduct a poll to determine their views on the issue. Along similar lines is the case
where the project is the design of an electric chair. A consequence of the informed consent idea, if
pursued to its logical conclusion, may therefore be to require all engineers to be pacifists. Since
most people today would not consider this to be an acceptable requirement, some modification of
Baum’s position would appear necessary on this ground alone.
It is certainly desirable that the people to be affected by a proposed project should be informed
about it and that their views should be taken into account. Indeed I would argue that such a practice,
wherever feasible, is mandated by the considerations of fair play and openness enunciated above.
But there are many important situations in which, because of practical limitations or conceptual
difficulties, this cannot be accomplished in a satisfactory manner. It then becomes necessary for
others to make the decision, in part, perhaps, on the basis of what they think the unrepresented
people might have preferred. Certainly the engineers involved are obliged to participate in this
decision-making process.
As in the case of the whiskey distillery, there may also be value differences that make a project
desired by those directly affected unacceptable to the engineer. It appears difficult to escape the
conclusion that engineers should sometimes make conscience-based judgments regarding the
acceptability of proposed assignments.

1.3 Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, speaking out against abuses
of the public interest that they may encounter in the course of professional activities in whatever
manner is best calculated to lead to a remedy

As a professional, an engineer is not an ordinary employee and hence cannot simply carry out
assignments without giving some thought to the broader consequences. Should an engineer
conclude that the overall effect of a proposed course of action may be harmful to the public interest,
then an appropriate response is called for.
What does it mean to “hold paramount the public safety, health, and welfare”? Engineers are
generally required to make decisions on the basis of a variety of factors, often trading off one
against another. More legroom in an automobile means less trunk space, or more weight, which
implies higher cost and reduced performance or greater fuel consumption. Increasing the speed of
a portable computer comes at the expense of more power consumption and therefore either a larger
battery, which means greater weight, or the need for more frequent recharging of the battery.
Holding paramount the public safety means that it is improper to treat safety as just one of many
design goals, subject to the kinds of trade-offs illustrated above. It is not acceptable to reduce the
weight of an automobile by trimming down the weight of the steering assembly in a manner that
makes failure of the steering mechanism a real possibility. Nor is it permissible to attenuate the
testing phase for a program controlling a patient monitoring system in order to cut the price or to
meet a delivery date.
Suppose that an engineer involved in the design of the landing gear of a new airliner believes
that the mechanism for latching the wheels in the down position is unreliable in that it requires
unusually precise adjustments during maintenance. Clearly there is an obligation to call attention
to the problem. Now assume that the manager insists on retaining the current design and that the
manager’s arguments fail to persuade the engineer that it is adequate. Then item 1.3 of the code
obligates the engineer to take the matter further—perhaps appealing to the next level of
supervision. Depending on the seriousness of the problem, the degree of certainty felt by the
engineer, and other circumstances, it might ultimately be necessary to go outside the company, for
example, to the Federal Aviation Administration. Such matters, which must be handled very
carefully in a responsible, professional manner, are discussed at some length in Chapter 7. Once
again it should be understood that situations calling for drastic action, though of great importance
when they do occur, are uncommon. Making them even less common should be a major goal of
the engineering profession.
The obligation to act is less pressing when the potentially harmful decision is one that the
engineer is aware of but not directly involved in. It is then a matter of preventing harm, as opposed
to the preceding situation, which entailed refraining from doing harm. On the other hand, when
engineers have participated in projects that develop in a manner that appears pernicious, they have
a particularly strong obligation to take remedial action to prevent the harm and, at a minimum,
should be expected to warn those at risk. A good example of such a situation arose in connection
with the DC-10 case (see Section 2.2), where, unfortunately, this responsibility was not met.
In all such matters, the magnitude of the danger and the degree of certainty about it are
important factors in determining what should be done. Consideration should be given to the
possibility that an alternative intended to reduce the hazards directly associated with some product
may result in increasing dangers elsewhere sufficiently to cause a net increase in overall risk.
It is sometimes argued that exposing some segment of the public to increased risk may be
justified by other considerations, such as economic benefits. A minimal requirement in such cases
is to inform, in an effective manner, those to be placed at risk, so that they have an opportunity to
influence the decision.

1.4 Help inform the public about technological developments, the alternatives they make
feasible, and possible associated problems

An obvious prerequisite for the proper functioning of a democracy is that the public have
adequate access to information on matters of concern to it, and certainly a great deal of
technological information is in this category. Since there are many channels, activated by a variety
of factors, for publicizing such data, this seldom poses serious problems for individual engineers.

1.5 Contribute professional services to worthy causes as appropriate

 Clearly it is up to the individual to decide what causes are sufficiently worthy to merit pro
bono contributions of time and energy. Nobody is compelled to donate work, but, on the other
hand, those who choose to do so in appropriate ways deserve commendation. One reason for such
a provision in an ethics code is to forestall criticism based on provisions of older codes that
condemn as unprofessional work for compensation at less than the prevailing rate.

Article 2. Engineers shall practice their profession in a responsible manner, associating

themselves only with honorable enterprises and shall:

2.1 Keep their professional skills up to date and be aware of current events and societal issues
pertinent to their work

The pace of modern technology is such that continuous study (formal or informal) is essential
for the maintenance of competence, and a well-meaning bungler often does as much harm as a
morally blind but competent individual.
An awareness of current events and societal issues is clearly necessary if one is to meet the
conditions of items 1.1 and 1.2. Suppose, for example, that a proposed assignment is the
development of a communications system for some foreign police force. Before accepting the
assignment, the engineer should ascertain whether the police force involved is acting as an
instrument of repression on behalf of a totalitarian government. Such an appraisal, based on a
reasonable survey of news reports and the like, interpreted in the light of his or her own background
knowledge and values, is an important prerequisite to the decision that must be made in accordance
with item 1.2.

2.2 Be honest and realistic in making claims and estimates, never falsifying data

This is a fundamental aspect of professional integrity. Deception in all forms (including the
suppression of relevant information as well as explicit falsification) undermines the mutual
confidence that is so important in carrying on technology-based enterprises. If, for example, one
cannot rely on test data supplied by others, it may be necessary to repeat their work at considerable
expense in both time and money.
Overoptimistic estimates of cost and time requirements for portions of a project make it
difficult to choose rationally among available alternatives or to predict overall completion dates
and costs. Repeated instances of gross errors in engineering estimates can produce distrust on the
part of the public, to the extent that sound proposals will be rejected.
In addition to economic costs, that may, in some cases, be tantamount to theft, deception can
endanger life and limb or lead to serious environmental damage. The Goodrich brake case,
mentioned in Chapter 2, is an instance in which falsified data exposed test pilots to an added
hazard. A case involving the suppression of data related to an environmental issue is presented in
Section 6.6.

2.3 Accurately describe their qualifications for proposed engineering assignments

Exaggerating one’s qualifications is a temptation that all professionals are likely to be exposed
to at one time or another. The consequences of this form of dishonesty can obviously be very
serious. They include those associated with professional incompetence, with an added element of
corruption.
Some explanation is in order as to why the wording here differs somewhat from corresponding
provisions of many other codes. In these, engineers are prohibited from accepting assignments for
which they are not qualified. Apart from the problem of defining qualifications for particular tasks,
there arise situations where no truly qualified person is available for a job. This often occurs in the
wake of accidents or disasters but can occur under other circumstances as well. A less than fully
qualified engineer might then properly undertake the assignment, provided that this does not entail
any increased jeopardy to people and that no deception is involved. There are also situations where
it may be acceptable to all concerned for the engineer to acquire the necessary qualifications during
the course of a project.

Article 3. Engineers shall, in relations with employers and clients:

3.1 Act as faithful agents or trustees in business or professional matters, provided such actions
conform with other parts of this code

Normally the expectation is the same for engineers as for others paid to do a job: that they
carry out their assignments as best they can. In addition, as professionals, engineers should
consider their employers’ (or clients’) interests from a broader point of view. They should be alert
to problems or opportunities not necessarily specific to particular assignments. For example, they
might call attention to advances in technology that may render products of their firms obsolete or
might be exploited to reduce production costs. As another example, engineers might inform their
companies’ purchasing departments that particular suppliers are overcharging and that equivalent
components are available elsewhere at lower prices.
The qualifying clause implies that, as professionals, engineers sometimes have overriding
obligations. Thus, regardless of explicit or implicit demands by an employer, and regardless of the
effects on the employer’s business, an engineer may not falsify data (2.2) or endanger the public
(1.3) by skimping on the testing of a vital component.
Omitting this provision altogether from the code would have little consequence since
engineers have, if anything, too much incentive to serve the interests of employers and clients.

3.2 Keep information on the business affairs or technical processes of an employer or client
in confidence while employed and later, until such information is properly released, provided such
confidentiality conforms with other parts of this code

Given the key roles played by engineers in many enterprises, it is essential that they can be
relied upon to safeguard information they acquire on the job. Difficulties sometimes arise when
they change jobs within an industry. It would be unethical to reveal to the new employer such
information derived from the previous employer as marketing plans, special manufacturing
techniques, or as yet unreleased product descriptions. But it is sometimes difficult to differentiate
between proprietary techniques developed as byproducts of some projects and techniques of
general value that engineers hit upon in the course of assignments and that they may properly
regard as parts of their general professional repertoires.
 As in item 3.1, the qualifying clause indicates that this provision cannot be used to inhibit an
engineer from revealing information in compliance with other rules such as 1.3. Conflicts between
3.2 and 4.4 can also pose problems; see the discussion of rule 4.4.

3.3 Disclose any circumstance that could lead to a conflict of interest

Fair play and openness demand that those relying on one’s judgment be informed of any
interests one has that they might consider as biasing factors. The application of this provision in
purely commercial situations is straightforward. In cases where technical experts are offering their
views on controversial issues affecting the public interest, the problem is that experts in any area
are virtually always involved with one or more parties to the controversy. Either at present or in
the immediate past, they have almost invariably been employed, directly or indirectly, by some
organization with a stake in the outcome. This, after all, is how they probably acquired or intend
to use their expertise. Even university professors frequently have such ties through consulting (or
prospective consulting) relationships, summer jobs, sabbatical employment, or research grants.
About the only way to manage such situations is to seek experts with a variety of backgrounds
who will then accompany all testimony with clear, honest statements of their interests, as specified
in this provision. With respect to this rule, there is generally little to lose and much to gain by
openness. (In fact this is not a bad maxim with respect to ethics in general.)

3.4 Neither offer nor accept bribes

The purpose of a bribe is to cause (always surreptitiously) an agent of some organization to

favor the interests of an outside party over the interests of the agent’s employer. Thus one aspect
of bribery is the undermining of loyalty. Where the interest sacrificed is financial (e.g., the
opportunity to purchase an item at a lower price), another aspect is indirect theft (for the benefit of
both the recipient and of the person offering the bribe). Sometimes the interest sacrificed is of a
public nature, such as clean air, or safe elevators.
Although nonparticipation in acts of bribery may appear to be a simple, noncontroversial, and
obviously necessary admonition, there are circumstances under which otherwise ethical
individuals find it exceedingly difficult to follow. These occur in localities where bribery is “a way
of life” so that those who refuse to participate are placed at a great disadvantage. This constitutes
one of a number of situations in which acting ethically is not easy. A fuller discussion of this
appears in Section 2.12, dealing with the special problems of consulting engineers.

Article 4. Engineers shall, in relations with colleagues, co-workers and subordinates:

4.1 Seek, accept, and offer honest professional criticism, properly credit others for their
contributions, never claiming credit for work not done

Mutual criticism is one of the most important ways in which we collectively improve
ourselves in every sphere, and it is a vital element in technological progress. Of course, it should
be carried out in a civilized, non-hostile manner.
It is a common human failing to forget the origins of ideas one uses, so a conscious effort is
necessary to adhere to the second part of this rule. Failure to give adequate credit to others often
leads to pain, resentment, and embarrassment, whereas erring a bit on the other side costs very
little. Thus, in marginal cases, one should opt for generosity. It is particularly important not to
neglect the contributions of subordinates.
A corollary to giving proper credit to others is to avoid taking credit where none is due. The
classic violation here is when the name of the head of some research group routinely appears as a
co-author of all publications by members of that group, even when that individual had no part in
the writing or the work reported on. This also occurs sometimes at universities, with professors
similarly taking an excessive share of credit for work done largely by their students.
Patentable inventions or contributions to engineering or scientific theory are routinely signed,
so that the creators are clearly identified (for better or worse!). Unfortunately this is not usually
the case for other forms of engineering work. For example, engineers who develop ingenious
production processes or who design clever (but for some reason unpatented) integrated circuits
have no way to “sign” their work. Thus they receive recognition only from close associates or
possibly from others through word of mouth. It should be a goal of the engineering profession to
develop appropriate means for associating the names of individual engineers in all categories with
the products of their work.

4.2 Treat them fairly in all respects, regardless of such factors as race, religion, sex, age,
ethnic background, or disabilities, and respect their privacy

Fairness is essential, not only for its own sake, but to help foster the cooperative spirit that
makes the members of a profession better able to serve society and to prosper individually. With
respect to privacy, it is particularly important to avoid misusing personal information acquired
about subordinates.

4.3 Help promote their professional growth

For example, in addition to allowing subordinates reasonable time to attend technical meetings
and to update their knowledge through formal or informal study, engineering managers should,
when making job assignments, take into account the effects on the careers of their subordinates.
Granted that there is always a mixture of routine and more interesting work to be done, care should
be taken not to overburden particular individuals with mundane or overspecialized tasks to the
point where they may eventually lose their competence for anything else. Failure in this regard is
often the root cause of age discrimination problems. When an organization anticipates changes,
such as the dropping of a particular product line, engineering managers should, to the greatest
extent possible, give adequate prior notice to their subordinates who may be affected.

4.4 Report, publish, and disseminate information freely, subject to legal and reasonable
proprietary or privacy restraints, provided such actions conform with other parts of this code

This follows directly from the principle of openness, important for the development of both
general knowledge and the proficiency of individual engineering colleagues. Acceptable
constraints derived from the protection of property rights usually either involve very specialized
information or else apply for a relatively short time interval (during which, e.g., a patent
application is being prepared).
Consider, however, a situation in which an engineer employed by some company develops a
generally useful idea that could lead to a significant improvement in a product produced by the
company. Suppose that the management decides that implementing the idea would not be
profitable because of a heavy investment in their current product, which is doing well in the market,
and therefore that they will neither implement it themselves, nor release it for others to utilize. If
the idea is of real social value (e.g., if it is pertinent to an energy-saving device or to an
improvement in an important medical instrument), then the engineer ordered to suppress it would
be in a painful dilemma. A serious effort must be made to persuade management to change that
decision, and should this effort fail, depending on the importance of the matter, further action
should be considered, as discussed in subsequent chapters.
Privacy constraints involve information about individuals; respecting them rarely represents
a significant loss to the general fund of knowledge.
An important class of legal constraints is that ostensibly based on national security
considerations. The word ostensibly is used here to reflect the widely held view that there is little
or no legitimate reason for keeping secret the great bulk of information officially restricted on this
ground. (Of course, few would deny the existence of some very proper national security secrets.
But these are restricted to very specific details, such as encryption keys, troop movements in time
of war, and some critical features of weapons systems.) This is a matter of public policy that affects
engineers not only as citizens but also in their professional capacities. In recent years, a new threat
to the free exchange of technical information has arisen in the form of government efforts to
institute a system of prior censorship to restrict publication of information developed by
researchers working on unclassified projects.
For example, attempts were made in the late seventies by the National Security Agency to
prevent the general dissemination of new results in the field of cryptology. These results were
obtained by people doing unclassified research and development work with commercial
applications in mind (e.g., electronic funds transfer systems). Threats were made to invoke obscure
provisions of the International Traffic in Arms Regulations against those who were about to
present papers at an IEEE symposium. More recently, proposals have been made to restrict
information (again generated by unclassified work) in a variety of other fields, including integrated
circuit technology.
Are there situations where information should be withheld on public-interest grounds not
covered above? A possible example might be a simple technique for producing, from widely
available materials, some devastating weapon that could be used by criminals. The final clause in
rule 4.4 leaves this question to the judgment and conscience of the individual professional.

4.5 Promote health and safety in work situations

Engineers should be concerned not only about the health and safety of the general public but
also about the well-being of people at work.

4.6 Encourage and support adherence to this code, never giving directions that would
encourage others to compromise their professional responsibilities

On those infrequent occasions when an engineer feels compelled on ethical grounds to take a
position that might be unpopular with superiors or even with colleagues, it is particularly important
that fellow engineers react in a sympathetic, understanding manner. Even if they disagree with
their associate on the basis of differing values or judgments, and even if they feel compelled to
oppose the position of their colleague because of such disagreement, they should show respect for
a sincerely held view and support the right to express it and act upon it. They should also back
efforts by their professional societies to promote and support the ethical practice of engineering.
Engineers with supervisory responsibilities should be careful not to issue orders that would
pressure or unduly tempt subordinates to act unethically.

4.5 WHAT SHOULD NOT BE IN AN ETHICS CODE

As was mentioned above (Section 4.3), a number of features of older ethics codes pertaining
to professional courtesy, public relations, income protection, and supporting one’s professional
society have been deliberately omitted as being, at most, marginally relevant to ethics. (One might,
e.g., argue that since engineering societies help maintain professional competence and also have a
role to play in promulgating professional ethics, their support should hence be an ethical
obligation. But the same reasoning would also justify adding to the code a provision calling on
engineers to support universities. This does not seem acceptable.) Also omitted are a considerable
number of provisions that pertain to business ethics and that are significant for only a small
percentage of engineers, mainly consultants. These are best incorporated in a separate code aimed
at this group. In fact, the American Consulting Engineers Council (ACEC) has just such a code.

Constraints on Utterances

Several rules common to many ethics codes have been omitted even though they are relevant.
Consider first an admonition against injuring the reputation of or criticizing other engineers (or
their work). This is often, but not always, qualified with the words falsely and/or maliciously. In
some cases this statement is in a context dealing with unfair competition. In a similar category is
another common provision that engineers should be truthful and objective in public statements.
Certainly the implied objectives of these rules are laudable. Who would deny that engineers
who publicly lie about engineering matters or who maliciously malign the reputations of fellow
engineers merit contempt? The problem lies not with the basic principles but with the potential for
abuse and the difficulty of establishing whether a violation has occurred.
When an issue is sufficiently complex and controversial, it is common for emotions to be
aroused and for people to charge their opponents with being malicious, subjective, and untruthful.
Those who challenge the status quo are particularly vulnerable to such attacks. The road of the
dissenter is already sufficiently rough; the addition of a threat of charges filed with an ethics
committee would add a further serious impediment. How do we determine if a criticism is
malicious? Or if a statement is objective? Or true?
A substantial statement on a complex matter might very well include several incorrect—hence
“false”—assertions and still be a valuable contribution to a debate. Honest mistakes may be made
concerning peripheral points not important to the conclusions. Nevertheless, such errors could be
the basis for proceedings against a dissenter that, even if ultimately unsuccessful, could cause
considerable hardship and stress. The threat of such proceedings is likely to inhibit free debate by
deterring many people from speaking out.
It is on the basis of such consideration, well buttressed by history, that the U.S. Constitution
bars legislation making lying a crime (except under very special, precisely defined circumstances).
The consensus was, and remains, that even apart from the likelihood of massive abuse, the chilling
effect of such legislation on free speech would entail a serious net loss of truth in the public arena.
Allowing open combat between truth and falsehood is considered more efficacious than attempting
to outlaw lies.
Ethics rules pertaining to the criticism of other engineers and to the nature of public statements
can seldom be used to justify positive acts, nor are they of much value in pointing out ethical
obligations. They are potentially useful only for inhibiting wrong behavior and, as discussed
above, are easily misused. An example of such abuse was the expulsion from ASCE in 1932 of
two engineers, B. F. Jakobsen and J. H. Payne, who publicly exposed corrupt behavior on the part
of another engineer. This involved the construction of the San Gabriel Dam in Los Angeles
County. Their accusations were subsequently confirmed by the outcome of a criminal trial that
sent a government official to prison and that returned over $700,000 to the county. But the
engineers were never reinstated by ASCE.
When officers of the Diablo Chapter of the California Society of Professional Engineers
defended the fired BART engineers (see Section 2.3), they, in turn were formally charged with
violating ethics code provisions against criticism of fellow engineers. Although their actions were
ultimately fully vindicated (and indeed commended by the committee that ruled on the charges),
this attack probably deterred others from becoming involved in the case.
Unfortunately, in 1988, without public discussion, the IEEE BOD added to the institute’s
ethics code a provision of precisely this nature. It is particularly bad in that the phrase “false or
malicious” [emphasis added] is used. Thus members are subject to censure even for true statements
about other members should these be found to be “malicious.” This rule was later included (worded
a bit differently) in the new IEEE code (see Appendix A.5.2) in the face of strong opposition from
groups and individuals that included SSIT and the USAB Ethics Committee.
The motivation for the provision was to fashion a weapon for use against a well-known IEEE
member who frequently attacked fellow members, officers, and IEEE staff members, often in a
malicious manner—sometimes falsely. Indeed, after passage of the new rule it was used against
that member in the first case in which an IEEE member was formally censured. That member is
now deceased, but the rule remains, perhaps to deter some who might otherwise behave
maliciously. It is also likely to silence others with legitimate complaints against those in positions
of power.

Disreputable Characters

A rather different set of problems makes me uncomfortable with another common component
of ethics codes: that engineers should associate only with reputable people. Here it is not altogether
clear that even the direct goal is always a desirable one. Suppose engineer Ralph Richards commits
a crime (which may or may not be related to his professional activities), is caught, tried, convicted,
and sentenced to prison. After serving his sentence, suppose he resolves henceforth to lead an
honest life, and engineer Jane Jackson, an old classmate of Richards, hires him as a member of her
department in a large company.
By most definitions, Richards, a convicted felon, is not reputable. Is it really socially desirable
that he be barred from ever again practicing his profession? Should Jackson now be considered
unethical for hiring him? What about engineer Tim Wong, who continues to associate with
Jackson?
One might resolve the dilemma by declaring that Richards, having “paid his debt to society,”
is no longer disreputable. [Indeed, this position is essentially that taken by the NSPE Board of
Ethical Review in case no. 78-2; see Flores (1980, p. 133) in the Sources.] But if a convicted felon
is not disreputable, who is? There are, of course, people with wide and well-deserved reputations
as shady characters, who have never been convicted of a crime or censured by a professional
society. If, however, the set of people to be shunned is defined by their general reputations, then
the next question is, just how is this to be ascertained? Bear in mind that each individual engineer
must make such a determination about each potential associate. Those who are overly tolerant in
their judgments may themselves be judged as unethical. And unless their associates abandon them,
they too, by recursion, thereby join the set of pariahs. This chain reaction effect, a consequence of
the secondary boycott character of this rule, is perhaps the most disturbing aspect, since, in
principle, people could be labeled unethical simply because their judgments of the ethical
judgments of others are ruled incorrect.
The association rule is another in the “do not” category and hence also a candidate for
enforcement. However, perhaps as a result of a tacit agreement to avoid situations such as the one
sketched above, it is seldom, if ever, enforced.

4.6 SOME OTHER ETHICS CODES

General Background

No attempt is made here to enumerate the many ethics codes developed by various engineering
associations or to detail the history of such codes. Instead, there follows a brief survey of some of
the most important engineering codes and an even more cursory sketch of the history involved,
confined in both aspects to the United States. The reader may also find it interesting to examine
the code of ethics of the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of Ontario, Canada,
reproduced in Appendix A.5.4. The code of ethics and professional conduct for members of the
Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is given in Appendix A.5.8. It is, in my opinion, an
excellent code, characterized by a well thought out guidelines section. Other codes included in
Appendix A.5 are those of ABET, AAES, NSPE, AIChE, ASME, and IEEE.
The first engineering ethics code was adopted in 1912 by the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers (AIEE; this organization merged with the Institute of Radio Engineers in 1963 to form
the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, or IEEE). As is the case with the code adopted
by the American Society of Mechanical Engineers (ASME) in 1914, the AIEE code places as the
engineer’s first obligation the protection of his or her client’s or employer’s interests. A great deal
is said about business relationships and the ownership of data. No general concern for the public
safety, health, or welfare is expressed, although a “duty to make every effort to remedy dangerous
defects in apparatus or structures or dangerous operation” is mentioned, and these should be
brought “to the attention of his client or employer.”
No machinery was set up to enforce the code or to educate members about it. In fact, the very
existence of the 1912 code was unknown to those who developed the IEEE Code of Ethics in the
1970s. (The current version of the IEEE code is reproduced in Appendix A.5.2.)
The Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (ECPD) first produced an ethics code
in 1947, subsequently revising it in 1963, 1974, and 1977. This series of codes is particularly
important because several of the major engineering societies (ASCE, ASME, and American
Institute of Mining Engineers, or AIME) as well as a number of smaller societies have adopted the
Basic Principles and the Canons of this code. (In addition to these parts, there is a third section


The name of this organization is now the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (ABET).
called “Suggested Guidelines” Some societies substitute their own guidelines for those of the
ECPD code.) The evolution of the ECPD code is interesting; only a few threads are traced below.
(The 1977 version of the ECPD code is reproduced in Appendix A.5.3.)

Increasing Concern for the Public Well-being

The trend toward increased responsibility to the public is significant. Whereas the 1912 AIEE
code mentions the public only in a patronizing manner (e.g., “The engineer should endeavor to
assist the public to a fair and correct general understanding of engineering matters.”), the 1947
ECPD code mentions in its foreword “fidelity to the public” and the engineer’s “duty to interest
himself in public welfare, and to be ready to apply his special knowledge for the benefit of
mankind.” In a subordinate position of the body of the code it is specified that “he will have due
regard for the safety.” The 1963 version, which opens with three fundamental principles in place
of the foreword, uses stronger language. Principle III reads: The engineer “will use his knowledge
and skill for the advancement of human welfare.” The first canon below states that “the engineer
will have proper regard for the safety, health and welfare of the public in the performance of his
professional duties.” In 1974, what was principle III is promoted to principle I, and the 21 canons
are reduced to 7, the first of which is further strengthened to: “Engineers shall hold paramount the
safety, health and welfare of the public in the performance of their professional duties” (emphasis
added). These remain unchanged in the 1977 revision. The IEEE code refers in its preamble to
“the quality of life throughout the world,” and item 1 reads, “to accept responsibility in making
engineering decisions consistent with the safety, health and welfare of the public, and to disclose
promptly factors that might endanger the public or the environment.”
Associated with this progressive development is an unfortunate, possibly inadvertent
regressive step. The weak provision of the AIEE code concerning the effort to remedy hazards
covers (implicitly) dangers both to the public and to workers. This is made explicit in the 1947
ECPD code where the canon quoted earlier referring to safety and health mentions “the public and
employees.” But in the 1963 and subsequent revisions, only the public safety is mentioned; no
reference at all is made to workers. A similar omission characterizes the IEEE code.

Disreputable Associations, Society Support, and Helping Subordinates

With respect to association with disreputable people, no clear pattern is evident. The AIEE
and the 1947 ECPD codes proscribe association with enterprises of questionable character, a very
different and unobjectionable provision. Nothing at all along these lines is in the 1963 ECPD or
IEEE codes. The 1974 ECPD code mandates that “engineers shall associate only with reputable
persons or organizations,” whereas the 1977 ECPD code replaces this canon (the only changed
canon) with “engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity
and dignity of the engineering profession”: again, an unobjectionable provision (except perhaps
for some question as to the ethical relevance of “dignity”).
The AIEE code and both the 1947 and 1963 ECPD codes refer to the duty to work through
engineering societies as one means of cooperating in the exchange of technical information. In the
1974 and 1977 ECPD codes, “supporting the professional and technical societies of their
disciplines” is elevated to the status of one of the four “Fundamental Principles,” unqualified by
any reference to information exchange. (It is interesting that the American Institute of Chemical
Engineers—AIChE—opposes this provision as being outside the realm of ethics.)
 All versions of the ECPD code oblige engineers to provide subordinates with opportunities
for professional development, and the foreword to the 1947 version requires that “in his dealings
with fellow engineers he should be fair and tolerant.” The IEEE code is more explicit regarding
this latter point, enjoining against bias based on “such factors as race, religion, sex or national
origin.” Its reference to aiding in professional development refers to “colleagues and co-workers.”

Specialized Codes and More General Codes

The discussion thus far has centered on codes applicable to engineers in general. Since
engineering encompasses so many diverse disciplines and varied functions, it is appropriate that
special ethics codes have been devised that focus on the problems unique to these categories.
Reference has been made above to one of these, a code focused on consulting engineers. An
example of a provision of a code for consulting engineers is as follows: “When they use designs
supplied to them by clients, the designs remain the property of the clients and shall not be
duplicated for others without express permission” (ACEC code, 4i.3).
As another example, a code for engineers in medicine and biology, promulgated by the IEEE
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society, has this provision (referring to relations between
engineers and health professionals): “Promote interdisciplinary communication and understanding
while recognizing and maintaining respect for differing cultural values.”
The converse of the special code is a universal code for all engineers. Efforts to get agreement
on such a code have not yet succeeded, with the ABET (formerly ECPD) code (Appendix A.5.3)
coming closest to success. Renewed efforts in this direction were made through the American
Association of Engineering Societies (AAES), an umbrella group compassing all of the principal
American engineering societies. Success here would have given the resulting code a great deal of
prestige and would have paved the way for unified ethics support and enforcement machinery.
Unfortunately no major society has adopted the AAES code (Appendix A.5.6).
One stimulating and useful proposal for a unified code, by Oldenquist and Slowter (1979)
features a core of ethical concepts that captures just those features of existing codes that the authors
regard as proper and appropriate (Appendix A.5.5). A comparison with the code proposed in
Section 4.4 of this book indicates close agreement, with two significant exceptions. The Slowter-
Oldenquist core includes a prohibition against working with those who violate the code (provision
I. e), and it does not mention safety in the workplace.

4.7 LIVING UP TO THE ETHICS CODE

An ethics code cannot generally tell people what to do in specific situations. Its function as a
guide is more to suggest factors to be considered and to raise questions pertinent to the decision-
making process. Ethical dilemmas arise when actions have multiple effects involving different
people in different ways, with uncertain results governed by unknown—perhaps unknowable—
probabilities. As in any other aspect of real life, it is sometimes very difficult to decide what is the
right thing to do, and reasonable people of good will may on occasion disagree. This does not
relieve us of the obligation to do the best we can.
In some situations it is easy to see what the right decision is, but a personal penalty may be
involved in acting on it. (The outfall pipe case discussed in Chapter 1 is of this type.) Since most
people feel uncomfortable when they act improperly, there is a strong subconscious drive to justify
avoidance of the penalty by specious reasoning or even by altering one’s values. It is more honest,
though painful, to acknowledge (if only to oneself) that one is unwilling to pay the price for doing
the right thing in a particular case. An important advantage of such an admission, apart from
preserving integrity, is that it is likely to stimulate behavior that, in the long run, will help reduce
the cost of ethical behavior, perhaps through the establishment of some of the mechanisms
discussed in subsequent chapters.
There are situations in which the success of a clearly ethical course of action is very doubtful,
whereas the expected consequences to the actor are severe. Consider, for example, Charles Lee, a
construction company engineer assigned to help build a dam that he is convinced will serve no
useful function adequate to compensate for its cost and the environmental damage it will cause.
Refusal of the assignment is very unlikely to stop the project but will probably be damaging to
Lee’s career.
It is very natural in such painful situations to resort to some form of what may be called the
“futility argument.” In the above example this might be “If I don’t, someone else will.” In other
cases it might be “Everyone is doing it” or “You can’t fight City Hall.” The underlying idea is that
individual acts don’t count, so why resist the inevitable?
One response to the futility argument is based on the concept that individuals should adhere
to their moral principles without direct reference to the consequences. Thus, if in the above
example, Charles Lee, after mature deliberation, concludes that the dam should not be built, he
should refuse the assignment, regardless of his estimate that it will be built in any event. At least
he will not be guilty of a wrong.
A different (though not inconsistent) refutation of the futility argument is based on the
exemplary and long-term effects of principled actions. A well-motivated refusal, especially when
it is obviously costly to the refuser, is likely to cause others to reconsider their positions, and some
may then change their minds. Quite probably others have privately agreed with the dissident. The
principled refusal of their colleague may inspire them to speak out. In other words, an individual
act might trigger a sequence of reactions that could alter what appeared to be inevitable. Even if
success is not achieved with respect to the immediate issue, the principled act may significantly
affect future events of the same type. There are numerous historical episodes in which a new idea,
initially promulgated by a few isolated (and often maligned) individuals, ultimately achieved
consensus status. The efforts of such innovators must certainly have appeared futile in the early
stages. Thus, while the futility argument poses as a hard-headed statement of reality, it might better
be described as a short-sighted excuse for weakness that neglects major factors in human progress.
Engineers have long been a major force in humanity’s material progress. Now they must be
bolder in defending their work against abuse and directing it toward more beneficial goals. In the
next chapter, it is shown that a potentially powerful instrument for this purpose is the engineering
society.

4.8 SUMMARY

Ethics codes are valuable as general guides to professional conduct, as educational tools, and
as a basis for court proceedings and formal support and enforcement procedures. They are useful
in justifying ethical behavior to others. An engineering ethics code should be a concise statement
of general rules for professional conduct, preferably of a positive nature. It should be based on
widely accepted moral precepts such as honesty, fair play, respect for human life and welfare,
openness, and competence.
 The proposed model code consists of a preamble and four articles. Article 1 treats the
engineer’s obligations to society. These are: to be informed about the consequences, direct and
indirect, of one’s work; to direct one’s professional efforts toward beneficial ends; to protect the
public safety, health, and welfare; to help educate the public about technology; and to contribute
professional advice to worthy causes.
Article 2 concerns obligations to the profession. These are: to associate only with honorable
enterprises; to maintain one’s professional competence; and to be honest in dealing with data and
in stating one’s professional qualifications.
Obligations to employers and clients are treated in Article 3. Engineers should perform their
work with a view toward promoting the goals of their employers in a broader sense than merely
carrying out detailed assignments. They should avoid or reveal conflicts of interest, should neither
offer nor accept bribes, and should not violate confidences.
Article 4 concerns relations with colleagues, co-workers, and subordinates. Honest criticism
of work should be freely exchanged. Contributions of others should be acknowledged, and one
should not claim credit for the work of others. Engineering managers in particular should be careful
about the last point and should also help promote the professional growth of subordinates and not
infringe on their privacy. Factors such as race or sex should not influence professional relations.
The free dissemination of technical information, subject to reasonable constraints, is another
important duty. In addition to having a concern for public health and safety, the engineer should
also help reduce workplace hazards. Co-workers and subordinates should be encouraged to follow
the ethics code and should be supported when they do so.
Engineering ethics codes should not cover such irrelevant topics as standards of
compensation, public image, and courtesy. Other items appearing in some codes, although relevant
to ethics and expressing worthy ideas, may cause more trouble than they are worth. For example,
rules constraining the public statements of engineers are easily misused to stifle legitimate dissent.
Rules prohibiting association with disreputable people entail serious problems of
interpretation.
Engineering ethics codes have been evolving for over 60 years. One clear trend is toward more
emphasis on responsibility to the public. In other respects there is considerable variation among
current codes, and trends are not clear.
A useful idea is the specialized ethics code that adds to the obligations of more general codes
those most pertinent in a particular phase of the profession, such as consulting, or a sub discipline
such as bioengineering. Efforts have also been made to develop a unified ethics code for all
engineers.
Abiding by an ethics code can sometimes be difficult when there are strong pressures to evade
one’s obligations. One should be wary of distorting one’s values in a perhaps unconscious effort
to avoid such conflicts. A related phenomenon is the common belief that principled stands by a
single person are necessarily futile. On the contrary, these can be effective in a number of ways,
both in the short and in the long run.

4.9 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Normally, people are much more likely to be faulted for doing harm than for failing to do
good. Construct some hypothetical situations where an engineer might reasonably be
subjected to criticism for not acting in accordance with some positive provision of the
model code of ethics.
 2. Give some historical examples of situations in which a cause originally supported by only
a small number of dissenters eventually prevailed.
3. Give examples of possible engineering projects about whose desirability there might be
considerable debate.
4. Give examples of situations in which a good case might be made for suppressing some new
technological idea. Give arguments for and against such suppression.
5. It is sometimes argued that engineering ethics codes should take into account local
standards. For example, it is said that it certain countries, bribery is a standard business
practice, and so, according to this argument, it should not be considered unethical for
engineers there to offer bribes. What is your response to this argument?
4.10 SOURCES

A major figure in modern thinking about engineering ethics is Victor Paschkis, whose
contributions have been through personal contact and organizational work as well through
countless oral presentations and a much smaller body of written works (e.g., Paschkis 1971, 1975,
1976).
A good introduction to general ethics is Taylor (1975), and a thought provoking discussion of
ethical rules can be found in Gert (1973). An excellent treatment of real-world ethics is Singer
(1979). Discussions of general concepts underlying engineering ethics codes are in Unger (1973b,
1976). Mario Salvadori (1977), a leader in the field, discusses the value of ethics codes as a tool
for making engineers aware of their responsibilities. Arguments against the whole idea of having
professional ethics codes are presented by philosopher John Ladd (1980). The list of basic
principles enunciated in Section 4.3 is an outgrowth of the approach taken by Oldenquist and
Slowter (1979) in their very interesting paper. A fine text on engineering ethics is Martin (1989).
With respect to the importance of openness and mutual criticism in technology, even with
respect to such matters as the general acceptance of the validity of mathematical proofs or of the
correctness of computer programs, the arguments in De Millo (1979) are very compelling.
The subject of ethics in the computer field is treated in Parker (1978), Johnson (1985a and b),
Forester (1990), and Dunlop (1991). Weizenbaum (1976) deals with some fundamental issues
concerning computer use.
A useful classification scheme for ethical statements, listing, in an organized manner, a very
comprehensive set of rules from a great many science and engineering ethics codes can be found
in Chalk (1980). Elsewhere in the same volume, there are ethics codes of several professional
societies. A number of engineering ethics codes, including the 1912 AIEE code, can be found in
Baum (1980a).
The quoted statement by William Wisely is from Wisely (1978). Robert Ladenson (1980)
presents an illuminating discussion of the philosophical foundations of engineering responsibility
and in particular of the distinction between obligations to do good and to refrain from doing harm;
see also Gert (1973).
On the topic of personal responsibility of engineers, I have presented my views earlier (Unger
1972a). One who has for many years been a strong advocate of the need for engineers to assume
personal responsibility for their work is Adolph J. Ackerman (1969). The “whiskey” example,
illustrating how ethical engineers might disagree over the acceptability of a work assignment, was
used earlier for that purpose by Paschkis (see Steffens 1975). His comments here are also very
pertinent to the futility argument.
CHAPTER FIVE: ROLE OF ENGINEERING SOCIETIES IN ETHICS

5.1 TRADITIONAL FUNCTION OF ENGINEERING SOCIETIES

In the past, engineering societies have for the most part focused their attention on the
advancement of technology. This has been done through such activities as the publishing of
scholarly journals, the organizing of meetings at which technical papers are presented and
discussed, the setting of technical standards (e.g., boiler codes, computer languages, screw sizes),
and the accrediting of curricula. Much the same can be said about scientific societies.
With regard to ethics, the principal function has been in the promulgation and enforcement of
ethics codes on society members. Only a few societies have participated significantly. They have
largely confined themselves to disciplining members in the consulting field for violations of code
provisions pertaining to business practices. In many, if not most, cases that have led to the
imposition of sanctions, violations of law as well as ethics codes were involved. An occasional
plagiarism case stands out as an exception. I know of no case of an engineer being censured for an
act contravening the public safety, health, or welfare, such as involvement in the release of harmful
chemicals to the environment.
Penalties have ranged from a private letter of admonition to expulsion from the society. Rarely
are the facts of a case and the names of those involved published. It is interesting, however, that
even these weak sanctions are taken seriously by accused members, who generally make every
effort to defend themselves against the charges (although in some cases they resign from the
society as soon as charges are brought against them).
The National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) carries out an additional function. It
has a Board of Ethical Review that hears cases, discusses them, and issues written opinions. These
are published, with names and other identifying information suppressed, serving a valuable
educational function. Most, but not all, engineering societies have codes of ethics, the mere
existence of which has some effect, though usually very small, in sensitizing engineers to ethical
issues.
Only since the mid-1970s have any of these organizations taken any steps to positively support
the right of engineers to practice their profession in an ethical manner. In this area, engineers may
have much to learn from another group of employee professionals—university professors.

5.2 HOW ACADEMIC FREEDOM IS DEFENDED

The Bad Old Days

Until a few generations ago, professors at American universities had virtually no professional
autonomy. They could be, and many were, discharged at the whim of an administrator or the board
of trustees on the basis of activities in or outside of the classroom, with no right of due process.
This condition prevailed in institutions ranging from small teacher’s colleges to great
universities—state and private, sectarian and secular. Forced resignations, dismissals, and threats
of dismissal occurred over such matters as religious doctrine, the theory of evolution, views on
economics, the wisdom of American participation in World War I, and personality.
Initial steps to alleviate this condition and to establish a right to academic freedom were first
taken in 1915 with the formation of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).
A set of principles was developed, justifying in terms of the public interest the need for more
professorial autonomy. It was argued that this could only be attained by limiting the circumstances
under which faculty members could be discharged. The basis was a tenure system incorporating
the following features. Legitimate grounds for dismissal after a probationary period should be
clearly specified in the regulations of each university. These should not impede the ordinary free
speech rights of professors off campus, or their rights to full freedom in their research and
classroom discussions related to their subjects. Incompetence, attainment of established retirement
age, or financial exigency necessitating staff reductions were accepted by the AAUP as appropriate
grounds for dismissal. In all cases, it was argued, a tenured professor (one who has successfully
completed the probationary period) is, when threatened with dismissal, entitled to due process in
the form of a formal hearing before a faculty committee.
Although these proposals were initially rejected outright by college presidents and trustees,
significant changes in attitude soon occurred. The cogent arguments of distinguished members of
the profession, coupled with the publicized results of several investigations of specific cases,
reversed the consensus of administrators in less than a decade.
This is not to say that total victory was achieved, with academic freedom securely established.
The story is much more complex, and, although the general trend has been positive, there have
been serious setbacks along the way, particularly during periods of political and economic stress.
It is fair to say, however, that the academic profession has attained a significant degree of
independence and autonomy for the individual practitioner. The techniques used merit close
examination by other employee professionals.

Censure as a Constructive Tool

From its inception, the AAUP has been involved with specific cases of flagrant violations of
academic freedom. The approach developed over the years has been to begin with quiet, informal
mediation. With growing acceptance by universities of the principles espoused by the association,
this step has had a correspondingly increasing degree of success. When it fails and the faculty
member appears to be in the right, an on-site investigation is launched by an ad hoc committee of
usually two volunteer AAUP members from the same region but from different institutions.
The principals in the case and other cognizant individuals are interviewed, and relevant
documents are examined. Every effort is made to gather all the pertinent facts and arguments so
as to develop a balanced picture. A draft report is then written and circulated to the concerned
parties for comment. If committee A (on Academic Freedom) of the AAUP approves, then the
report, revised in the light of the comments received, is published in the association’s quarterly
journal, Academe (prior to 1977 called the Bulletin of the AAUP). Upon ratification at the next
AAUP annual meeting, the administration (or sometimes the board of trustees) of the institution
involved is placed on the association’s censured list, which appears in each issue of Academe.
(The first imposition of censure occurred in 1933.) Removal from this list is contingent upon the
institution’s changing its rules to eliminate the offensive practice (if this is appropriate) and
resolving the grievance of the faculty member in a satisfactory manner.
At first glance, censure by the AAUP appears to be an extremely mild sanction. Association
members are not required to resign from or to decline offers from institutions on the censured list.
Rather they are urged, before accepting such appointments, to seek further information about
conditions at such institutions.
 Nevertheless, the overwhelming majority of colleges and universities take great pains to avoid
censure, and those on the list are generally eager to give up this dubious distinction. (The number
on the list at any time is usually of the order of 40 or 50.)

Why the AAUP Approach Works

There are perhaps two principal reasons for the efficacy of censure. One has to do with
competition for good faculty members at all levels. Every institution wants to recruit the best staff
that it can get. Even during periods when the number of available people exceeds the number of
open positions, there is still competition for the best candidates. The top institutions compete for
the leading candidates, and the lesser institutions strive to attract the best of those who do not find
positions at higher-rated universities or colleges. Thus, even during hard times, superior candidates
are likely to have some range of choice. Of course, this effect is greatly amplified when the demand
for new faculty exceeds the supply. It also applies to some extent in the case of distinguished senior
faculty members, who may be lured away to competing institutions.
A person offered a choice among several job opportunities will probably not accept an
appointment under an administration that has been shown to be unfair to its faculty and insensitive
to the right of academic freedom. While not necessarily a dominant factor in the decision-making
processes of candidates, it nevertheless is a significant handicap in recruiting situations. The bare
fact of censure by a professional society would in itself carry rather limited weight. What makes
the AAUP censure list really significant is the general reputation that the association has acquired
for conducting careful investigations and publishing accurate and fair reports. In a particular case,
people can judge for themselves, by reading the report, how serious an offense has been committed.
The second important reason for the power of the censure process is that the principles
espoused by the AAUP have been accepted widely enough, even by administrators, so that
conformity to them has become the norm. Being singled out as one of a handful of transgressors
against academic freedom is generally considered a professional indiscretion that almost every
university president would find embarrassing.
The principal value of the investigation-censure process is as a deterrent. The success of this
machinery should be measured by the extent to which the great bulk of higher education
institutions in the United States have formulated their rules and procedures so as to conform to
AAUP principles regarding such matters as tenure, dismissal notice, peer evaluation of faculty
competence, and the right of academic freedom. A secondary measure is the number of cases of
alleged abuse of these principles that are settled through informal mediation by an AAUP staff—
frequently, a simple phone call pointing out a rule violation is sufficient. There are probably over
a hundred such settlements for each case that requires a full investigation.
When a matter reaches the stage of censure, the damage has already been done as far as the
individual involved is concerned. Although financial losses can sometimes be recouped eventually
(this often takes years), the personal anguish, and sometimes the career damage, may represent
irretrievable losses. These are mitigated by some satisfaction at having been vindicated by one’s
professional peers and having helped to improve the general climate of academia.

But Will It Work Off Campus?

Finally, some illusions about the differences between industry and academia must be
dispelled. Just as company presidents vary from narrow, egotistical, hard-nosed, ruthless dollar
snatchers to far-sighted, enlightened, generous humanists, so too do university presidents. A
modicum of technical training is all that would be needed to enable many a dean to function
admirably as a nineteenth-century coal mine foreman. University trustees are drawn from
essentially the same pool of bankers, lawyers, industrialists, and other public luminaries that
populate the boards of major corporations—indeed, many individuals serve on both kinds of
bodies. Finally, professors themselves constitute a diverse group that is by no means devoid of
tough, ambitious, and manipulative people. It is perhaps no accident that a number of the most
powerful infighters in government during the past few decades have been former academics.
Although there are indeed important differences between industry and the campus, they are not
such as to justify an attitude that techniques effective with “easygoing” university presidents and
boards of trustees will not work in the “real world” in which most engineers must function.

5.3 USING INVESTIGATIONS TO SUPPORT

THE RIGHT TO BE AN ETHICAL ENGINEER

The General Strategy

A tragic aspect of the Carl Houston case (Section 2.6), for example, is that a man who
conscientiously acted to protect the public safety was left alone to face the wrath of his employer.
Given the considerable success attained by the AAUP in the area of academic freedom, it has been
proposed that similar tools be developed by engineering societies to come to the aid of engineers
who are penalized for ethical behavior.
The extent to which the AAUP approach can be transplanted to the engineering profession is
not clear. In particular, extending the key concept of tenure to engineers would constitute a major
innovation for American industry. Note, though, that tenure already exists for many engineers who
are university professors or government employees. Of course, union contracts, which seldom
cover engineers, often provide workers in less exalted categories with a degree of job security that
is essentially equivalent to tenure. Something close to de facto tenure exists for engineers in a
number of American companies. In many Western European countries and in Japan this degree of
job security for industrial employees is widely accepted.
However, tenure would pose serious problems for companies that are subject to large
fluctuations in aspects of their businesses that involve engineering work, as well as for small
enterprises not stable enough to make tenure meaningful. The extension of the tenure principle
would probably involve changes of a nature that would affect a far broader class of employees
than just engineers, and a full discussion would carry us well beyond the realm of engineering
ethics.
Putting aside the tenure question, there are other features of the AAUP approach that appear
more immediately relevant to engineers. These are investigation, publication, and censure.
This might work as follows: An engineer in a predicament similar to that of Carl Houston
would contact the ethics committee of the appropriate engineering society and request assistance.
Upon a finding by a committee member (possibly a staff member) that the matter is within its
jurisdiction, and upon receipt of a formal written request by the engineer (including a waiver
absolving the society, its committee, and the individuals involved of any liability for the
consequences), contact would then be made with the employer and/or other parties involved.
Informal efforts to resolve the problem would then follow. Should these fail and if the committee
is satisfied that the engineer has a prima facie case, then an investigation would be undertaken by
a small ad hoc committee of volunteer society members.
This would follow in general the AAUP approach, with every effort being made to hear all
sides of the question. A draft of the investigating committee’s report would be circulated for
comment to the concerned parties and revised as appropriate to take these into account. Upon
approval by the ethics committee, the report would then be published by the society in whichever
of its archival periodicals is sent to all members. The addition of the employer to a regularly
published censured list would require the approval of the society’s board of directors, as would the
deletion of employers from that list. An important point is that not all cases need go the complete
route mapped above. There will be situations where the evidence is not quite clear enough to
warrant censure—or even publication. In other cases there may be reasons, such as reluctance on
the engineer’s part for publicity, where the process stops with a publication that does not identify
the parties involved.
Is this a feasible approach? Assuming that it could in fact be effectively implemented by
engineering societies (an important issue in subsequent sections), who would benefit?

Why This Strategy Would Be Effective

The leverage that the investigation-publication-censure process would give the engineering
societies over employers is very considerable. Competition for top-notch engineers is keen. On the
one hand, companies that tend to retain their engineers for long periods regard them as vital assets
and take great care in seeking out the best candidates. Those companies with high turnover rates
are often in the market for engineers at times when they are scarce. Since employers exposed as
having tried to pressure engineers into unethical acts would be at a disadvantage in recruiting good
engineers, virtually every organization would have to take seriously the threat of such exposure,
just as universities do in analogous situations.
A secondary factor that would be at work in the case of many employers of engineers is that
those who make the decisions regarding the purchase of their products and services are often
themselves engineers. There is often enough individual discretion involved in such decisions—for
example, choices among suppliers of standard integrated circuit components—to make it
conceivable that a censured organization might suffer real losses in sales. (This is not to suggest
that engineering societies would or should institute boycotts. What is involved here is a matter of
independent decisions by individuals.)
One consequence of this leverage would be that the engineer in conflict with a large
organization over an ethics-related matter would no longer stand alone, facing a choice between
martyrdom and a bad conscience. Judging from the AAUP example, informal support from an
engineering society would be successful in satisfactorily resolving a great many such conflicts at
a fairly early stage. In the exceptional case that escalates to the formal investigation stage, the
backing of an engineering society would serve to cushion the shock to the engineer, although, as
is mentioned above in the discussion of the AAUP process, some damage may be inevitable.
(Additional ways in which the engineer in such a case may be supported are presented below.)

Everybody Wins

Important as this process might be as a service to worthy individuals in distress, its

significance is much greater for the engineering profession as a whole. It would be a major factor
in deterring managers from bullying responsible engineers. Analogous to the case of university
professors, the primary beneficiaries would be the great majority of engineers who would enjoy a
greater degree of professional autonomy under the protective umbrella of the deterrent without
ever having to serve as the focal points for investigations.
A corollary of the above is that the general public would benefit, since engineers would be in
a better position to protect the public safety, health, and welfare. Episodes such as the DC-10
disaster would be far less likely if managers driven by financial considerations could not so easily
squelch the judgments of conscientious engineers.
Less obvious, perhaps, are the benefits to managers themselves, who would in many instances
be relieved of pressures to force engineers to cut corners. Decisions to do this are often forced on
reluctant managers by the actions or potential actions of other organizations. “Our competitors are
cutting (or will cut) costs by not testing the relief valves of each unit. If we test more thoroughly,
we’ll be priced out of the market.” Quite apart from the direct counters that can be made to this
sort of argument, its basic premise is nullified if the competitors are prevented by their engineers
from cutting costs by ruthlessly sacrificing safety. (An analogous argument pertaining to the role
of regulatory agencies is made in Section 6.5.)
A second way in which professional society support for ethical engineers also tends to help
scrupulous managers is by giving them a credible counter to pressures from upper-level managers,
boards of directors, or stockholders. “I can’t force the plant engineer to release those toxic waste
products into the river. He’ll expose us through the AIChE.”
Finally, engineers able to act more professionally are likely to make their managers look better
by getting the job done more effectively. They will be more prone to identify and call attention to
problems at an early stage, making it easier to solve or avoid them, and, by viewing assignments
from a broader perspective, they will be better positioned to come up with the big idea that can
lead to real breakthroughs.

The IEEE Experience

Before discussing in more detail the possibilities and problems involved in implementing the
strategy outlined above, it will be illuminating to examine the activities in this area by IEEE. At
the time of this writing, the 350,000-member IEEE (the world’s largest engineering society) is the
pioneer organization with respect to providing support for ethical engineers.
Laying the Foundation Prior to 1972, IEEE functioned almost exclusively as an organization
for promoting the development, application, and exchange of technical information. Its principal
operations were the publication of a variety of technical journals and the organization of technical
conferences and exhibits. Ancillary activities contributed to upholding technical competence in its
field by participating in the accreditation of undergraduate engineering curricula and the conferring
of awards and distinctions on outstanding individuals. IEEE has also been involved in standards
activities for many years.
Early in the seventies, increased sensitivity to the social implications of technology,
engendered by the consumer and environmental movements and by the Vietnam War, coincided
with an economic decline that, for the first time in over 15 years, generated substantial numbers of
unemployed engineers. The result was a popular demand within IEEE for a broadening of its scope.
This in turn led to an amendment to IEEE’s constitution enlarging its list of purposes to include
“professional, directed toward the advancement of the standing of the professions it serves,” with
the added statement that “the IEEE shall strive to enhance the quality of life for all people
throughout the world through the constructive application of technology in its fields of
competence. It shall endeavor to promote understanding of the influence of such technology on
the public welfare.”
Shortly after approval of this amendment, two new entities were added to IEEE’s structure:
the United States Activities Committee (later renamed USAB for U.S. Activities Board) and the
Committee on Social Implications of Technology (CSIT). The former organization, funded by an
added dues assessment paid by each of IEEE’s U.S. members, has the mission of promoting the
career interests of IEEE members. It has become involved in matters such as portable pensions,
patent rights of engineers, age discrimination, and national policies affecting technology. Note that
IEEE’s constitution prohibits it from engaging “in collective bargaining on such matters as
salaries, wages, benefits, and working conditions, customarily dealt with by labor unions.”
CSIT, a much less powerful entity, provided a forum for the discussion of controversial
matters in its quarterly publication, Technology and Society and through sessions held at national
meetings. The issues addressed included the role of nuclear energy, national defense policy, effects
of computers on the political process, and government attempts to suppress open research in the
field of cryptology. As will be made evident in what follows, CSIT’s most significant impact was
in the area of engineering ethics. (On January 1, 1982, CSIT attained society status within IEEE,
becoming the IEEE Society on Social Implications of Technology—or SSIT)
Both USAB and CSIT (and later SSIT), particularly the latter, have from their inception been
subjects of controversy within IEEE. A substantial number of IEEE members, though certainly a
minority, are uncomfortable with the idea of the institute extending its domain into realms not
purely technical. (It should not be inferred from the existence of such opposition that the expansion
of IEEE’s field of interest has been at the expense of its more traditional role. On the contrary,
IEEE technical publications and meetings have grown substantially since the early seventies, and
there is no sign of a reversal of this trend.)
Getting Started As a result of the developments outlined above, the basic elements were in
place for a positive response to the BART case. The matter was initially brought to the attention
of IEEE members by the article reproduced in Section 2.3, which appeared in CSIT’s quarterly
and was reprinted in the magazine of the IEEE Communications Society. IEEE’s initial role in the
BART case is related in that section.
Immediately after the lawsuit was settled (February 1975), IEEE officially promulgated its
code of ethics. Efforts continued within USAB and CSIT to set up official IEEE procedures for
providing support for ethical engineers. This proved to be a difficult task.
Part of the problem was due to the cumbersome, complex nature of IEEE’s structure, which
offers many opportunities for procrastination as measures move from one entity to another for
approval. One particularly frustrating factor is what I call the “Sisyphus effect,” which stems from
the fact that memberships and leadership positions in most IEEE bodies are for one-year terms.
Suppose one introduces a controversial proposal before some committee, perhaps in March.
Naturally there will be extensive discussion, objections raised, and amendments proposed. This
will occur even if there is no solid opposition, but simply uneasiness because of the novelty of the
idea. Since committee meetings are not very frequent, perhaps only quarterly, even if the
committee proves to be open-minded and receptive to reasoned arguments, as is most often (though
not always) the case, it is unlikely that final acceptance of the amended proposal will occur within
the calendar year. Thus, after painstakingly pushing the ball almost to the top of the hill, the
proposal’s advocate, expecting to have the matter brought to a vote at the first meeting of the
following year, finds a committee populated largely by strangers, who express much the same
attitude as did their predecessors when they first heard the proposal. The ball has rolled back down
to the bottom, and the advocate must begin the process all over again.
By September 1976, the ethics support ball had reached a ledge somewhere near the midpoint
of the slope. The Executive Committee (EXCOM) approved as IEEE policy the following
statement: “Members who are placed in jeopardy as a consequence of adherence to the Institute’s
Code of Ethics may be offered assistance, provided that in the opinion of the Board of Directors
or its designated representative such assistance is warranted.” Nothing, however, was done to
implement this policy, although several specific proposals had been developed. A few months
later, CSIT publicly announced that it would, in accordance with the new policy statement, try to
aid individuals covered by it. Two legitimate cases resulted, the second of which, the Edgerton
case, is discussed in Section 2.4.
Was There a Co-inventor? The first case, which is rather complex and which has not been
cleared for publication, will be sketched very briefly, with real names and identifying data
suppressed. The protagonist, John Dixon, had been employed for over 20 years by Ace Electronics,
a small firm that produced industrial electronic equipment. All indications were that he was a
competent, conscientious, and respected employee.
During the course of his work in adapting one of his company’s products to the needs of CCC
Enterprises, a customer company, he collaborated with Henry Smith, a CCC engineer, to improve
the product significantly. Meanwhile, a new management team at Ace Electronics seemed to be
initiating a policy of forcing out older employees. Dixon, without any real justification, was told
in writing that his performance on the job was, and had been for many years, unsatisfactory. His
salary was cut and he was warned that he would be discharged if he didn’t improve. In a detailed,
written rebuttal, Dixon refuted the charges against him.
Not long afterward, Ace’s patent attorney completed work on a patent application for the
innovation developed by Dixon and Smith, and presented it to Dixon for his signature. To Dixon’s
surprise, he was represented on the form as the sole inventor, with no mention of Smith’s
contribution. Due to the tension resulting from the episode outlined above, and to his inexperience
with patent applications, Dixon, without explanation, declined to sign the form until he could
consult with his attorney. The advice from counsel was not to sign. There followed, after some
delay, and pressure from the company, a meeting at which Dixon’s attorney told Ace’s
representative why his client would not sign. A few days later, Dixon was fired for disloyalty.
Only later did Ace Electronics check with Smith, who verified Dixon’s account. This did not cause
them to rescind the discharge. Dixon, an IEEE member, appealed to CSIT for assistance.
Upon receiving a letter of inquiry from the CSIT investigating committee (the same group
involved in the Edgerton case) and learning that others were receiving similar letters, Ralph
Prescott, president of Ace Electronics, issued a curt, angry reply, flatly denying the allegations
made by Dixon, though providing virtually no information to substantiate his version. He further
accused CSIT of improper behavior in contacting, without his permission, Ace employees, ex-
employees, and customers to obtain their testimony. He sent a copy of this letter to IEEE President
Bob Saunders (this is a real name).
Although initially somewhat disturbed by this attack and concerned about the possibility that
CSIT might be involving IEEE in a nasty mess, Saunders was reassured when he received copies
of the correspondence and the documents, followed by an oral report on what was going on. He
gave his support to the continuation of the investigation, subject to an admonition that no public
action be taken without the prior approval of EXCOM.
 After the initial phase of its investigation, the committee drafted a report concluding that
Dixon’s discharge was improperly motivated by his adherence to the provision of the IEEE ethics
code requiring him to “properly credit the contributions of others,” and that age discrimination
may also have been a factor. (The engineer was pressing the age discrimination aspect through
other channels.)
Upon receipt of this draft, Prescott responded with a lengthy letter and a sheaf of documents
detailing the case for Ace. This material was very carefully reviewed by the committee and resulted
in a major revision of the report, which had to be substantially lengthened to incorporate the new
material and responses to it. The basic conclusion, however, was unchanged.
Getting into Print While the CSIT investigations of the Edgerton and Dixon cases were in
progress, the IEEE BOD approved in February 1978 a bylaw amendment that set up a Member
Conduct Committee (MCC) charged with two functions: the disciplining of IEEE members for
unprofessional conduct and the implementation of support for ethical engineers (in line with the
policy referred to above). Thus, when CSIT brought its conclusions to EXCOM on May 21, 1978,
on the Edgerton and Dixon cases, that body ruled that both matters should be turned over to MCC.
As a result, the files on both cases were transmitted to MCC.
After reviewing the Edgerton report and the supporting material and carrying out some
additional checks, MCC prepared its own report on the Edgerton case, which in essence concurred
with CSIT’s conclusions (see Appendix A.4.2). This was approved by EXCOM in August 1978,
but the question of publication was left to the advice of counsel. In a telephone conference with
IEEE General Manager Richard Emberson and MCC Chairman James F. Fairman, Jr., IEEE’s
attorney, James R. Wiener, advised that in any publication on the case, all information that could
identity the individuals and organizations involved be suppressed. Upon learning of this, I wrote
to James Weiner pointing out that the ethics support procedure would be largely nullified if the
employer’s name was withheld and that, certainly in this case, where a governmental agency (the
City of New York) was involved, the legal hazards were nil. Weiner accepted these arguments and
asked Emberson to convey to the Executive Committee his endorsement of full publication. That
body, at its October 21 meeting, then approved release of the Edgerton reports without deletions.
Following this, the Institute, a monthly newsprint publication of IEEE received by all
members and devoted essentially to professional activities, printed an article about the Edgerton
case, and a letter on the same subject was published later in Computer, the monthly magazine of
the IEEE Computer Society. But the editors of the Institute and of Spectrum, the archival magazine
that all IEEE members receive monthly, declined to publish either of the reports. They did so on
the ground that this could lead to pressure to publish, on a routine basis, material generated by
other IEEE entities. The Spectrum editor rejected the CSIT Edgerton report when it was submitted
on its own merits as an article, claiming that it was not of sufficient interest to members to warrant
the space it would take up. (Readers can evaluate this judgment for themselves, as the report is
reproduced here in Appendix A.4.1)
Efforts to obtain a ruling that would mandate publication of one or both reports in the Institute
or Spectrum were unsuccessful, and so they appeared only in Technology and Society, the quarterly
newsletter of CSIT, which at that time was subscribed to by fewer than 1.5 percent of IEEE’s
membership. Clearly, among the top echelons of IEEE, enthusiasm for an active role in the area
of engineering ethics was less than unbounded.
The Outstanding Service Award A similar mixed attitude impeded approval of the IEEE
CSIT Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest. It was first proposed by CSIT in
October 1973, but four years elapsed before efforts, largely carried through by Joseph S. Kaufman,
resulted in sufficient approvals to allow CSIT to set up a fund to finance it. The first such award
was presented to the three BART engineers in September 1978 at IEEE’s major West Coast
Conference (WESCON). On the one hand, the conference organizers refused to place the award
ceremony on the program or to include it in their publicity. But on the other hand, 1974 IEEE
President John Guarrera spoke at the ceremony and 1975 IEEE President Arthur P. Stern sent a
message to be read at the presentation.
Similar ambivalence was displayed in April 1979 when the second such award was made by
CSIT to Virginia Edgerton at IEEE’s ELECTRO/’79 Conference in New York City. Once again
the conference organizers cooperated only to the extent of assigning a room; the event was ignored
in the program and publicity. This time, IEEE President Jerry Suran and IEEE Executive Vice
President Leo Young (subsequently elected as the next IEEE president) both spoke at the
ceremony.
Beneficial Side Effects It is significant that, at the time of this writing, no mechanism exists
for informing IEEE members of the existence of the Member Conduct Committee and its functions
of supporting and enforcing the ethical practice of the disciplines encompassed by IEEE. As a
consequence, only a small percentage of members are aware of these matters. There are, however,
indications that even this rather tentative commitment by IEEE has had some effect. Here we must
return to the story of the Dixon case, which was turned over to the MCC along with the Edgerton
case.
On this matter, MCC had difficulty in coming to a clear decision because of the rather complex
circumstances reflected in the lengthy file that CSIT had built up. While MCC was deliberating
over the matter, an interesting and unanticipated side effect of IEEE’s intervention occurred.
Immediately after his discharge, Dixon consulted his attorney about a lawsuit against the
company. His attorney advised him that, although he thought such a suit might very well succeed,
it would not be worthwhile because the expenses involved in preparing the case would consume
too large a portion of the damages they could expect to be awarded. However, a year later, when
Dixon’s attorney saw a copy of the revised CSIT report, he pointed out that it incorporated a major
portion of the groundwork on which a suit could be based, and he therefore advised Dixon that a
court case was now feasible.
Dixon took this advice, and the result was that in mid-1979 the company offered him, and he
accepted, a very satisfactory out-of-court settlement. It is significant that the settlement terms
included a provision that the IEEE discontinue its investigation of the matter and not publish a
report.
Another case in which IEEE’s presence in the ethics arena had a beneficial effect occurred
during this same period. It involved an electrical engineer working with medical researchers to
develop a new prosthetic aid. As the work proceeded, he became concerned about harmful effects
on human subjects involved in experiments with the equipment. In several instances they reported
experiencing pain, and the engineer felt that the operation of the device being developed was not
sufficiently understood by the researchers to justify continuing the experiment at that point.
When the engineer’s concerns were peremptorily dismissed by the medical people in charge
of the project, and when it appeared that his continuing to raise the issue was jeopardizing his job,
he sought advice from CSIT. Speaking with him informally by telephone, I made some suggestions
aimed at facilitating a solution within the framework of the organization employing him. Several
months later he reported that when the researchers learned that he had contacted the IEEE, they
changed their attitudes sufficiently to resolve the immediate issue.
 A third example illustrating the value of support by engineering societies concerns IEEE
member John Heneage, a licensed nuclear engineer, who is also a member of NSPE. After over a
decade in the nuclear power field, he began work for the Arizona Public Service Company (APS)
in January 1983 as a “hot functional director” on pre-start-up tests of the Palo Verde Nuclear
Generating Station. The tests he was directing revealed a significant number of faulty components,
such as malfunctioning valves, faulty indicators, and defective pumps. Heneage became concerned
that some members of the company’s managerial staff were not qualified to supervise safety
testing, and that the problems he had identified were not being taken care of properly. Referring
to his management, he later stated that “they discouraged bringing up concerns that could impact
the schedule.”
In November 1983 he was suddenly fired by APS and subsequently had great difficulty in
finding another job in the industry. Heneage claimed that he had been improperly discharged and
then blackballed. He filed charges with the Labor Department under one of the laws mentioned in
Section 6.2. At the same time, he appealed both to IEEE and to NSPE for assistance. The MCC
began looking into his case, but had not arrived at any conclusion by the time the Labor Department
hearings were started in September 1984. NSPE was also still considering the matter at that time.
However, both organizations sent official observers to the hearing. After a half day of
testimony by Heneage, the company offered a settlement that the engineer decided to accept, and
the matter was thereby concluded. It is generally believed that the presence of the IEEE and NSPE
representatives was a significant factor leading to the settlement offer (the terms of which have not
been revealed).

Why So Slow?

In summary, during the 1970s, IEEE made substantial strides in the area of engineering ethics.
But the machinery established during that period has been largely unused. Very few requests for
support on ethical grounds have reached the MCC. Only one proposal for ethics support emerged
from that committee subsequent to the Edgerton case, and the IEEE Executive Committee vetoed
action on it.
The obvious direct explanation for this inactivity is the fact that virtually nothing was done to
make engineers aware of the existence of the support procedures. At this writing, no mechanism
exists for informing members of the existence of the IEEE ethics code and members who would
have welcomed help in this area might easily have been unaware of the existence of the MCC. The
significance of this lack of awareness is illustrated by the Jerry Smith case, sketched in Section
5.4.
There are also reasons to suspect that the MCC as a group has taken a rather narrow view of
its functions. Consider, for example, an article appearing in the IEEE Spectrum (Perry, 1981a). A
set of hypothetical ethics dilemmas faced by engineers is presented, along with comments by a
panel of individuals, including one identified only as a member of the MCC. The remarks by the
MCC member were so unsympathetic to the engineers in the hypothetical cases that one in need
of ethics support would not expect much help from that quarter.
There are a number of reasons for the slow pace and lack of drive shown by the organization
as a whole. Certainly the inertia associated with all large, complex organizations is an important
element, especially in combination with the Sisyphus factor discussed above. There is also the fact
that a large proportion of decision makers in the IEEE (as in other engineering societies) are
managers, sometimes at very high levels. This should not be surprising, since the talents required
to rise to managerial positions are virtually the same for all types of organizations. Furthermore,
managers have the advantages over rank-and-file engineers (which they share with professors, who
also are disproportionately active in professional society affairs) of greater control over their time,
as well as easier access to office facilities and travel funds. Not unnaturally, they tend at the outset
to view with less than all-out enthusiasm proposals that appear to reduce the power of managers
over their subordinates. Some very specific arguments that have been made against involving
engineering societies in ethical issues, particularly with respect to supporting individuals, are
discussed in Section 5.6.
Since publication of the second edition of this book (in 1994), IEEE ethics support has taken
a roller-coaster ride.
There was a surge of positive activity in the mid-1990s: The IEEE successfully operated an
ethics hotline starting in August, 1996, for example, helping a number of engineers. There were
no problems with it, legal or otherwise. Then it was abruptly suspended after a year of operation,
and then permanently terminated 2/98. This was part of a general withdrawal from any meaningful
ethics support activity by the IEEE.
The abandonment of ethics support was formalized with IEEE Bylaw I-305, reading, "Neither
the Ethics and Member Conduct Committee nor any of its members shall solicit or otherwise invite
complaints, nor shall they provide advice to individuals."
At present, IEEE ethics support is confined to innocuous activities such as student essay
contests. For detailed accounts of what happened, see, "The Assault on IEEE Ethics Support,"
IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Spring, 1999, pp. 36-40 and, "The Case of the
Vanishing Ethics Article", IEEE Technology and Society Magazine, Summer 2008.

What Can Be Done?

There are some simple, practical measures that would serve very well to inform IEEE members
about the ethics code and the existence of ethics support machinery:
1. Enclose with the annual dues notice a copy of the ethics code and a brief summary of the
functions of the MCC and how to contact it.
2. Publish, at least annually, reports of what the MCC has been doing. This should include
summaries of cases presented to it (with identifying information suppressed) and their
dispositions.
3. Publish fictionalized cases illustrating the application of the ethics code to real work
situations.
4. Publish the reports of the ad hoc committees that periodically audit the performance of the
MCC.
5. Change the name of the committee to the Ethics Support Committee to indicate its function
more accurately.
The handling of ethics investigations is discussed in Appendix A.7. While the investigation-
report-censure process is a valuable basic tool for ethics support, it is by no means the only one
available to engineering societies. Ideas for valuable supplementary measures are treated in the
next section.


http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/assault.html

http://www1.cs.columbia.edu/~unger/articles/supprArtic.pdf
5.4 OTHER ETHICS SUPPORT MEASURES
AND SOCIETY ACTIVITIES

Awards

Giving awards to engineers whose adherence to ethical principles in the face of difficult
circumstances serves several functions. It calls attention to the importance of such behavior,
stimulating thought and elevating consciousness. More important than the cash value of the award
(which, though not usually great, is doubtless quite welcome to recipients, who have generally had
a hard time financially) is the message that it conveys to the recipients that their behavior is
appreciated and admired by their colleagues. It also has value in placing on the public record a
clear endorsement of the recipients’ behavior to refute any allegations of improper conduct on their
employment records.
In 1991, the IEEE SSIT award (mentioned above in connection with the BART, Edgerton,
Parks, and Linder cases) was renamed the Carl Barus Award for Outstanding Service in the Public
Interest, in honor of the late Carl Barus who was a mainstay of CSIT and SSIT, and who served
with great distinction as the chairman of the committee that administered the award. The
honorarium was increased to $1000.
The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) initiated an award (for
Scientific Freedom and Responsibility) similar to the IEEE award, with an honorarium of $1000
and with a target population consisting of the entire community of scientists and engineers (for a
discussion of the first awardee see Section 6.6). Victor Paschkis was a recipient of this award in
1988.
The Cavallo Foundation, founded in 1987 by Michael Cavallo, a Cambridge, Massachusetts,
businessman, has been giving awards for moral courage in business and government. Each of three
individuals selected annually for having “chosen to speak out when it would have been easier to
have remained silent” receives a $10,000 prize. In 1989, Jerry Smith, an electrical engineer, was a
Cavallo awardee. He had been employed at a Tennessee nuclear power facility by the TVA. In
carrying out his duties as a member of the Nuclear Safety Review Staff in the early 1980s, he
reported various violations of wiring and welding regulations to his managers. When, despite
numerous efforts on his part, nothing was done to correct them, Smith, in 1985, informed members
of Congress about the problems. This resulted in a series of retaliatory measures by the TVA
culminating in his dismissal in 1986. At one point during this period, he received anonymous death
threats.
While experiencing these hard times, Smith, an IEEE member, was unaware of the existence
of the IEEE MCC and of the mechanisms intended to support people in such situations. He told
me, in a 1990 telephone conversation, that he would certainly have welcomed help from such a
quarter.

Rating Employers

The investigation publication process described above can be supplemented by a number of

other techniques. One approach is to set up an honor roll for good employers. An example of this
is the NSPE Professional Development Awards program. These awards are presented, usually on
an annual basis, to employers of engineers who have been judged as having adhered most closely
to good employment practices, as characterized (since 1973) by the joint society Guidelines to
Professional Employment for Engineers and Scientists (see Section 5.5). This program has many
good features, though it does not deal with the very important subject of procedures for resolving
disputes with management (particularly over ethics-related matters). State societies affiliated with
NSPE nominate organizations for these awards.
Another approach is to maintain and regularly publish ethics ratings of specific employers.
This could include, but go well beyond, both the NSPE program and the AAUP-type list of
censured organizations. Engineers could be asked to rate their employers on the extent to which
they felt ethical engineering was encouraged. Employers could be asked to indicate what
procedures they employ internally to deal with dissenting opinions on ethics-related questions
(such procedures are considered in Section 7.1). It would thus be possible not only to identify the
bad apples, but also to praise the good ones.
Placement services at universities might be encouraged to make such ratings available to
students seeking employment. One proposal is that this be a requirement imposed on universities
through the use of the curriculum accreditation process, over which the engineering societies exert
control.

Legal Defense Services

As is evident in many of the cases outlined in Chapter 2 and elsewhere in this book, conflicts
between engineers and managers over ethical issues often entail litigation. This is a complex
process bringing the engineer into unfamiliar terrain that may be very costly to traverse.
Establishing a legal services organization would be a way for engineering societies to be very
helpful. Such an organization could begin by providing informal preliminary advice and
recommending lawyers experienced in this area.
Further help could be in the form of loans or grants to help cover legal expenses, the filing of
amicus curiae briefs, and, where important legal precedents might be set, the direct use of society
attorneys. It would be a natural step to enlarge the scope of the preliminary counseling function
mentioned above to incorporate general advice on ethical problems. Engineers should be
encouraged to seek such help at the earliest possible stage, when a well-thought-out approach can
often lead to relatively painless solutions (see Section 7.2). An ethics “hotline” to provide such a
service is being experimented with by IEEE. In 1987, the San Francisco Bay Area Council of IEEE
attempted to establish a Legal Defense Service designed to carry out all of the law-related functions
discussed above, as well as to provide general counseling on ethical dilemmas. This effort was
blocked by the IEEE Executive Committee, who felt that such a function should not be carried out
by a local entity of the Institute. A program of this type on an institute wide basis is strongly
advocated by many IEEE members. I consider this to be a sound idea. Also relevant is the legal
assistance available from GAP (see Section 6.7).

Support in the Job Market

An all-too-common characteristic of ethics clashes is a peremptory discharge, followed by

difficulty in getting a new job. Engineering societies could help here in several ways. Ethics
committees, after ascertaining the facts, could supply individuals in such a predicament with letters
certifying that they have acted as good professionals and did not deserve dismissal. This, as was
suggested above in connection with ethics awards, could be helpful with some prospective
employers. A further development of this idea would be to compile a list of employers who
explicitly indicate that, in the interest of promoting high standards of engineering professionalism,
they will favorably consider job applications from those with such letters. Where there is sufficient
evidence that an employer is systematically rejecting job applicants because they were involved in
ethics conflicts, despite the fact that they behaved properly and are otherwise good candidates, this
should be noted in the employer’s ethics rating (see above). Unfortunately, it is usually difficult to
establish reasons for refusals to hire.

Making Pensions Portable

There are a number of ways in which the law enters or might enter into ethics cases. Some
have already been alluded to, and others are discussed in Chapter 6. In addition to providing
support in specific cases, as discussed above, engineering societies can get involved by proposing
model legislation, at both state and federal levels, and by lobbying for passage of appropriate bills
and occasionally against bills deemed negative. This would not represent a significant departure
in an operational sense, since most large engineering societies currently maintain offices in
Washington and are already involved with the legislative process. An important area in which such
activity has already had some beneficial effect is that of pensions.
Because vesting periods are so long and because engineers change jobs so often, a great many
of them never acquire vesting rights in any pension plan. In other cases, engineers are locked into
their current jobs because if they leave, they would forfeit considerable pension benefits
accumulated over many years. This is a basic economic issue, but it does have an important
secondary impact in the realm of professionalism. We have already seen that taking a principled
stand on an engineering ethics issue in conflict with one’s employer often leads to dismissal or to
an obligation to resign. In either case, economic hardship can result, and this may be significantly
amplified by a loss of pension rights.
This is another area where academics are much better off. As a result of a nationwide plan
administered by the Teachers Insurance and Annuity Association (TIAA), a nonprofit
organization, most professors in the United States are covered by a completely portable pension
plan in which they have 100 percent vesting with no waiting period. Roughly speaking, this means
that each professor has an account with TIAA into which the university makes periodic
contributions (e.g., 10 percent of salary). Professors have the option of directing that additional
portions of their salaries (on which taxes will be deferred) also be added to their accounts. A move
to another university simply means that a different employer contributes to the same account
(though not necessarily at the same rate). A further move to an organization not part of the TIAA
plan would mean that contributions would be halted, but the account remains and continues to
accumulate interest and dividends. When the individual chooses to retire, the TIAA account is
converted into an annuity providing a pension in an amount dependent on the size of the account.
Death prior to retirement converts the TIAA account into a death benefit for the individual’s
designated beneficiaries.
This scheme has been operating successfully for over 80 years, and there seems to be no reason
why a similar one could not be applied to engineers. The Employment Guidelines, endorsed by
most of the engineering societies, fall well short of this standard. They call for participation after
no more than one year and full vesting after no more than 5 years (both are immediate with TIAA).
At this time relatively few engineers enjoy benefits that match even the Employment Guidelines
standards.
 Current efforts by some engineering societies such as IEEE are to achieve tax law changes
that would permit engineers to make tax-free contributions to individual retirement accounts. This
key step in removing the fear of pension loss as an obstacle to principled professional behavior
appears to be meeting with success.

AAAS, ASME, and ASCE Activities

The activities of the AAAS in the ethics support area merit attention, particularly because its
more than 130,000 members and over 280 affiliated societies represent virtually every branch of
science and engineering. Its Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (CSFR),
established in 1976, has investigated a number of cases, including, for example, the Baslow
(Section 6.6) and Dewitt (Section 6.9) cases. These have generally been referred to the appropriate
affiliate societies, with suggestions about how they might come to the aid of their colleagues.
Under a grant from the National Science Foundation and the National Endowment for the
Humanities, CSFR carried out a study of the professional ethics activities of its affiliated
organizations. The committee has also discussed basic issues of professional responsibility and
considered various measures to enhance it. The AAAS award is one product of this activity. A
quarterly newsletter, Professional Ethics Report, is published by AAAS.
Another important entity in this field is the ASME Division on Technology and Society, which
began as a committee in 1968 (Victor Paschkis was one of the founders). This group has been an
important source of ideas concerning engineering responsibility, which it has promulgated through
such means as conference sessions, published papers, and a newsletter. Apart from this activity, it
is noteworthy that Donald Zwiep, during his tenure as 1979-1980 ASME president, proposed that
the then newly formed American Association of Engineering Societies (AAES) set up an
Engineers’’ Forum before which engineers (anonymously if necessary) could, without fear of
retaliation, bring to the attention of their peers instances of improper engineering practices. Thus
far, no significant effort seems to have been made to implement this idea.
ASCE has a phone service, which members can use to get informal (not legal) advice on
ethical dilemmas. Perhaps three or four calls per month are received.

5.5 EMPLOYMENT GUIDELINES

Recognizing that most engineers and scientists are employees, engineering and scientific
societies have developed a set of Employment Guidelines that specify the obligations of employers
and professional employees. NSPE, ASCE, ASME, IEEE, AIChE, many other engineering
societies, and several scientific societies have endorsed the guidelines, first promulgated in 1973
and revised in 1979.
They are relevant to the subject of engineering ethics because they incorporate many
important provisions of engineering ethics codes and because proper employment conditions are
conducive to more responsible behavior. By the latter is meant that a person who is treated
decently, provided with a suitable work environment, and encouraged to develop professionally is
more likely to adopt a broader view of the job than is an individual subjected to arbitrary treatment
and denied opportunities for professional growth.
A brief survey of the guidelines is presented here; they appear in full in Appendix A.6. The
stated objectives are to serve the public and the professions. Mutual loyalty, fairness, and ethical
practices are indicated as key elements. These are elaborated on in four sections dealing with
recruitment, terms of employment, professional development, and termination and transfer.
Under recruitment are the employee’s handling of such matters as travel expenses incurred in
connection with job interviews and proprietary information belonging to former employers. The
employer’s obligations include accompanying job offers with full information about the terms of
employment and not entering into agreements with other employers to limit job opportunities of
professionals.
Under terms of employment, engineers are expected to be loyal to their employers, carrying
out assignments with diligence and competence, while showing due regard for the safety and health
of the public and of fellow employees. Other obligations specified include respecting confidential
information and avoiding conflicts of interest. Employers are expected to pay proper salaries, to
keep professionals informed about objectives and policies, and to provide for advancement based
on performance reviews. Career paths should exist to enable the continued advancement and
recognition of engineers who prefer to continue doing technical work rather than become
managers.
Adequate office and physical facilities should be furnished and engineers should not be asked
to work overtime regularly without added compensation. A rather modest standard is suggested
for pensions: full vesting after 5 years, with a proposed minimum pension of 50 percent of average
best 5 years’ salary, assuming 40 years of service (see Section 5.4).
Regarding professional development, professional employees should maintain competence,
participate in professional society activities, and achieve appropriate registration (see Section 6.8).
Employers should encourage the above, providing opportunities for technical publication, and
should “consider compensated leaves of absence for professional study.” There is no explicit
suggestion that engineers be given time off work or tuition support to facilitate their taking courses
at local universities.
With respect to termination and transfer, professional employees are expected to give at least
a month’s notice when resigning and to assist “in maintaining a continuity of function.” Permanent
employees (after an unspecified initial trial period) are entitled to “notice or equivalent
compensation equal to one month, plus one week per year of service.” But first, employers should
try to relocate such individuals within their own organizations or elsewhere.
Although no enforcement procedures exist for the Employment Guidelines, NSPE, as noted
in Section 5.4, encourages compliance in a positive manner by publishing, on a regular basis, lists
of employers within good records.
The American Chemical Society (ACS) considers the joint society guidelines too weak and
has developed its own variation, which among other things specifies more substantial severance
pay. It calls for a minimum of 4 weeks’ notice and at least 2 weeks’ pay per year of service. It also
specifies that after 10 years of service, termination should be only for cause or for continued
evidence of inadequate performance. This is, unlike the corresponding joint society guidelines
provision, a significant move toward tenure.
In 1970, ACS inaugurated an active program to monitor “multiple terminations” of chemical
professionals, defined as three or more such people being terminated by an organization within a
6-month period. Both employers and the terminated chemists or chemical engineers are queried
by the ACS Committee on Professional Relations, in cooperation with local ACS sections, to
ascertain the extent to which the terminations conformed to the guidelines. The results, including
the names of the organizations involved, are published in Chemical and Engineering News, an
ACS magazine. Special note is made of those organizations that decline to supply requested layoff
information to ACS.
ACS also, through its Member Assistance Program, occasionally investigates cases where
members claim to have been treated unprofessionally by their employers. Except for cases
involving sex discrimination, these have not thus far involved matters of ethics.

5.6 OBJECTIONS AND RESPONSES

What are the principal objections to the strategy outlined above for engineering societies?
First is the fear that it would entangle them in lawsuits, resulting in crushing judgments and legal
costs. Second is concern that societies would be deluged with support requests from hordes of
engineers with real or imagined grievances that would entail major staffing and other costs to
process. A third major worry is about the possibility of antagonizing employers, whose backing
has been of major importance to the societies. A secondary factor is that intervention on behalf of
employee engineers might be interpreted as a form of collective bargaining, which is anathema to
many engineers and a violation of some society constitutions (including that of IEEE). Less
tangible, but probably quite significant, is the related idea that ethics support procedures run
counter to the philosophy of rugged individualism, that engineers should deal with their employers
on a one-to-one basis.

The Litigation Nightmare

The danger of lawsuits must be taken very seriously. There is no doubt that publishing reports
supporting engineers in conflict with employers can damage the reputations of individuals as well
as of the employing organizations, to their financial detriment. Very large sums of money can be
involved. Under what conditions can the targets of such reports successfully recover in court?
If the report complained about is completely accurate, they have no chance at all (the
discussion here is confined to conditions in the United States); truth is an absolute defense. The
situation is less clear if factual errors have been made. At that point the extent and relevance of the
errors, the care taken to avoid them, the motives of the defendant, and the nature of the plaintiff’s
organization all become pertinent factors.

Importance of Fair Play and Broad Coverage

Entirely apart from the legal aspect, accuracy and fairness are of prime importance in ethics
support cases. Unfairness and factual errors in a report published by a society on such a matter
would not only adversely affect the case at issue, but would tend to discredit the entire support
process. After all, the only sanction available to protect ethical practitioners is based on morality.
As described above in connection with AAUP procedures and the IEEE investigations, a very
effective way of guarding against error and unfairness is to ask the parties involved to review and
comment on the reports while they are in the draft stage and to take any comments made into
account in preparing the final versions. (Of course, great care should be taken at all stages to ensure
accuracy and completeness.) Such a procedure, apart from making errors very unlikely, would
also, in the event that some error should slip in, constitute an effective legal defense against charges
of recklessness or malice.
 The motives of the defendant are also quite important. A court will view very differently an
error made by an author of a sensational book written for profit and an error made by an
organization that is acting to protect the public interest by promoting ethical behavior on the part
of professionals. A practical consequence of this is that engineering societies should extend their
support umbrella to cover not just their own members, but all practitioners in their fields. This, of
course, would give the activity more of a public-spirited and less of a self-serving aspect.
In situations where the object of criticism is a government agency or a government official,
the free speech and free press provisions of the Constitution, as interpreted by the courts, make the
danger of lawsuits virtually nil.

Nuisance Litigation

Even if they have very little chance of winning, there is a concern that organizations or
individuals might nevertheless choose to attack an engineering society through the courts as a form
of retaliatory harassment. The fact is that anyone can sue anyone else over anything, and regardless
of the outcome the defendants will be exposed to considerable trouble and expense in order to
defend themselves. In assessing the likelihood of such “kamikaze” suits, it is necessary to examine
the costs that the plaintiff must anticipate.
Most obvious is that the plaintiff is exposed to the same legal fees and wasted time as the
defendant. The monetary cost in particular should effectively deter most individuals from pursuing
such a course. In some cases organizations that have attorneys on their payrolls might not find this
to be a problem; in other cases an angry management might be quite prepared to expend
stockholder’s money to punish an organization that has offended it.
But the monetary expense is only one of the costs that such a management would have to face.
A second factor hinges on the fact that the principal sanction that an engineering society has at its
disposal for supporting an ethical engineer in conflict with an employer is public exposure of the
facts and arguments that justified such support. An important consequence of a lawsuit would be
to generate a great deal of additional publicity. Furthermore, when the plaintiff loses, as is being
assumed here, the effect would be an added vindication of the engineer and further embarrassment
to the employer. In some cases legal precedents may be established that the plaintiffs might find
not at all to their liking.
But perhaps the most serious cost to employers seeking vengeance in the courts would be the
exposure of information they would prefer to keep confidential. During pretrial discovery
proceedings, the defendant’s lawyers would be able to subpoena all records, memorandums,
technical reports, and other documents relevant in any way to the subject matter of the trial. In
addition they could examine, under oath and at great length, managers, engineers, technicians, and
others connected with the case. Finally, during the trial, witnesses for the plaintiff would, of course,
be subject to public cross-examination.
Suppose, for example, that an engineer were fired as a result of efforts to persuade
management to eliminate a known safety hazard in some product, and that an engineering society,
upon investigation, concluded that the engineer’s behavior was proper and that management had
acted improperly. If a report to this effect should be published and lead to a lawsuit by the company
against the society, then a wealth of information about such matters as the testing of that product
and perhaps of related products would be unearthed. What were originally concerns based on the
judgment of one engineer about one product, with perhaps minimal corroboration from other
sources, might easily turn into a well-founded, highly publicized indictment of the company’s
products and of its general attitude toward the public safety. The effects could be far more
damaging to the employer than was the original report.
One more possibility must be considered by those thinking about filing no-win lawsuits in
order to punish an engineering society. If, as suggested above, they are likely to suffer a decisive
defeat in court, then both they and their attorneys would be open to countersuits for abuse of
process. They could easily wind up paying court costs and legal fees for both sides—and perhaps
punitive damages as well.
Clearly, then, bringing a losing case to the courtroom in a spirit of vengeance would not be a
sensible strategy for any organization. Revenge can be bitter!

How Have the AAUP and Consumers Union Fared?

The fact that only one lawsuit has been filed by a university against the AAUP (and that one
was quashed at an early stage) provides solid support for the argument that a vigorous program to
defend the rights of employee professionals need not lead a society into a legal thicket.
Further confirmation is available from the experience of another organization operating to
protect the public interest in a rather different arena. Consumers Union (CU) has, since 1936,
published comparative ratings of a wide variety of consumer products, ranging from facial tissues
to automobiles. In a typical recent issue of the monthly Consumer Reports one may expect to find
over 100 specifically identified commercial products discussed and compared. Since more than
1.5 million copies of each issue are distributed, the economic consequences of having a product
ranked below that of a competitor’s product can be significant. Even more damaging are “not
acceptable” ratings, which occur in nearly every issue.
Such direct assaults on the salability of so many commercial products, carried out for more
than six decades, has certainly exposed CU to lawsuits on a scale utterly dwarfing the threat that
would be faced by engineering societies acting to support ethical engineers. Indeed, such lawsuits
have occurred, but not very many. A few have been protracted and costly to defend against. CU
lost only one such case (for $15,296), but an appeals court subsequently overturned the verdict. (It
is interesting that most of CU’s litigation consists of suits that it files to prevent companies from
using its ratings in their advertising.)
Given the tens of thousands of tests carried out in CU’s laboratories and the thousands of
articles published, it is inevitable that errors have occasionally found their way into print. What,
then, accounts for CU’s remarkable success in court? The explanation seems to be that CU, as a
not-for-profit institution, performs a service in the public interest and does so in a careful,
responsible manner, taking all reasonable precautions against error. When manufacturers protest
against CU’s published findings, they are permitted to review the data (but only those pertaining
to their own products). If errors are found or if other factors, such as product modifications not
present in the tested samples, are brought to CU’s attention, then CU will modify its conclusions
appropriately and so notify its readers. These are, in general, the same concepts that have been
effective in keeping the AAUP out of trouble (see Section 5.2), although CU does not follow the
AAUP practice of allowing interested parties to review prepublication drafts of its reports.
In addition to the need for operating in a fair and careful manner, there is another important
lesson to be drawn from the fact that neither AAUP nor CU have suffered court inflicted wounds.
A key reason for their virtual immunity is that neither is perceived by the courts as operating for
selfish reasons. Even when they make mistakes, which happens in the best of organizations, they
are not held to the same strict standards as would be, for example, a purely commercial enterprise
or a trade union. CU is seen to operate on behalf of, not only their paying members, but also of the
public as a whole. AAUP fights to protect the general principle of academic freedom for all
members of university faculties, not just for those belonging to AAUP. Those individuals receiving
AAUP backing include nonmembers as well as members. Thus, engineering societies setting up
ethics support machinery would be wise to defend all engineers in the categories that they
encompass, not just their members.
It is reasonable to conclude that the legal risks to an engineering society incurred through the
operation of a properly organized investigation-report-censure operation in support of ethical
engineers would be small, and fully justified by the likely benefits. Let us turn now to the question
of the direct costs to an engineering society of an active ethics support program.

Would Defending Ethics Cost Too Much?

Apart from the possibility of litigation expenses, would routine expenditures be excessive?
Before this question can be answered, it is necessary to estimate the case load that an ethics support
operation would have to carry.
The IEEE experience to date is of little value from a quantitative point of view since, as has
been noted above, the existence of the support mechanism has been given so little publicity that
the number of cases brought to it thus far is insignificant.
The AAUP has been publishing reports on three or four cases annually of late. Somewhat over
a thousand complaints are processed (not necessarily to completion) every year. Note that AAUP’s
membership is less than one-third of that of IEEE.
Concern has been expressed that a well-publicized ethics support program for engineers would
inundate the system with complaints from chronic malcontents and crackpots or with appeals for
help from individuals with real grievances that, though legitimate, are outside the realm of ethics.
There are indications, even from IEEE’s embryo program, that such cases do indeed arise and that
provision must be made for disposing of them expeditiously. This does not appear too difficult to
achieve.
Requiring applicants for support to provide concise written summaries outlining their
situations makes it possible to screen out swiftly and easily almost all of the inappropriate cases
and submissions from unbalanced people. A characteristic of the latter is that they are seldom able
to produce coherent, compact statements. Since one would not expect to find more malcontents
and crackpots among engineers than among academics, it does not appear that this problem would
get out of hand.
In general there seems to be no reason to expect that the burden on an engineering society
would be overwhelming. As the existence of a support program becomes known and as its
effectiveness becomes evident, the number of appeals made by aggrieved engineers is likely to
increase. But a second consequence to be anticipated from growing efficacy is that the abuses
generating the grievances would be deterred to a greater extent, thus countering the first effect. A
very rough guess would be that, assuming the same proportion of complaints per member as for
the AAUP, two or three staff members would suffice for the 350,000-member IEEE, given that
volunteer members would play a major role. The staff would screen out obviously unjustified or
non-ethics-related complaints, try to resolve routine problems, and provide support for volunteers
investigating and evaluating the much smaller number of hard cases. A technique used by the
American Chemical Society in its Member Assistance Program (largely concerned with matters
such as improper layoffs) is to engage retired members as needed on a per diem basis to serve as
investigators. By starting with fairly stringent standards for case acceptance and gradually relaxing
them as experience is acquired, the society can easily avert the possibility of being swamped by
an initial avalanche of support requests. A rather substantial ethics support program could be
financed at a cost of a few dollars per member annually. This is of the order of 5 percent of current
dues assessments of engineering societies, hardly an excessive amount.

Would the Societies Lose Employer Backing?

Apart from the kinds of direct costs discussed above, the possibility of the indirect costs to
engineering societies that could result from resentment on the part of employers is often raised as
an obstacle to the ethics backup concept. Important benefits flow to engineering societies from
employers of engineers. Many organizations pay the society dues for their engineers, and a few
make direct grants to societies. Society publications, in addition to income from sales to
organizations, receive advertising revenue (involving both products and job openings) and
payment of page charges for employee-written articles. It is common for employers to give
engineers time off to attend society-run technical meetings, conventions, and exhibits and also to
pay travel expenses.
An even more crucial element from the point of view of this discussion is that engineering
employees who are officers of societies are permitted to devote substantial amounts of work time,
with secretarial services, to society business. It is doubtful that presidents of large engineering
societies spend as much as one-third of their time on their normal work assignments. The
cumulative effect of the loss of these various subsidies would severely impact engineering societies
and would have particularly painful consequences for many of the society officers. How likely is
it that an ethics support program would lead to such a withdrawal of support?
First, as has been pointed out in several places above, employers as a whole should welcome
rather than discourage efforts to enhance the professionalism of their engineers. In the analogous
case of university professors, the AAUP’s activities on behalf of academic freedom did not, after
an initial transient, evoke a hostile response from college and university administrators. On the
contrary, a high degree of cooperation evolved.
Taking a narrower viewpoint, we might start by asking why employers, particularly for-profit
organizations, choose now to do the things outlined above that are so helpful to engineering
societies. The answer is that they are operating directly in their own interests. Where else but in
the publications that engineers read should they advertise job openings or promote their
engineering products? Who benefits when a company’s engineers learn more about new
technological developments by reading technical society publications or attending technical
conferences? Apart from the direct benefits accruing to them through these educational activities,
companies dependent on technology profit significantly from the general stimulus to technological
progress that is provided by engineering societies. An additional point is that a company refusing
to make it possible for its engineers to attend technical meetings would certainly lose points on the
job market. Thus, given that the support furnished to engineering societies by employers is based
on self-interest rather than on altruism, it is not likely to be withdrawn to any significant degree.

Keeping Societies Independent

The question of company support for society officers merits further consideration from a
somewhat different point of view. Apart from the prestige associated with having one of its
engineers serving in an important engineering society post, there is also the fact that a company
may be able to exert influence on the society through this connection. This might be in the realm
of public policy positions taken by the society, standards (see the discussion of the Hydrolevel
case in Section 6.10), and so on.
When, as is often the case, the engineers involved are high-level managers, their naturally
strong identification with their companies will generally lead them to act in consonance with the
interests of their employers. Some prompting from superiors may be necessary for rank-and-file
engineers in similar situations. It may well be to the benefit of engineering societies to prohibit the
subsidizing of principal officers by outside organizations in order to retain a greater degree of
independence and reduce conflicts of interest. The price for this might be in the form of dues
increases to pay salaries, at least to the presidents. A perennial issue in the engineering community
has always been the role of corporations in engineering societies.

Does Ethics Support Imply Unionism?

This brings us to the last objection referred to at the outset of this subsection: Does an ethics
support program interfere with the traditional relationship between engineers and their employers,
and isn’t it a form of collective bargaining? The answer to the first question is clearly yes. The
whole idea of ethics support is precisely to “interfere” with the rather less than sacred employer-
engineer relationship so as to inhibit the former’s power to coerce the latter to act unethically. No
apologies are required here.
As to whether collective bargaining is entailed, the answer is certainly no from a common
sense point of view, and, unless considerable word torturing is applied, it is also no in a legalistic
sense. Collective bargaining is a negotiation process between employers and representatives of
their employees over wages, hours, and other terms of employment. The ethics support process
discussed here entails an engineering society acting to maintain high ethical standards among the
members of a branch of the profession. It does not in general “represent” those receiving support
and has no authority to make commitments on behalf of engineers who are subjects of cases in
which it becomes involved—they may not even be members. The public is a principal beneficiary
of this activity. Sanctions available to the societies are not those normally applied by employee
representatives in collective bargaining situations. Finally, engineers who, in particular situations,
do not wish to receive support from engineering societies are under no compulsion to do so. Thus
ethics support activities by engineering societies are clearly not a form of collective bargaining.

5.7 ENFORCEMENT—POLICING THE UNETHICAL ENGINEER

When the activities of ethics committees in such professions as law and medicine are
discussed, the subject matter almost invariably is the detection, trial, and punishment of unethical
practitioners. Until the last decade or so, the same was true for engineering, with the focus almost
entirely on the proprietors and employees of small engineering firms. (IEEE did not have an ethics
code, let alone an ethics enforcement process.)
The problem was viewed primarily as one of weeding out those who competed for business
in an unfair manner. Out of about 200 published opinions (in four volumes) of the NSPE Board of
Ethical Review from 1958 through 1975, only two relate to matters of safety. A major concern is
with permissible forms of advertising: “Are boldface listings in the classified section of local
telephone directories consistent with the Code of Ethics?” or “Would the use of the name of an
engineering firm on the shirts of the players of the [Little League] baseball team be a violation of
the Code of Ethics?” Rather than relegate the answers to the back of the book, I will relieve anxious
readers by indicating at once that the decisions arrived at by the board and published in the 1976
volume were that boldface listings in the classified section are a violation (though boldface listings
in the regular section are permissible), whereas the baseball shirts are acceptable, but on the brink.
Competitive bidding, conflict of interest, political campaign contributions, and improper
recruiting practices are also the subjects of many of the published opinions (which refer to
hypothetical cases based on real situations brought to the attention of the board). They are
published for educational purposes, as NSPE, with rare exceptions, leaves the punitive function to
the state societies.
When engineers are actually disciplined by their professional societies, the offenses usually
entail violations of law—principally the offering of bribes to win contracts. A few involve
plagiarism. Since the inception of IEEE’s disciplinary procedures, only one case has to date
reached the stage of a formal hearing. This lead to the censure of a member for maligning the
reputations of other members. The bulk of complaints received by IEEE involve member conduct
in connection with IEEE activities. I know of no case (though such may exist) of an engineer
disciplined by any society for an act inimical to the public safety, health, or welfare. On the other
hand, recall the case, mentioned in Section 4.5, in which two engineers acting in the public interest
were expelled from an engineering society under its ethics enforcement procedures.
Penalties imposed by engineering societies include private letters of admonition, formal
reprimands, suspension of society membership for specified periods of time, and expulsion. Fear
of lawsuits makes it rare for the names of culprits to be revealed, unless they have been convicted
in courts of law. Procedures followed by such societies as ASCE, one of the most active in this
area, are carefully designed to ensure fair play. At least in recent years, there do not seem to be
any complaints on that score.
Although, as suggested in the preceding summary, past practices in the ethics enforcement
area have not addressed many of the problems of professional responsibility, they have been
valuable in establishing a place for engineering ethics in the consciousness of engineers, in creating
and exercising ethics-related machinery in many societies, and in inhibiting to some extent a
number of unethical business practices in the engineering field. Serious problems become apparent
when one contemplates bringing to bear enforcement procedures on many aspects of modern
engineering ethics codes.

Enforcement as Related to Support

First of all, until ethics support mechanisms have been developed to the point where engineers
adhering to a particular point of an ethics code can be protected to a reasonable degree against
punishment by their employers, it would seem unfair to penalize those who, fearing such
punishment, violate that principle. But in an extreme case—where, for example, an engineer
acquiesces in a decision that exposes a large number of people to a severe, high-probability danger,
where refusal to go along would have entailed a small cost to the engineer such as loss of a pay
increase—then disciplinary proceedings might be reasonable.
An interesting aspect here is that there are situations where ethics enforcement machinery can
provide a measure of ethics support. This would be in a case where the manager coercing an
engineer into acting unethically is an engineer. The possibility of disciplinary proceedings against
the manager might sometimes serve as a deterrent sufficient to relieve the pressure on the
subordinate.

Which Rules Should Be Enforced?

A more fundamental problem is that many important components of an ethics code do not
lend themselves well to enforcement. In this respect, as is noted in Chapter 4, ethics codes differ
from sets of laws. Observe first that serious difficulties seldom arise in connection with rules that
can be formulated as “Do not ...” since violations are associated with specific acts that can serve
as the basis for disciplinary proceedings Thus, a rule requiring an engineer to “properly credit
others for their contributions” is equivalent in a straightforward sense to one reading “Do not claim
credit directly or by implication for the work of others.” An engineer who plagiarizes another’s
work in a technical article, for example, can be accused of improper conduct on the basis of a
clearly defined act.
The trouble comes with statements of positive obligations that do not compel action in any
particular situation. For example, it is difficult to imagine an engineer being hauled before an ethics
committee on a charge of violating ethics code admonitions to “use knowledge and skill for the
enhancement of human welfare” or to “contribute professional advice to worthy causes.” These,
and a number of other principles embedded in engineering ethics codes, generally call on engineers
to promote the good or to prevent harm, in contrast to the more enforceable rules that prohibit the
commission of harmful acts.
An obvious solution, which some advocate, is simply to eliminate the hard-to-enforce rules.
This, however, would be most unfortunate, since these rules in general are of great importance in
furthering many of the objectives of ethics codes as discussed in Section 4.1: initiating discussion,
stimulating thought, justifying worthy acts, and so forth. It is a prime error to measure a code of
ethics by the same standards as a code of law.
An interesting alternative approach to this problem is to distinguish between those rules that
represent principles of professional practice, minimum standards that must be met, and rules that
represent ideals, guides to exemplary professionalism. The principles are enforceable, whereas the
ideals are not, although they are very important in stimulating and justifying ethical conduct. Items
1.2 and 1.5 of our model ethics code (see Appendix A.5.1) are examples of ideals, whereas 2.2 and
3.4 are principles. Unfortunately, the distinction is not always clear. Provisions 1.1 and 3.1, for
example, can, under certain circumstances, be applied as principles, and in other situations can be
considered as ideals. This is a topic that merits further study.
Enforcement should not be given a high priority in the engineering ethics area. Existing
machinery should be tuned and adjusted to focus more on issues pertaining to the public interest,
and thought should be given to how ethics enforcement can be used (in conjunction with rules such
as those in Article 4 of the model code) to induce engineering managers to encourage and support
subordinates who take their ethical responsibilities seriously. (An obvious difficulty here might be
in finding individuals willing to file charges.)
But a heavy-handed approach should be avoided, as the effectiveness of ethics enforcement
within voluntary organizations is limited by the extent to which it is accepted by the members.
And (as suggested above) they have a right to demand that their societies devote their principal
resources in this field to acting as effective advocates and protectors of ethical engineers before
expanding efforts to weed out the unethical practitioners. Thus it would be appropriate for societies
having such enforcement activities to develop support operations, and for those with no active
ethics machinery to develop integrated programs, with the primary emphasis on the support
function.

5.8 SOME CONCLUSIONS

If engineers as a whole are to attain a position where they can perform their work, which is so
important to society, in a conscientious, responsible manner as true professionals, it is essential
that they induce their professional societies to develop and vigorously implement effective support
mechanisms along the lines indicated here. (No claim of completeness is implied; doubtless
additional techniques await conception.)
As discussed in the foregoing, there are obstacles to such engagement, but they are by no
means insurmountable. A well-designed program, operated in a responsible manner, with due
concern for fair play, would be very unlikely to generate serious legal difficulties or to cause a
major withdrawal of industrial support for engineering societies. Nor need this entail excessive
monetary costs for staffing and other routine operating expenses. On the positive side, it can be
argued that, if professional societies are properly engaged in promulgating ethical standards (as
they are), then they also have a right and an obligation to defend those who abide by those
standards.
It is important that society members be kept informed about what their ethics committee is
doing and that they have access to information that will allow them to determine how well it is
functioning. The same should apply to all other society committees, but there is a special problem
in making such information available in the ethics area. This is due to the need for confidentiality
about ongoing cases and about certain concluded cases.
Suppose, for example, that during some extended period of time, very few ethics support cases
emerge from a society’s ethics committee. There are several possible explanations, one of which
is simply that very few cases deserving of support were brought to the committee’s attention. (This
might be because few such cases exist, or because the existence of the support function is not
widely known, or because of a lack of confidence in the effectiveness of the support mechanism.)
But a second possibility is that the committee is applying certain criteria that have the effect of
screening out many applicants for support whom most members would have deemed worthy.
Without access to adequate information, how can any person not on the committee distinguish
between these two possibilities (let alone still other explanations)?
Making available the necessary information without also revealing data that could violate
individual rights or expose the society to lawsuits poses a delicate but not an unsolvable problem.
One basic approach is for the ethics committee to prepare a report on each case that it receives,
outlining the essential facts and arguments but suppressing all information that might identify the
parties involved, and concluding with an explanation of its decision with the reasons behind it.
Summaries of these accounts would be published, perhaps in an annual report, and the full accounts
(still minus any identifying information) would be available on request to interested society
members. It would also be wise to make the ethics committee large enough (perhaps nine or more
members), with staggered terms of office, so as to maximize diversity and further ensure that the
nature of its operations are as open as possible. At the same time it is essential that its actual
proceedings and all names and other data that could reveal individual or organizational identities
of those involved in cases be held in the strictest confidence.
An important weakness in the engineering profession in the United States has been the
partitioning of engineers into so many different societies, depriving them of a unified voice. The
formation of the AAES, an umbrella organization whose constituent bodies are the principal
engineering societies of the United States, represents the latest attempt to remedy this disunity. In
particular, if, instead of each individual society developing its own ethics support and enforcement
machinery, a unified effort was made through the AAES, the result could be a considerable
increase in effectiveness and a lower cost. Members of societies not now active in the ethics area
would derive a particular advantage by admission to a structure erected as a result of efforts made
by colleagues in other societies. An AAES ethics support program would be particularly useful in
cases where the organizations involved employ engineers representing a variety of disciplines.
Clearly, in such situations, the investigation-publication-censure process would have considerably
more leverage. Another advantage of a joint society ethics operation, particularly with respect to
support, is that some society officials who are very concerned about the possibility of retaliation
against their organizations by vindictive employers would consider the collective nature of the
joint committee a useful buffer to cushion such effects.
There are, however, some dangers inherent in relegating the ethics machinery to an umbrella
organization. First is the effect of adding yet another layer of complexity onto the already unwieldy
administrative structures of engineering societies. It might prove to be impossible to develop and
maintain an effective system if the initial structure and subsequent changes and enhancements had
to be debated and voted on within the component societies and then among society representatives
to AAES. The fact that there is a rather low level of interest in ethics within a number of
engineering societies could force the need for so much compromise within AAES that only a very
weak system would result. Finally, since the strength of the ethics machinery depends heavily on
its interaction with individual engineers, placing it in an organization to which engineers belong
only indirectly might dilute their interest, confidence, and support to a serious extent.
In the light of the above considerations, it is essential that each society retain its own ethics
committee to serve as a two-way conduit between society members and the AAES ethics
committee. These committees would be responsible for:
1. Ensuring appropriate publication of case reports, organizational ethics ratings, and other
material generated by the AAES ethics committee
2. Generating discussions, publications guidelines, and ethics code supplements related to
the particular ethical problems of their sub-disciplines
3. Recruiting and screening volunteers from their societies to serve on the AAES ethics
committee as representatives of their societies or to aid the committee as consultants,
investigators, or members of hearing boards
4. Carrying on reviews of the procedures and activities of the AAES ethics committee,
making constructive proposals and suggestions as appropriate
5. Ensuring that members of their societies are kept aware of the existence of the support and
enforcement procedures as well as the provisions of the pertinent ethics code
AAES has developed an ethics code that would apply to all engineers and that can be
supplemented by provisions and guidelines added by the individual societies (Appendix A.5.6).
However, no steps have as yet been taken to organize an AAES ethics support operation.

5.9 SUMMARY
 Engineering societies have, until recent years, confined their ethics-related activities to an
educational role and, in some cases, to a rather limited enforcement function. The latter has rarely,
if ever, involved rules pertaining directly to matters of public safety.
Through the AAUP, the academic profession has been actively defending the professional
rights of university teachers for over 75 years. The key element is a tenure system, whereby faculty
members cannot be summarily dismissed. This was established and is maintained by moral
pressure exerted through a process involving informal mediation, investigation, publication of
reports on actual cases, and censure of offending administrations. Careful attention to accuracy
and fair play is essential to success in such an endeavor.
The differences between academia and industry are not so great as to make the AAUP
experience irrelevant to engineers. Tenure in various forms exists today for many American
workers through such means as union contracts and civil service regulations. It is far more
prevalent in Japan and Western Europe.
The mediation-investigation-censure approach, or parts of it, could be employed by
engineering societies even without the tenure concept. It could deter employers from mistreating
ethical engineers. For example, upon receipt of a formal complaint by an engineer, the steps taken
might be:

• Preliminary screening to filter out frivolous or inappropriate cases

• Attempt to settle the matter through informal talks
• Formal investigation by a few volunteer society members
• Drafting of a balanced report on the matter
• Formal action by the society to censure the employer
• Publication of the report

An important reason why employers are likely to take this seriously is that the more desirable
engineers on the job market, who are always in demand, would tend to shun organizations on
record as having treated engineers unprofessionally. Once such a system has been established, it
would benefit the public, engineers, and managers of engineers. An important advantage accruing
to good managers would be that there would be fewer occasions on which they would be under
pressure to make certain bad decisions as a result of the actions of unscrupulous competitors. They
would also profit from more professional behavior by their engineering employees.
During the seventies, IEEE widened its scope to include concerns for professional matters and
for the consequences of its members’ work. Following an amicus curiae intervention in the BART
case, a code of ethics was adopted and machinery was set up to enforce the code and to support
those who get into trouble as a result of abiding by it. The latter function was carried out in
connection with the Edgerton case, where published reports resulted. Several other cases
terminated successfully at earlier stages. An Award for Outstanding Service in the Public Interest
was also established. The first recipients were the BART engineers and Virginia Edgerton.
Progress within IEEE did not come easily. In addition to various inertial factors, many
important officials have, at best, mixed feelings toward the new activities. Although a good start
was made, little progress has been made during the past decade. Efforts to strengthen IEEE ethics
support activities are still in progress.
Another ethics support measure that societies can utilize is to compute and publicize ethics
ratings of specific employers who, on the whole adhere to generally accepted guidelines in their
treatment of engineers. Legal defense services might be supplied to engineers as appropriate.
Efforts can also be made to help secure new jobs for engineers dismissed because of behavior in
conformance with an ethics code.
The plight of the discharged engineer is often aggravated by the loss of accumulated pension
rights. Engineering societies are, with some success, trying to ease this problem by promoting the
idea of portable pensions, with early or immediate vesting, a goal long ago achieved by university
professors.
Note should be taken of the important contributions in the general field of engineering and
scientific ethics by the AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility and by the
ASME Division on Technology and Society. ACS, through its Member Assistance Program, has
also done much to support professionalism, particularly with respect to improper terminations.
The efforts of a coalition of most of the leading engineering and scientific societies has
produced a set of Employment Guidelines defining the obligations of employers and professional
employees. These cover such matters as adherence to provisions of ethics codes, recruitment and
termination, professional development, and pensions. ACS has a stronger version of these
guidelines.
Objections to engineering society involvement in the kinds of activities discussed here fall
into several categories. The principal one is fear of legal problems such as damage suits based on
publications of case reports. Although this concern must be taken seriously, the danger is rather
small, since organizations challenging carefully prepared case reports in open court have little to
gain and much to lose. The experiences of AAUP and of Consumers Union bear this out.
Direct costs to the societies, another concern, are unlikely to exceed 5 percent of current dues.
Loss of indirect employer support for the societies is also suggested as a major problem. But since
such support is motivated by the substantial benefits it confers on the donors, and because the
ethics programs are not antagonistic toward their real interests, its withdrawal is highly
improbable. Another unfounded concern is that ethics support might be legally interpreted as a
form of collective bargaining, a fundamentally different type of process.
Policing the unethical engineer, while worthwhile, should be clearly subordinate to ethics
support. An interesting basic problem is to determine which types of ethics rules lend themselves
to enforcement.
Methods should be developed to make ethics committees accountable to society members.
One useful measure would be the periodic issuance of reports on their activities, with identifying
information suppressed.
A joint society ethics committee (perhaps under the aegis of the AAES) could be most
valuable. It should be so organized as to draw on and mesh with individual society ethics activities.

5.10 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What are some of the drawbacks to tenure systems?

2. How might these be dealt with?
3. How might the concept of tenure best be adapted to the positions occupied by engineers
in private industry? Consider such matters as company size, the stability of the industries
involved, valid grounds and procedures for discharging tenured employees, and the
appropriate lengths of probationary periods.
4. Discuss the proposal that engineering societies pay their president’s salaries, so as to make
them independent of pressure from employers.
 5. In opposition to the proposal that engineering societies make available funds to help
engineers who get into difficulties as a result of adhering to ethics codes, it has been argued
that this is no more justified than helping engineers who lose their jobs because their
employers lose contracts. What would be an appropriate response to this argument?

5.11 SOURCES

The traditional role of engineering societies, and the early efforts of those such as Morris L.
Cooke to broaden their outlook so as to encompass a greater concern for the public interest, are
well described by Layton (1971,1980). A general call for engineering societies to expand their
activities into the social realm was sounded at the conference recorded by Fruchtbaum (1972), for
example, in Kotasek’s paper (Kotasek 1972) and in my own work (Unger 1972b). A great deal of
data on the current status of ethics activities in scientific and engineering societies is presented in
the AAAS report (Chalk 1980). Wilson (1981) surveys this subject, and a number of interesting
articles on engineering ethics have been assembled by the ASCE (1977).
The history of AAUP efforts to champion the cause of academic freedom is related by Metzger
(1961), and a more recent account of that enterprise is provided by Kurland (1980). Additional
understanding of AAUP procedures was obtained in conversations with Martin Lapidus, director
of AAUP’s Northeastern Regional Office, and Jonathan Knight of the AAUP, whose article
(Knight 1987) describing the AAUP’s approach is most enlightening.
Extending the AAUP approach to the engineering profession was, I believe, first proposed by
Paschkis (1971). The concept was further developed by me (Unger 1972b, 1972c, 1976) and at the
1975 Baltimore Conference (ASCE 1975). It was partially implemented by the IEEE in the form
of Bylaw 112 (IEEE 1979). Some preliminary thoughts about ASME involvement in such efforts
are expressed by Ascher (1975). Similar ideas for scientific and engineering societies were
endorsed by John Edsall (1975) in an AAAS paper [a later article on the same topic by this author
is Edsall (1981)] and further developed by von Hippel (1977). Two more articles from the AAAS
point of view are by Chalk (1979,1981). General information about the AAAS Committee on
Scientific Freedom and Responsibility is available in that committee’s annual reports. The AAAS
award was announced in Science (1980).
Kaufman (1977) briefly describes the work of IEEE’s CSIT. Accounts of the CSIT awards
presented to the BART engineers and to Virginia Edgerton are in Kotasek (1978) and Lindsay
(1979). A brief account of the Smith case is in Pyko (1986), and a brief description of the Cavallo
award, along with a mention of Smith and another awardee is in Institute (1989). A short summary
of the activity of IEEE’s Member Conduct Committee is in Chalk (1980, p. 94).
The idea of using the curriculum accreditation process to persuade university placement
offices to inform graduating students about employer ratings in the area of treatment of
professional employees is from Kenneth Kipnis. The IEEE ethics hotline received its best publicity
in Figorito (1980). A brief description of the proposed IEEE San Francisco area legal defense
service is in Barauck (1980).
An important early contribution of the ASME in the area of personal responsibility is Mock
(1969). The proposal by ASME’s Donald Zwiep appears in Zwiep (1980). A conversation with
ASME staff member Donald Haworth provided me with added insight regarding that
organization’s approach to ethics issues. The ACS Employment Guidelines appear in Baum
(1979); a somewhat abbreviated version is in Chalk (1980). An example of an article mentioning
companies cited by NSPE in its Employer Recognition Program is NSPE (1980). ACS member
support activities are briefly outlined in Chalk (1980), and ACS (1979) is an example of an article
reporting on layoff cases investigated by ACS. My knowledge of ACS ethics activities was
supplemented by conversations with former ACS president Alan Nixon and with Earl Klinefelter
of the ACS staff (who was also kind enough to supply me with a variety of relevant forms, reprints,
and documents).
Information about Consumers Union was passed on to me by Alan Westin, who discussed
with CU attorneys the legal issues of interest here. This supplemented information received earlier
through a report by IEEE staff member Tom Suttle, who had interviewed a CU attorney. Other
data resulted from a perusal of back issues of Consumer Reports.
Philosopher T. W. Lockhart (1980) presents an interesting argument in favor of enforcing
professional ethics codes. NSPE’s Board of Ethical Review decisions can be found in the pages of
the Professional Engineer, one of particular interest being NSPE (1976b), and in such volumes as
NSPE (1976a). Further understanding of NSPE’s ethics involvement was obtained in
conversations with NSPE general counsel Milton F. Lunch, and later with his successor, Arthur
Schwartz. Layton (1977) discusses the history of efforts to unify the engineering profession. The
distinction between “principles” and “ideals,” introduced in the discussion of the enforceability of
ethics codes, is due to Kipnis (1980).
CHAPTER SIX: ETHICAL ENGINEERS AND THE LAW

Because of the wide-ranging effects of modern technology on every aspect of our lives, it is
to be expected that the usual means for protecting the public interest, namely the law, would be
employed to exercise some control over it. This is generally done via the mechanism of regulatory
agencies, on both state and federal levels. Since engineers are the key implementers of technology,
one might also expect that this profession would be subjected to a measure of governmental
oversight; and in fact it is. Regulation in this area is on the state level, through the licensing of
individual practitioners.
It would be reasonable to assume further that, since the ethical practice of engineering is in
the public interest, the law would provide special protection for ethical engineers. This,
unfortunately, has not yet come to pass in general, though some hopeful signs of progress are
evident.
These concepts and a few related topics such as engineering unions are explored in the
following sections. Some key points are illustrated by case studies.

6.1 THE GEARY CASE—YOU’RE RIGHT AND YOU’RE OUT

Although not formally educated as an engineer, George B. Geary, in the course of 14 years
with U.S. Steel, acquired a substantial background in the technology of tubular steel products, and
in the mid-1960s was functioning essentially as a sales engineer in that area. At that time, a new
line of pipe was introduced by the company for the oil and gas industry. Geary had reason to
believe that the new product had not been adequately tested for the proposed application and that
it might pose a serious hazard under high pressure.
He so informed his management, suggesting that further testing should be carried out prior to
selling it. The result of marketing a hazardous product, he pointed out, could be not only personal
injuries and property damage, but also damage suits against U.S. Steel and a loss of reputation for
the division involved. When his immediate management insisted on going ahead with the
marketing operation without additional testing, Geary agreed to proceed. But, at the same time, he
went over their heads to appeal to the company’s corporate headquarters. Ultimately, he reached
a vice president who was sufficiently impressed to order a suspension of sales efforts pending
further tests. Thus George Geary’s conscientious behavior bore fruit. The U.S. Steel Corporation
was a principal beneficiary in that it averted what might have been a costly blunder.
For this, Geary was rewarded on July 13, 1967, by being fired! The charge was
insubordination, and the company even sought to block his claim for unemployment compensation
on the grounds that he was discharged for “willful misconduct.” After a series of hearings and
appeals, the Pennsylvania Board of Review concluded (on May 3, 1968) that “the welfare of the
company was primarily in his mind” and that “his conduct cannot be deemed willful misconduct.”
Hence he was entitled to unemployment compensation.
Meanwhile, Geary also pressed a damage suit against U.S. Steel, claiming that he should be
compensated for a “wrongful discharge.” As will be seen in the following section, success here
would have established a significant legal precedent. There was a long battle through the courts,
and Geary and his attorney very nearly succeeded. But unfortunately, in 1974, they lost the last
round in Pennsylvania’s supreme court, by a 4-3 decision, over a strong dissent, as the traditional
common law view of the rights of the employer prevailed. However, the very closeness of the
outcome was taken (correctly, as events related in subsequent sections indicate) as a portent of a
changing attitude.

6.2 THE COMMON LAW—FIRE AT WILL

The basis of American civil law is English common law, which is composed essentially of
legal precedents (i.e., judicial decisions) accumulated over a period of several centuries. Under the
common law, the dominant general interpretation of the rights to legal redress of a person in
George Geary’s situation is expressed in the following grim excerpt from an 1884 decision by the
Tennessee Supreme Court (Payne v. Western & Atlantic R.R. Co., 81 Tenn. 507 [1884]): “[All
employers] may dismiss their employees at will ... for good cause, for no cause, or even for cause
morally wrong, without being thereby guilty of legal wrong.” An at-will employee is one who does
not have a contract specifying the period of employment or the terms under which employment
may be ended. The legal principle espoused in the Tennessee statement is called the employment-
at-will doctrine. Of course, this right of the employer may be voluntarily relinquished to any degree
through an employment contract that defines more narrowly when employment may be terminated.
This, however, is not a common practice in the United States, where about 75 percent of private-
sector employees are employed “at-will.”
The assumption on which this doctrine rests is that employer and employee are equals who
enter into a symmetric relationship on a purely voluntary basis, for mutual benefit. Thus it is fair
that either party may terminate the relationship without penalty. In the case of a nineteenth-century
master blacksmith hiring a journeyman blacksmith as an assistant, this is perhaps a reasonable
state of affairs. But the notion that U.S. Steel and George Geary also fit this pattern of equals to an
agreement does not stand up very well.

Employees Not Subject to the Rule

It is, of course, the enormous negotiating advantage of the big employer over the individual
worker that led to the development of labor unions. Those workers covered by union contract
(about one out of seven non-agricultural workers in the United States) constitute the principal
group of Americans protected by contract against arbitrary dismissal. (See further discussion in
Section 6.9.)
A smaller number of employees, consisting of civil service workers and tenured teachers at
various levels, brings the total number of protected people to about a fifth of the work force. A
relatively small proportion of engineers are in any of these categories.
Virtually all other industrialized nations provide more substantial protection to employees
against unjust dismissal than they receive in this country. In Great Britain, for example, the
birthplace of the common law, an Employment Protection Act was passed in 1971 by the
Conservative government. It provides that the burden of proof is on the employer to justify
dismissal of any employee who has completed a probation period of 6 months. Special industrial
tribunals adjudicate complaints in swift, informal hearings. When the employee complaint is
upheld (this occurs in about 30 percent of the cases), the employer is required to pay compensation,
and in about one case in 200, reinstatement is also indicated. The system seems to work fairly well,
with over 35,000 cases resolved in 1977, about 12,800 through hearings and the remainder by
conciliation. A result is that employers exercise somewhat more care in hiring and more regular
procedures are now in use for evaluating employee performance, as well as for disciplining and
dismissing employees.
Another encroachment on the common law rule is the protection extended by civil rights
legislation to women and to certain minority groups. Dismissal simply on ground of gender or
membership in a protected minority group is prohibited. Although such safeguards can be and are
on occasion circumvented, they do have substantial effect by requiring a real effort to do so.
Furthermore, many tend to comply on the general principle of respect for the law.
More pertinent to the issues of interest here is a still more recent group of laws and regulations
intended to protect those who cooperate with various regulatory agencies in the furtherance of their
missions. These were incorporated by Congress in legislation related to the Occupational Safety
and Health Act (OSHA) of 1979, the Federal Water Pollution Control Act amendments of 1979,
the Safe Drinking Water Act of 1974, the Toxic Control Substances Act of 1976, the Resource
Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, the Clean Air Act amendments of 1977, the Federal Mine
Safety and Health Act of 1977, and the Nuclear Regulatory Commission Authorization Act of
1978. (This list is not necessarily complete.) Employees of organizations affected by such
legislation who assist federal agencies in implementing it, for example, by reporting violations by
their organizations or in other ways seeking to induce their organizations to comply with the law,
can receive aid from the government if their employers retaliate against them in any way.
In particular, they must file written complaints with the Secretary of Labor, describing what
happened and specifying the legislation involved. The appeal must be made promptly, in some
cases within 30 days of the retaliatory act, in order to be considered. Thus it is often necessary to
appeal before other remedies have been exhausted.
The rules provide for a Department of Labor investigation and formal hearings. If the
complaint is found to be valid, then the department can order remedial action such as reinstatement,
back pay, and compensation for legal expenses. Note that, apart from being required to compensate
the employee, the employer is not subject to any penalties. Because of this and other weaknesses,
discussed in connection with the Baslow case (see Section 6.6), the principal value of these laws
may be as stepping stones to more effective legislation. There is also a “whistleblower’s protection
act” designed to protect federal employees who expose wrong doing in their agencies. An early
version of this particular law proved to be virtually useless. It remains to be seen how effective the
improved version, passed in 1992, will be.
In 1980 a law was passed in the State of Michigan that prohibits retaliation against employees
who give information to authorities concerning possible violations of law or who participate in
hearings or investigations at the request of a public body. Such retaliation can result in a civil fine
of up to $500, and, what is more important, the employee is entitled to sue for damages,
reinstatement, and costs of litigation, including reasonable attorney fees. An interesting added
feature is that employers must post copies of the legislation prominently within the workplace.
The law, authored by Rep. James Barcia, was inspired by a 1973 disaster in Michigan in which
PBB, a poisonous fire retardant, was accidently introduced into a shipment of livestock feed. The
result was injury to the health of many people and costs running into the hundreds of millions of
dollars. Later investigations revealed that several employees pointed out the error to their foreman
as it was occurring but were ignored, and later, when the early consequences emerged in the form
of dying livestock, they were intimidated into remaining silent.
The Michigan law set a pattern that a number of other states followed. Similar legislation,
referred to as “whistleblowers protection acts” has been passed in California, Illinois, New Jersey,
New York, Texas, and at least 10 other states. A comprehensive law dealing with wrongful
discharge was passed in Montana. Efforts are under way to extend such legislation to other states.

Help for the Engineer

The preceding discussion applies to employees in general. None of the laws or regulations
mentioned gives engineers any special status, despite the fact that they have a rather special
problem. The root of their predicament is that they have major responsibilities for important
decisions, as well as special knowledge and access to information, but very often lack both
organizational authority and the job security provided by labor unions. This combination can lead
to excruciating dilemmas, as illustrated by many of the cases discussed here. An interesting legal
remedy has been suggested by Robert J. Baum that might be effective in some important situations.
The basic idea is that if an engineer’s professional judgment is overridden by a manager, and
if the engineer formally objects, arguing that this would create a serious danger to human safety
or health, or perhaps lead to a serious financial loss, then, if the manager persists, responsibility
for the consequences rests on the manager’s shoulders. If at some later date the decision does
indeed result in a failure with serious effects, then the manager would be held legally liable,
possibly facing charges of criminal negligence. This would apply even if the manager were by this
time in a different position within or no longer with the organization.
A law of this type would clearly make managers hesitate before brushing aside the concerns
of a Carl Houston or a Virginia Edgerton. By attaching the responsibility to an individual, it would
significantly reduce the all-too-common temptation on the part of managers to choose an option
with payoffs (e.g., meeting the deadline or cutting the cost) that reward them immediately and
costs (e.g., the plane crash) that are deferred until after they have been promoted and transferred
to another department. Such legislation would redress the rather strange prevailing state of affairs
in which a reckless driver who kills one pedestrian may be charged with manslaughter, while a
person who causes scores of deaths through a cold-blooded decision to suppress warnings about
gross defects in a design goes unpunished.
An elegant refinement of this idea is to extend the personal liability to highest level manager
who was notified of the situation. This would encourage the original manager involved to pass the
buck upward by formally notifying the next level manager of the decision. That person could then
reevaluate the situation reverse it, accept responsibility for it, or pass it up to the next level.
Provisions would have to be made to prevent organizations from shielding their executives in such
cases by paying fines or civil judgments for them.
No doubt the tasks of precisely formulating such a law and getting it enacted would be
formidable. Although in no sense a panacea (e.g., it would not have helped George Geary), it
certainly merits serious consideration as one of the measures to be developed and championed by
engineering societies and others concerned about abuses of technology.
Another legal development that would neatly complement the one outlined above (and which
would have helped George Geary) is embodied in the IEEE amicus curiae brief on the BART case
(see Section 2.3 and Appendix A.3). This is the legal concept that it should be regarded as a breach
of contract to discharge an engineer on the basis of acts consonant with the ethical obligation to
protect the public safety health, and welfare. There are some indications of a judicial trend in that
direction (see Section 6.4) within the confines of the common law, but this is proceeding at a
glacial pace. Hence it may be necessary to take the more direct route of introducing explicit
legislation at the state and/or national level.
6.3 A TURNING POINT—THE MURRAY CASE

Despite the depressing record of court decisions upholding the employment-at-will doctrine,
there is hope that the common law may yet evolve a more reasonable approach. This hope rests in
part on the closeness of the decision in the Geary case, in the outcome of the case to be sketched
here, involving an electrical engineer in California, and in the results of the case described in the
next section.
In 1974, Marvin Murray, a new employee of Microform Data Systems, Inc., noticed that a
computer-type console marketed by the company and used by Pacific Telephone and Telegraph
information operators was unsafe and in violation of California Industrial Safety Rules and of the
National Electrical Code. There was no single switch for cutting off power, and there were no
interlocks to disconnect power when the cabinet doors were open. Hence, in a situation where,
perhaps because of some sort of internal malfunction such as a short circuit, it became necessary
to turn off the power in a hurry, this could not easily be done. Furthermore, an untrained person
who opened a back panel door while power was on could be exposed to a shock hazard.
After calling this to the attention of his immediate supervisor, Murray agreed to delay further
action until a scheduled redesign was completed. Several months later, his supervisor gave him
the go-ahead to write a memorandum on his observation. While this memo was being typed,
Murray brought up the matter at a January 1975 meeting attended by the company’s technical
director, Bram Kool, who responded with an irritated denial that the design was defective. Murray
stood his ground and about 2 weeks later was discharged. Microform claimed that his services
were no longer needed as the work he was doing was completed.
It took him almost a year to find another job, a circumstance that he attributes to the reaction
of prospective employers to his story. Not long after being dismissed, Murray heard about the
BART case and contacted Matthew F. Quint, the attorney for the BART engineers. Initial attempts
to settle out of court were rebuffed by the company, and so a damage suit was filed in the Superior
Court of the State of California in and of Santa Clara County.
Microform’s response was to file a motion for dismissal based on the traditional concept that
at-will employment can be terminated by either party without need for justification. This, of
course, was the reasoning used to deny relief to George Geary. The argument made by the plaintiff
was that discharging an employee in retaliation for an act in support of a state policy aimed at
protecting workers against dangerous appliances should not be allowed to go unchallenged in the
courts.
Judge Edward A. Panelli considered the arguments on the legal issue and, in a five-page
opinion upholding the plaintiff’s position, denied the defendants’ motion for a summary judgment
in their favor. He argued that in previous cases California courts have limited the powers of
employers to discharge employees who objected to working under unsafe conditions. The core of
the judge’s argument is contained in the following quotation from his Memorandum of Decision:

The declared public policy of this state protects the employee from his employer from
retaliatory termination should he be required to work with unsafe appliances. This Court feels
that the same public policy does protect the employee of the manufacturer from retaliatory
termination for disclosure to his employer of facts which render said appliances unsafe. Not
to do so would severely restrict a professional employee from calling attention to defects in
manufactured appliances, which would have disastrous consequences to the downstream
 consumer-employee. Failure to protect an employee, from retaliatory termination, for
bringing to light the defective nature of his employer’s product, would seriously hinder the
declared public policy of this state in making appliances safe for workers.

The case was thereby permitted to go before a jury, where Murray’s contention that the
console was in violation of standard safety codes was corroborated by an authoritative expert
witness and was not seriously challenged by the defense. As a result, the jury found in favor of the
engineer, awarding him damages of about $20,000 covering lost salary and expenses incurred in
seeking new employment. Murray eventually succeeded in finding a good position with another
firm.
Although the outcome of this case, and the argument made by Judge Panelli, breaks important
new ground for ethical engineers (essentially it accomplishes the same result as the Michigan law
referred to in the previous section), it is of limited value as a precedent. This is because it represents
only a trial court ruling, as opposed to one from an appellate court. It is ironic that, because of the
strength of Murray’s case, Microform evidently did not consider an appeal worthwhile, and so
there was no opportunity for a higher court to establish a more authoritative precedent.
Nevertheless, should other judges follow in Judge Panelli’s footsteps, the Marvin Murray case
could prove to be a turning point in the relationship between law and technology.
A sidelight on the case is the puzzling nature of Microform’s decision to fire Murray in the
first place. Murray impressed people who spoke with him as a calm, level-headed individual, and
his actions in the matter were definitely low key. At no time did he ever go over the head of his
supervisor, let alone take the matter outside the company. He was particularly concerned for the
well-being of Microform, not only as an employee but also, he explained, as a stockholder. Finally,
and this brings us to the topic of Section 6.5, there was no intervention at any point by any state
regulatory agency, such as the California Division of Industrial Safety, which might reasonably be
expected to have displayed an interest in the affair. But first comes the story of a major
breakthrough with another ironic twist.

6.4 A TRIUMPHANT DEFEAT

Grace Pierce, a physician employed by the Ortho Pharmaceutical Corporation as a director of

medical research/therapeutics, objected to the formulation of a medication being developed by the
company for use by children and elderly people suffering from diarrhea. It contained, in her
opinion, an excessive amount of saccharin. As the only physician on the team developing the
product, she felt that to test it on human subjects would be a violation of her Hippocratic oath.
When management overrode her judgment, in the spring of 1975, she refused to continue work
on the project and, as a consequence, was reprimanded and demoted. Subsequently, she resigned
and brought suit for wrongful discharge against Ortho, alleging that her resignation was compelled
by pressure from the company to violate her ethical principles.
The trial court judge dismissed her claim on the ground that it had no legal basis, essentially
the employment-at-will doctrine being invoked again. However, an appellate court reversed this
decision, ruling that there were indeed legal grounds for suit if the discharge was found to be in
violation of public policy. This ruling was further appealed to the Supreme Court of New Jersey.
The outcome might well have been modeled on the ending of a story by O. Henry.
Whereas Marvin Murray won his case but did not establish a very useful precedent, Grace
Pierce lost, but, in the process, the court’s decision may very well represent the most powerful
legal precedent on record in defense of the rights of professionals to practice ethically. The
majority opinion, written by Justice J. Pollock, took notice of the common law doctrine regarding
the rights of employers to discharge employees at will and in general to run their businesses as
they see fit, but pointed out that these rights must be balanced against the interests of employees
and the interests of the public. In particular, employers may not exercise their rights in a manner
that violates public policy. Elaborating on this concept, the majority opinion goes on to say:

The sources of public policy include legislation; administrative rules, regulations or

decisions; and judicial decisions. In certain instances, a professional code of ethics may
contain an expression of public policy [emphasis added]. However, not all such sources
express a clear mandate of public policy. For example, a code of ethics designed to serve only
the interests of a profession probably would not be sufficient. Absent legislation, the judiciary
must define the cause of action in case-by-case determinations. An employer’s right to
discharge an employee at will carries a correlative duty not to discharge an employee who
declines to perform an act that would require a violation of a clear mandate of public policy.

This concept is strengthened by an assertion that “employees who are professionals owe a
special duty to abide not only by federal and state law, but also by the recognized codes of ethics
of their professions. That duty may oblige them to decline to perform acts required by their
employers.”
There is no doubt that the judges considered engineers to be covered by their references to
professionals, as the portion of the opinion immediately preceding the previous passage includes
a quotation from another reference that begins: “Consider, for example, the plight of an engineer
who is told that he will lose his job unless he falsifies his data or conclusions.”
The conclusion enunciated in the opinion clearly includes an endorsement of the concept put
forward in the BART case brief (see Section 2.3), namely that discharging an engineer for acting
in accord with a recognized code of ethics should be treated as a breach of contract. In particular,
the opinion reads:

An employee who is wrongfully discharged may maintain a cause of action in contract or tort
or both. An action in contract may be predicated on the breach of: implied provision that an
employer will not discharge an employee for refusing to perform an act that is a violation of
a clear mandate of public policy ... An action in tort may be based on the duty of: employer
not to discharge an employee who refused to perform an act that is a violation of a clear
mandate of public policy. In a tort action, a court can award punitive damages to deter
improper conduct in an appropriate case.

Note that allowing actions in tort goes even further than what was proposed in the BART brief
in that a tort action is a more powerful remedy than an action in contract (e.g., it makes possible
punitive damages).
Unfortunately for Dr. Pierce, the court, by a majority of 6 to 1, held that, in her case, the
requirements for a wrongful discharge action enunciated in the opinion were not satisfied. Without
going into detail, the problem seemed to be that they felt her refusal to proceed was premature, in
that testing on human subjects was not about to take place, and would have required prior
government approval. Hence her appeal to the Hippocratic oath, a rather archaic and narrow
statement of medical ethics, was not adequate to support her position. Very possibly an appeal to
a broader, more modern formulation of the obligations of a physician would have been more
effective. (Justice Pashman, in his dissenting opinion, which concurs with the majority as far as
the basic principles are concerned, argued that there were indeed sufficient grounds, based on other
statements of principles of medical ethics, to allow the matter to be decided by a lower court on
the basis of the facts.)
Following its holding that the case at hand did not meet the standards for a wrongful discharge
action, the majority opinion went on to say: “However, nothing in this opinion should be construed
to restrict the right of an employee at will to refuse to work on a project that he or she believes is
unethical.”
Although representing a major victory in the struggle to make the common law an ally of
ethical professionals, the fight is far from being over. First of all, it will take many more such
decisions to overcome the weight of the numerous less enlightened judicial opinions on this
subject. More fundamentally, the Pierce decision is limited in an important manner. Although it
clearly offers support to those who decline to commit unethical acts, it is somewhat less explicit
with respect to those who are bound on ethical grounds to act in a positive manner, for example,
to publicize acts of wrongdoing by their employers. (The majority opinion does, however, as
indicated in the above quotations, offer considerable support for such behavior.) Another step that
remains to be taken in this area is to allow legal redress where employer retaliation takes forms
short of discharge.
Subsequent to the Pierce decision, courts in over 25 other states (at this writing) have followed
a similar path. They recognize what is referred to as the “public policy exception” to the at-will
doctrine, allowing tort actions by employees in such cases. For example, in 1992, the Colorado
Supreme Court allowed an engineer to sue for retaliatory discharge when his employer fired him
for refusing to submit false information related to quality control on work done for NASA (Martin
Marietta Corp. v. Lorenz, Colo Sep Ct, No. 90SC583, 1/13/92).

6.5 REGULATING TECHNOLOGY

Some History

The creation of the first federal regulatory agency designed to safeguard the public against the
hazards of a technology misused by private enterprises was stimulated by such incidents as the
boiler explosion on the steamboat Moselle, which killed 151 people in Cincinnati in 1838. Such
explosions took the lives of several thousand Americans between 1816 and 1852 and injured a
comparable number. Various efforts were made on local and state levels to deal with the problem
of the irresponsible operation of steamboats, and there were several excellent studies made of the
technical problems, proposing effective solutions in terms of safety standards and requirements
for adequately skilled operating personnel. An 1838 law passed by Congress attempted to deal
with the situation through the use of locally appointed inspectors and by explicitly making owners
financially responsible for damage to life and property. Negligence on the part of steamboat
employees could expose them to charges of manslaughter.
All of these attempts were frustrated by combinations of greed, arrogance, and ignorance. The
federal law lacked precision and encouraged widespread graft, as unqualified people were
appointed as inspectors who did little more than collect fees. In addition to the difficulty of
obtaining effective witnesses, the manslaughter feature was largely thwarted by a reluctance on
the part of juries to convict in such situations. Steamboat owners fought tooth and nail against all
efforts at government intervention, which they argued would violate private property rights. In
1851 the death toll rose to 277, and in the following year steamboat explosions killed 407 people.
Similar disasters in Europe had by this time prompted Great Britain and France to set up effective
regulatory agencies.
Finally, in 1852, Congress completed work on and passed a strong law establishing the United
States’ first regulatory agency, the Steamboat Inspection Service. It was a well-thought-out
operation, with reasonably competent local inspectors supervised by presidential appointees, and
within a short time it reversed the growth in the accident rate. Subsequently, additional forces were
brought into play. Of particular importance was the work of the American Society of Mechanical
Engineers (ASME), which developed boiler codes that were eventually embedded in law by local
and state governments.
As more complex technology came into widespread use, and as commercial operations grew
in scope, additional regulatory agencies were spawned. These included the Interstate Commerce
Commission (ICC), originally to deal with railroads, local agencies to administer building codes,
the Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the
Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), and, more recently, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission
(NRC), the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and the Occupational Safety and Health
Administration (OSHA). These have had varying degrees of success in accomplishing their
missions.

Why Regulatory Agencies Are Useful

The need for such agencies stems from the fact that unrestricted competition, in many
instances, can be injurious to the general public, to workers, and, in some cases, even to the
competitors themselves (which is why professional boxers are required to wear gloves and to
submit to the dictates of a third man in the ring!). In the steamboat case, some of the disasters
resulted from competition of a very primitive kind, as rival boats on the Mississippi stoked up their
furnaces and tied down their safety valves to battle for glory and/or commercial success for the
captains or owners.
Very often, competitive forces compel reluctant managers to do what they know to be wrong
or to be against their own long-term interests. “If we reduce the payloads on our planes so as to
increase our safety margins, North Central Airlines, who hasn’t done this, will undercut our fares
and take away our business.” Or “I know that if we continue our development program, we can
design a blood pressure monitor that won’t have that shock hazard and that will cost less. But if
we don’t go into production now with what we have, ABC Electronics will grab the market with
their piece of junk.”
Regulatory agencies, at their best, can (like the ethical engineers mentioned in Section 5.3)
make such painful decisions unnecessary by ensuring that competitors will not be able to gain
quick advantages over scrupulous companies through shoddy practices. It is thus clear that good
regulations, properly administered, benefit not only working people and the general public, but
also responsible managers and owners of businesses. In the situations sketched above, strictly
enforced regulations on aircraft payloads would eliminate the first manager’s concern that reduced
payloads would result in a loss in business to North Central. The second manager would not have
felt compelled to skimp on design development if the existence of well-administered safety
standards ensured that no competitor could jump out in front with an unsafe product. Indeed,
neither manager would have had the option of making the bad decision.
 A good regulatory system can raise the level of competition to a higher plane in which the
economic penalties for responsible management are substantially reduced. Note that these
penalties are almost always in the short run, since over the long haul responsible management
generally pays off in any event. The difficulty that regulation deals with is that, on occasion, if the
short-run penalties are sufficiently great, there may not be a long run for the responsible company.
With respect to engineering, it is obvious that troubles for ethical engineers would be reduced to
the extent that outside agencies reduced the opportunities and pressures on managers to cut corners.
The short- versus long-run question merits some further comment. It is commonly believed
that corporations operate so as to maximize their profits, and, given that they are entities with
unlimited life spans, it is also generally assumed that they act so as to maximize long-run
profitability. In fact, neither assumption is by any means universally valid. This is in part because
those who make the operational decisions for the corporations are usually judged by the short-term
effects of what they do.
A manager has about 2 years to succeed in a given position. Quick positive results will result
in advances within the company or offers of better jobs elsewhere. Those who cannot produce such
immediate gains are likely to be labeled losers. Should the decisions that led to short-term gains
contribute to much greater long-term losses, the decision maker is, by that time, likely to be far
from the scene and unlikely to bear the consequences.
Of course, there are many exceptions to this pattern, but it matches reality well enough to cast
great doubt on expectations that corporations will, when left alone, act in accord with their own
long-term interests. There is still less reason to expect them voluntarily to consider seriously the
long-range effects their decisions will have on society. Hence some sort of explicit social controls
beyond those of the marketplace are needed. The regulatory agency is one possible mechanism,
but there are serious obstacles to be overcome.

Requirements for Success

In order for the regulation of technology-based industries to function properly, several

conditions must be met.
1. The technology involved must be reasonably stable and well understood.
2. There must be an effective political consensus that real regulation should take place.
3. A set of clear, sensible, and enforceable rules must be formulated.
4. Adequate funds must be allocated for the work necessary (including research) to generate
and enforce the regulations.
5. The regulatory agency should have as its sole function the regulation of the industry in the
public interest. It should not have other, sometimes conflicting, goals such as promoting
the rapid growth of the industry.
6. Agency personnel, at all levels, should be competent, honest, and free to pursue the goals
of the agency without conflicts of interest or political pressures.
Needless to say, no regulatory agency has ever operated with all of these conditions fully
satisfied. Nevertheless, when the discrepancies were not too severe, many have, for extended
periods of time, done excellent work. On occasion, the results have been dismal, in fact worse
perhaps than in the absence of any regulation. Looking back over the cases discussed in Chapters
2 and 3, as well as earlier in this chapter, we can see several instances of disappointing performance
on the part of regulatory agencies (e.g., the DC-10, Houston, TMI cleanup, and Murray cases).
Reasons for Failure

It is important to understand the principal factors that lead to regulatory failure. Reference
will be made in this discussion to the conditions for success enumerated above.

Complex New Technology Consider the first requirement for success, referring to the state
of the technology. Where a technology is relatively slow-changing and a considerable body of
experience as well as theoretical understanding have been accumulated, as in the case of boilers,
building construction, or electric wiring, it is not difficult to define practical rules that go a long
way toward ensuring proper performance if they are followed. But where rapidly evolving,
complex systems are involved, each new product breaks new ground, and it is not possible to
evaluate it by referring to tables or simple formulas. A jet airliner, an automatically controlled
railroad system, and a microprocessor-based patient monitoring device all fall into this category
(despite the fact that some aspects of their designs may be evaluated by reference to well-
established standards). How can a regulatory agency effectively protect the public interest where
such technologies are involved?
One approach would be for inspectors to review, in detail, the entire design process so as to
be able to understand the criteria used, the solutions developed, and the anticipated levels of
performance. But this would require the agency to assign a staff of competent people to spend
nearly as many hours reviewing the design as were spent in developing it—perhaps more if we
take into account the sparsity and low quality of documentation associated with most development
projects. This would obviously be far too costly.
The solution implemented by the FAA to this problem is to appoint employees of airplane
manufacturers as “designated engineering representatives” (DERs). These individuals are used by
the FAA to carry out most of its reviews of designs and tests of subsystems prior to issuing
airworthiness certificates; they are also involved in monitoring production of aircraft. In effect, the
same people doing the work also certify that the work meets FAA standards.
Thus the effective regulation of industries based on complex, advanced technology is not
possible without the cooperation of the engineers on the job. Only they are so situated as to have
a clear view of the problems, the flaws, and the compromises. It would probably be more effective
to recognize this and establish the idea that all engineers have a duty to cooperate with the
regulatory process, rather than to concentrate this responsibility on a small number of deputies,
who are thereby placed in high-pressure conflict-of-interest situations and who cannot possibly do
the job as thoroughly.
Corruption—Crude and Subtle The requirement (number 6 on the list) concerning the need
for unbiased regulators poses very fundamental difficulties that plague most branches of
government. Straightforward bribery in which packages of cash change hands, although somewhat
obsolete, is still practiced. But there are more subtle ways in which those with the means are able
to persuade government representatives to grant them such boons as the overlooking of rule
violations. Bribes can be in the form of inside information convertible to quick profits through
timely stock market or real estate transactions. Or they can consist of cushy jobs, lucrative
business, or profitable accounts given to relatives. All too often important officials of regulatory
agencies leave their posts to accept high-paying positions with companies over which they
previously had jurisdiction. (Such episodes have been particularly prevalent in the military
procurement area, where many generals and admirals have retired to accept lucrative positions
with firms that they dealt with while in uniform.) Although such career transitions do not
necessarily imply wrongdoing, they certainly give rise to serious suspicions. Recent legislation has
been aimed at curbing this practice, but there are strong pressures to relax the restrictions.
We’re All Friends Still another effect that tends to sap the vigor of the enforcement process
is the natural establishment of mutual sympathy among people who have closely related
professional interests and backgrounds, and who, in the course of their work, are frequently thrown
together. Employees of regulatory agencies usually have much in common with their counterparts
in industry. In fact, it is not uncommon for them to have formerly been private-sector employees
themselves. Meeting repeatedly with their counterparts, both in direct work situations and often
for lunch or dinner, it would be surprising if the regulators did not develop a considerable degree
of sympathy for the viewpoints of the individuals representing the firms being regulated. This in
itself is not necessarily bad, but note that there is generally no corresponding personal contact
established with the intended beneficiaries of the regulatory process: the general public, or perhaps
employees of the industry involved. In fact, it is psychologically not possible to identify in the
same manner with the beneficiaries, who constitute an anonymous mass of people. Thus, even
apart from any form of corruption, the regulators are likely to have an inherent bias in favor of the
industries they are policing.
Politics Finally, there is the added factor of political pressure. An industry affected by
regulation may have a great deal at stake with regard to the establishment or enforcement of certain
rules. Members of the industry are likely to be very much aware of pending legislation, hearings
on new regulations, imminent procedural changes, or other events pertaining to the agency
involved. They are generally in an excellent position to bring to bear significant resources to
influence events in what they regard as a favorable direction.
On the other hand, the effects of these events on any particular member of the general public
is likely to be of a very uncertain nature, manifested only at some dimly perceived future date. Few
people can afford the time to keep track of the multitude of laws and regulations affecting them
via numerous diverse industries. The public interest in such matters is thus, for the most part,
represented by various organizations operating with minimal funding derived from voluntary
contributions.
Hence we generally find that industry lobbyists wield far more clout, and the result is that
political factors contribute significantly to the anemic state of most regulatory agencies (see factors
2, 3, and 4 above). It is no coincidence that these departments of government are almost invariably
grossly understaffed, to the point where they cannot adequately carry out routine inspections, let
alone have sufficient resources to improve their procedures and anticipate future problems.
Conflicting Objectives Some agencies have been assigned dual roles: They both promote and
regulate the industries with which they are associated. This creates a built-in conflict of interest
reinforcing the other mechanisms described above that weaken the policing function. For example,
if a dangerous fault is found in the design of an airliner, the clear duty of the FAA as a defender
of the public safety is to ground all aircraft with that fault immediately, until it is eliminated. But
such an action and the attendant publicity would, it might be argued, constitute a crippling blow
to the companies involved and hence violate the FAA’s other mandate, to promote the growth of
the industry. Hence, as was described in the case of the DC-10 (see Section 2.2), the agency might
choose to compromise. This conflict in goals may also account for the weak performances of the
NRC in the Three Mile Island cleanup case (Section 2.7) and of the Indian regulatory agencies in
Bhopal (Section 3.2).
 Of course, a good case could be made that holding an industry to high standards may indeed
be the best way to promote its growth, so that in the long run the two roles are not actually
incompatible. However, such an enlightened, farsighted perspective is unfortunately rare.

Help Needed from Inside

In summary then, there are good reasons why it is unwise to rely exclusively on government
agencies to protect the public interest against misuses of technology. This is not to say that such
agencies cannot or do not serve a valuable function, or that careful attention to developing the
conditions under which they can do better would not be fruitful. Certainly the operations of
regulatory bodies would be significantly improved if conscientious engineers within the regulated
industries shared their goals and cooperated with them. It is also very important that engineers on
the staffs of the regulatory agencies themselves behave as responsible professionals, since by so
doing they can significantly counter the biases outlined above. Some of the cases mentioned in
Section 2.11 (involving the NRC) suggest the importance of this point, while the case that follows
illustrates the support that outside experts can give to regulatory agencies. It also represents an
early exercise of the laws intended to protect those who render such aid.

6.6 ENERGY VERSUS FISH—THE BASLOW CASE

Dr. Morris H. Baslow is an experienced marine biologist who was hired by LMS Engineers
in 1974 as a senior scientist. He was put in charge of an investigation of the effects on Hudson
River marine life of once-through river water use by electric power plants for cooling purposes.
This mode of operation caused a loss of aquatic life at the intakes and in the condensers of the
plants, and possibly through the discharge of heated water to the river. The clients were public
utilities hoping to obtain support for their contention that it was not necessary to construct costly
cooling towers required to substantially eliminate effects on aquatic life. (It has been estimated
that such towers would cost more than a half-billion dollars.)

Conflicting Theories

An important issue was the effect of elevated water temperature on the growth rates of larvae
and fish. Unfortunately, the story told by Baslow’s data was not the one that LMS and its clients
(including Consolidated Edison) wanted to hear. The utilities had contended, in both oral and
written testimony, that a density-dependent growth phenomenon had been demonstrated. Simply
stated, this means that the growth rate of the fish would vary inversely with their abundance. Thus,
loss of some fish would be offset by higher growth rates and increased survivability of the
remaining fish.
Hank Baslow sailing the Hudson
on his sloop, Sandpiper
 Baslow’s findings indicated that, in the Hudson River, temperature was the key factor
controlling growth rates and size and that the basis for the density-dependent growth theory was
unsound. In addition, Baslow inferred from his data that the effect of increased water temperature
would be to reduce the growth rate of fish, so that the power plants not only destroy fish life
directly but also inhibit growth and survival of the remaining fish.

Lost—One Job

His superiors at LMS apparently decided to suppress Baslow’s results and to continue to
convey a contrary impression in testimony at hearings conducted by the Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC). Over a period of nearly
2 years, Baslow pressed his management, both orally and in writing, to tell the whole truth in their
presentations to the regulatory agencies. But they continued to hold back significant information.
After a final unsuccessful effort, in which he warned LMS that he himself would release the data
if they didn’t, Baslow sent a letter to Thomas B. Yost, the EPA administrative law judge involved
in one of the hearings, informing him that LMS was presenting incomplete and hence probably
misleading testimony. He was discharged on the same day (October 11, 1979) that he posted the
letter.

Victory Plus Delay Equals Settlement

Subsequently, Baslow sent detailed technical information to the judge in support of his
allegations. He also filed a complaint with the Department of Labor, stating that his discharge was
for assisting in the enforcement of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Citing a provision of
that act (see Section 6.2), he requested government backing.
The company responded with a series of legal moves, including a $5.2 million libel suit against
Baslow and claims that the material he turned over to the judge was stolen property. The Labor
Department and the FERC did indeed support Baslow on all points, rejecting contentions that he
had revealed information improperly and ordering LMS to give him a letter of recommendation
and pay him legal expenses, back pay, and salary until he found a new job. However, LMS
appealed the rulings, and the subsequent delays and expenses of the ongoing litigation resulted in
an intolerable financial burden on the unemployed biologist. Just over a year after his dismissal,
he accepted an out-of-court settlement that terminated his action with the Department of Labor as
well as the countersuits filed against him in state courts. Baslow also received an undisclosed sum
of money as compensation for the losses he suffered. He continued to have difficulty finding
employment.

Just a Difference of Opinion?

The LMS position was that Baslow’s theory relating temperature and growth rates was new
and untested. Company representatives say that some LMS and other scientists believed he had a
point, while others believed the contrary. They argued that the decision to omit any reference to
Baslow’s findings in LMS’s presentations at the agency hearings reflected disagreements among
scientists over scientific and technical issues and in no sense represented an impropriety on their
part. Reference is made by them to the letters Baslow wrote, under the terms of the settlement, in
which he disavowed any knowledge of intentional wrongdoing on the part of LMS. They also cite
a September 1980 statement by FERC Administrative Law Judge Stephen Grossman that supports
the above contentions. (On this last point, Baslow and others respond that the Grossman opinion
was not based on a hearing in which those issues were fully explored.)

A Second Settlement

Baslow’s action weakened the case made by the utilities and thereby, in all probability,
significantly affected a compromise settlement concluded by them with the federal agencies in
December 1980. (This event terminated hearings under way in EPA Judge Yost’s courtroom on
the subject of possible improprieties on the part of LMS and the utilities during the course of earlier
proceedings.) Although the utilities were not required to install the cooling towers, they agreed to
reduce the impact of their future operations on Hudson River aquatic life by abandoning plans for
the controversial Storm King Mountain pumped storage facility and by cutting back on power
generated by their Hudson River generating stations during the fish spawning season. In addition,
they agreed to contribute substantial funds for biological research pertinent to the ecology of the
river.

Improving the Rules

From one point of view, it is perhaps unfortunate that the above agreement aborted what might
have been a most interesting formal airing of the ethical issues. Nevertheless, several important
points are illustrated by this story. Although every indication is that Baslow’s behavior was
unexceptionable and that his case was precisely of the type contemplated in the whistle blower
support legislation, the effectiveness of that legislation was severely attenuated by the employer’s
legal tactics.
Since an individual employee is at a great disadvantage in a prolonged legal battle with even
a small organization, it is essential that the regulatory agency involved intervene vigorously at the
outset and not tolerate procrastination. An immediate preliminary investigation might be carried
out (say within 30 days) by government experts or by volunteer members of the cognizant
professional societies. Should this indicate that the employee has a reasonable prima facie case,
then legal counsel, or funds for legal counsel, should be furnished by the government and the
employer should be required to continue the employee’s salary while the case is being processed.
Related actions filed in other courts (such as the libel suit against Baslow) should be held in
abeyance pending settlement of the basic issue. The imposition of substantial fines for discharges
found to be improper (in addition, of course, to compensation paid to the employee) would
introduce another deterrent effect. This may be possible under the law as it now stands, but it has
not yet been applied.

Should Engineers and Scientists Behave Like Lawyers?

The Baslow case also illustrates a major distinction between the ethics of science or
engineering and legal ethics. Lawyers are expected to develop the strongest possible cases on
behalf of their clients’ interests. While avoiding untruths, they are under no obligation to present
a balanced picture including all pertinent information. It is expected that, in the adversarial setting
of a courtroom, the full truth will emerge as a consequence of the combined efforts of the litigants
involved.
 Scientists and engineers, however, are obligated to present, to the best of their abilities,
accurate and complete accounts of their work. The conscious suppression of data to create a biased
impression is a serious breach of ethics in their realm.
Morris Baslow thus behaved as a responsible scientist, objecting strongly to efforts to present
his work in a misleading manner. His employer, an engineering firm, apparently abandoned the
ethics of engineering in favor of the ethics of the legal advocate. It embarked on a path that is no
doubt a very tempting one for those engaged as experts in legal proceedings. Tailoring testimony
to suit the people paying the bills may be good business in the short run, but in the longer run it
can only degrade the reputations of the individuals and organizations involved, and contribute to
a general loss of credibility for the engineering and scientific professions. In this particular
instance, the issue also involved a possible assault on the public welfare through a degradation of
our environment.
In recognition of his exemplary behavior in this matter, Morris Baslow was a co-recipient of
the first AAAS Award for Scientific Freedom and Responsibility. It was presented to him in
January 1982. He found temporary employment with a research project at Cornell University and
then embarked on a new career as a high school science teacher.

6.7 LAWYERS TO THE RESCUE

In many of the cases presented here, it was important for the engineers involved to get help in
the legal arena. In some cases (e.g., BART, Murray, Parks, and Fitzgerald), it was appropriate to
file civil suits. In other situations (or, even in the same situations ) it was advantageous to get help
in utilizing protective legislation (e.g., Baslow and Parks). Unfortunately lawyers are expensive.
It is easy to run up legal bills in the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars. Obviously,
engineers who have been, or are about to be fired, cannot usually afford such expenses. Sometimes
attorneys take cases on a contingency basis, that is, their fees are computed as a percentage of the
amount recovered. However, such arrangements are generally not available to those in the
situations of interest here.
Fortunately, there are lawyers who are willing to donate their professional services to worthy
causes, and such assistance has on occasion been made available to engineers whose efforts to
protect the public have placed their careers in jeopardy. Furthermore, various public interest groups
have sometimes been willing to finance court cases in such situations.
Beginning in the late seventies, one such public-interest group took the lead in this area. The
Government Accountability Project (GAP) has, by far, been the most valuable organization to
engineers (and others) needing legal assistance in disputes with employers over matters concerning
the public health, safety, or welfare.
GAP was organized in 1976 as the “Project on Official Illegality” by the Institute for Policy
Studies, an independent think tank. Its function was to expose illegal operations by government
agencies, for example, in the area of covert intelligence operations. It soon evolved, under its
current name, into a group monitoring a wide variety of government operations. Led by Louis
Clark and Tom Devine, a good deal of GAP’s activities centered around the defense of government
employees who were punished for exposing wrongdoing in their agencies. This soon became
GAP’s major function, and eventually they enlarged their field of operations to include defending
employees of private organizations in similar situations. Thus GAP provided legal assistance to
government employee Ernest Fitzgerald (Section 2.5) and to Richard Parks, who worked for a
private corporation (Section 2.7).
 In addition to legal services, GAP also supplies informal counseling, steers people to other
organizations that can help, and has even published a book, (Stewart 1989), which is full of useful
advice to individuals trying to uphold the public interest while working for organizations that may
not fully subscribe to this philosophy. At this writing, about 250 people per year receive some
form of direct help from GAP, perhaps 20 percent of these becoming full-fledged clients.
In some situations, GAP brings together groups of employees in the same organization who
have similar concerns. When united, they are more effective in dealing with the problems that they
are wrestling with and are less vulnerable to retaliation. GAP also joins with its clients on some
occasions to deal with substantive issues. For example, in cooperation with meat and poultry
inspectors, they publicized, and thereby helped block, moves to weaken further the federal
agencies charged with ensuring that meat and poultry satisfy minimum health standards.
On a broader front, GAP has been instrumental in the passage of legislation providing
protection for government employees whose efforts on behalf of the public interest earn them the
enmity of their managers. The original Whistleblower Protection Act turned out to be virtually
useless, due to the way it was implemented. A revised law pushed by GAP improved the situation
somewhat, but the verdict is not yet in. GAP is currently pressing for similar legislation to protect
whistleblowers in the private sector.
Based in Washington, D.C., GAP has a staff of about 16, including about 10 lawyers. At any
one time, there are also perhaps two dozen law students serving the organization as interns.
Funding is supplied mainly by several private foundations, with donations by individuals and
occasional court-ordered legal fees providing additional income.

6.8 SHOULD ENGINEERS BE LICENSED?

When professionals deal directly with individual members of the public, the case for state
intervention to ensure that they are properly qualified is fairly strong. It rests on the assumption
that patients are in a poor position to determine the competence of their physicians, for example,
and that the consequences of allowing incompetents to practice in fields such as medicine,
dentistry, or law would be serious. State licensing is intended not only to set minimum standards
for entry into a profession, but also to provide means for expelling dishonorable or incompetent
practitioners.
Although their work certainly affects the public to a serious extent, engineers seldom do
business directly with private individuals. This probably accounts for the rather ambivalent attitude
of government toward the idea of licensing engineers.
The first law providing for the registration or licensing of engineers in the United States was
passed in 1907 in Wyoming. It was 1925 before more than half of the states had passed such laws,
and 25 more years elapsed before all states and the District of Columbia were in the fold. Probably
fewer than a third of the roughly one million engineers in the United States are registered at present.

Requirements for Licensure

Although engineering registration laws vary somewhat from one jurisdiction to another, a fair
amount of uniformity has been attained through the general acceptance of most features of “model”
legislation developed principally by the National Council of Engineering Examiners (NCEE) and
the major engineering societies. Requirements have been standardized to a significant extent, and
engineers licensed in one jurisdiction can usually (though not always) obtain a license in another
jurisdiction without too much trouble.
The basic process for establishing minimal competence consists of:
1. Passing an examination on engineering fundamentals
2. Acquiring at least 4 years of engineering experience
3. Passing an examination on the principles and practice of engineering
4. Obtaining references from (usually at least three) practicing registered engineers
If an applicant is not a graduate of an approved engineering curriculum, then additional years
of experience are generally required. In cases of senior engineers with extensive records of
accomplishment, the examinations may be waived under an “eminence” rule.

Who Registers?

Registration is of great importance to civil engineers because much of their work is in areas
where state laws mandate that the engineers involved be licensed. This includes those who certify
plans for structures or roads as well as those who oversee or inspect the engineering aspects of
construction. On the other hand, in virtually all jurisdictions, engineers engaged by industry in
activities related to the production of goods and services are exempted from registration
requirements. Other exemptions apply to those employed by governments or public utilities.
No doubt as a consequence of the prevalence of civil engineers among those registered, the
Professional Engineering (PE) examinations are strongly dominated by problems related to that
field. The “fundamentals of engineering” are interpreted to include strength of materials, statics
and dynamics, fluid mechanics, and thermodynamics but not solid-state physics, digital
electronics, or signals and systems, to mention a few core subjects in a modern electrical
engineering curriculum. Those aspects of electrical engineering that do appear on the examinations
tend, for the most part, to be more characteristic of 1960s than of 1990s technology. The advent
of the digital computer has not yet been acknowledged to any noticeable extent by those who are
making up the PE exams. On the basis of less direct knowledge, it is my understanding that
chemical engineers also regard the PE exams as not very pertinent to their interests.
It thus appears that, as currently constituted, the system for licensing engineers in the United
States is largely oriented toward certifying people for practice in the construction aspects of civil
engineering, in sanitary engineering, or perhaps in some operational aspects of mechanical
engineering. The system takes little account of those who will perform such tasks as designing an
automatic control system for an oil refinery or developing a new line of integrated logic circuits.
It is not surprising, therefore, that relatively few electrical or chemical engineers apply for
registration and that the proportion of engineers in other fields, such as industrial or mechanical
engineering, falls somewhere between the ratios for electrical and civil engineers.

Registration, Ethics, and the Public Interest

Registered engineers, in addition to being competent, are also expected to be ethical. Most
jurisdictions promulgate codes of ethics and other rules of conduct for licensed engineers and have
provisions for revoking licenses on grounds of malpractice. There is considerable variation in
enforcement of standards. In New York, for example, it is apparently almost impossible to earn
from the state board even a reprimand for anything short of a felony. California, on the other hand,
typically suspends half a dozen engineering licenses in the course of a year. Typical punitive
actions by a state board would be to revoke a license obtained through fraud or to issue a 6-month
suspension and a year’s probation to a civil engineer for incompetence and breach of contract in
the practice of land surveying. Punitive measures against engineers found guilty of endangering
the public seem rather rare; none has come to my attention. There are also actions taken against
individuals or firms that misuse the title “professional engineer” or that violate laws requiring
certain work to be done by PEs.
It has been argued that the status of the engineering profession would be enhanced and the
public interest better served if all engineers were required to be licensed. Gains would result,
according to this thesis, from the fact that relatively uniform standards of knowledge, experience,
and character would have to be met by everyone entitled to be called an engineer. On the one hand,
engineers would be more accountable, in a legal sense, for the results of their work, and on the
other hand being more competent and more respected, they would have more leverage in disputes
with managers attempting to ignore or overrule their professional judgments. In addition, the
argument continues, courts might look with considerably more disfavor on employers who
discharged engineers who acted in consonance with their legally defined responsibilities.

Strengthening the System—Some Suggestions

There is much to be said for this point of view. Although far from being the answer, the
licensing of all engineers could indeed be helpful in the ways suggested. But a thorough revision
of the registration process would be an essential precondition. The examinations must be revamped
so as to accommodate the various branches of engineering and updated so as to test competence
in areas relevant to current and future practices. Finally, standards should be raised. Serious
thought should be given to dropping the examination on fundamentals, since it seems pointless to
give yet another such examination to those who, as graduates of accredited engineering schools,
have already been thoroughly examined on those matters. It might also be appropriate to require
all engineers to have degrees from such institutions. Corresponding requirements have long been
in force for physicians and lawyers; why should less be expected from those aspiring to be
engineers?
Apart from the standards for entry to the profession, it is also important to improve the
performance of state boards. Such absurdities as giving the same examinations in different states
on different days should be eliminated. The boards should play a more aggressive role in weeding
out, at least, the grossly incompetent. They should pay a good deal more attention to their
ostensibly chief reason for being—namely protecting the public interest. A useful, though by no
means decisive, step in that direction would be to include on each such board a few laypersons
who would explicitly be there to represent that interest. This would help dispel the impression (one
that is perhaps not altogether without foundation) that the boards are really there to serve the purely
selfish interests of the profession by constraining competition. Some jurisdictions already have
such laypersons on their boards.
A more significant, and more drastic, reform would be to add to the functions of these boards
the protection of the rights of ethical engineers who are employees. This could involve procedures
analogous to those discussed in Section 5.3 with respect to professional societies. Governmental
agencies could, at least potentially, be very powerful in such a role, utilizing state subpoena
powers, professional investigators, and sanctions having the force of law.
No More Employees?

In connection with arguments about the licensing of engineers is a related position that would
deal with the dilemma of the employee engineer by simply abolishing that category. All engineers
would be independent practitioners who contracted to perform specific assignments for various
organizations. Each such contract would be for a stated period of time, with conditions for payment
and for early termination (by either party) clearly specified. In some cases engineers would be
exclusively engaged by a single organization, but usually they would have a variety of clients
simultaneously.
Of course, all engineers are free to operate that way now if they so choose and if they can find
enough clients. If all engineers had to be licensed, and if licensed engineers were prohibited by
law from serving as employees in the usual sense, then all would be compelled to practice as do
independent consultants now. While this would have important advantages, and might be perfectly
feasible in many cases, there are problems with universalizing such a mode of operation.
There are many situations where engineers are intimately involved in the day-to-day
operations of an organization, possibly exercising managerial as well as technical responsibilities
(say an engineer involved in the operation of a large power plant or an industrial engineer
concerned with an ongoing production process). The company involved would probably want such
people to have long-term commitments. They could approach this by repeatedly renewing the
contract and of course by making the contracts exclusive.
The converse is that many engineers may prefer the stability of permanent jobs and would not
like the continual necessity of seeking and negotiating contracts. Such an engineer might seek to
establish a good relationship with one particular organization, with the expectation of repeatedly
renewing contracts.
Although the prospects for establishing such a mode of practice for engineers are probably
small, it is worth exploring the various consequences to determine if it is a desirable goal. This
will not be carried any further in the present work.

6.9 IS THERE STRENGTH IN UNION?

Perhaps the most obvious source of support for ethical employee engineers would be their
own collective strength expressed through organized bargaining units. Originally confined to
skilled manual workers, the trade union movement spread first to include semiskilled and unskilled
workers and then to incorporate white-collar workers. More recently, significant numbers of
intellectual workers, most notably teachers at all levels, have also formed unions. The principal
goal of this movement has been increased pay, with job security and working conditions as
important but secondary factors. Union contracts generally include provisions describing just
cause for discharge and outlining grievance procedures, a form of quasi-judicial arbitration, to deal
with disputed cases. Even before a union has been established, federal legislation constrains the
employer from firing an employee for union organizing.

Engineering Unions—Some Background

Many, perhaps most, engineers feel that, considering their basic abilities and the difficult
nature of the educational process they went through, they are inadequately paid in comparison with
other professionals and even in comparison with many categories of nonprofessional employees.
Although unemployment has not generally been a serious problem for engineers during the past
few decades, there was a period during the early seventies when considerable numbers of
experienced engineers were laid off, particularly by aerospace firms, and a resurgence of this
problem has been stimulated by the end of the cold war. There has for many decades been a job
security problem for older engineers. One might expect then that engineers would have, for purely
economic reasons, rushed forward to join or organize unions. Not so. Neither now nor at any time
in the past have engineers been represented by unions in any significant numbers.
No more than a few thousand engineers belonged to unions prior to the passage in 1935 of the
Wagner National Labor Relations Act, which supported the rights of workers to organize. During
the succeeding decade, engineers in industry responded by organizing small, local bargaining
units. Their motives, however, were in general not to obtain the benefits of union membership but
rather to protect themselves against being involuntarily incorporated into larger industrial unions
voted into existence by their much more numerous non-engineering fellow employees. Only a few
of these units eventually evolved into real unions. The necessity for such “preemptive” unions was
obviated in 1947 by the Taft-Hartley Act, which made it possible for professional employees to
vote as a separate unit on the question of whether they wished to be represented by a union.
In succeeding years, various engineering unions were organized. A loose federation of such
unions, Engineers and Scientists of America (ESA), achieved a peak dues-paying membership of
about 25,000 engineers during its life span from 1952 to 1960. Some engineering unions have been
entirely independent operations associated with a particular company, and some have been
affiliated with AFL-CIO unions. Probably fewer than 5 percent of all engineers in the United States
are represented by collective bargaining units. Before, during, and after the hard times of the 1970s,
engineers were, on the whole, unreceptive to union organizers.

Why Engineers Don’t Join Unions

There are various possible explanations for this. The desire to be associated with management
is one important factor. (In fact, many engineers do indeed become managers.) Another element
is the tradition of rugged individualism mentioned in the concluding section of Chapter 2. The
traditional attitudes of trade unionists, in which the only distinctions admitted among workers in
any category are based on seniority, are abhorrent to engineers, who regard themselves as uniquely
qualified individuals. They expect to be rewarded on the basis of their accomplishments, rather
than on how long they have been with the organization.
With respect to ethical considerations, the attitude has often been expressed that it is unethical
for engineers, as professionals, to belong to unions. The NSPE Code of Ethics states, not that
engineers may not join unions, but that it is unethical for engineers to participate actively in such
collective coercive actions as strikes or picket lines. Since without at least the threat of such
actions, unions would be virtually powerless at the bargaining table, this prohibition is tantamount
to placing unions outside the pale as far as engineers are concerned. The basis for declaring such
actions unethical is not altogether clear.
It appears (1990 version—see Appendix A.5.7) as an elaboration (item e) of a statement (III.
1) that “engineers shall be guided in all their professional relations by the highest standards of
integrity.” There may indeed be instances where participating in a strike or picket line might
reasonably be considered as a breach of integrity, but why such participation is in all cases
inconsistent with high standards of integrity is not at all clear to me. In the 1979 version of the
NSPE code, the same prohibition appears (section 1.f) under a heading that refers not only to the
“highest standards of integrity” but also to the obligation to “act in professional matters for each
client or employer as a faithful agent or trustee.” The latter injunction is at least directly relevant
to the matter of participation in coercive actions. Apparently the argument is that, since
participation in a strike is obviously against the interests of the employer, it is a violation of the
engineer’s duty to act as a faithful agent.
The implication here is that the faithful agent obligation is of an unconditional nature,
independent, for example, of the behavior of the employer toward the engineer and others. But
suppose that the employer arbitrarily decides to cut the salaries of all engineering employees. Must
the engineers in that organization meekly submit? Is their only alternative to resign? If so, what if
many would thereby incur serious losses of pension benefits or be unemployed for an extended
period or have to pay major costs for relocating? What if the employer’s action were taken in
concert with that of other employers in the same industry? Note further that, in times of inflation,
giving small pay increases is tantamount to cutting salaries.
It appears rather unfair to engineers to take away from them a right retained by all other
employees, with no particular safeguard offered in its place. No doubt, in certain situations,
participation in certain forms of collective coercive action may be improper, but it appears to me
rather extreme to argue that participation in strikes or picketing is always unethical.
Apart from the question of ethics, there is another reason why engineers are not commonly
seen on picket lines. When longshoremen strike, stocks of needed goods quickly shrink. When
sanitation workers strike, heaps of garbage rapidly grow. Pressure to come to terms in either case
builds up. But in most cases, when engineers strike, nothing much changes, at least in the short
run, except that the strikers’ bank balances fall. The long-run effects on employers would be
serious indeed if the strikes lasted for perhaps a year or two. But that of course is rather unlikely.
Hence the strike weapon is seldom a potent one in the hands of engineers.
It would be a different story if engineers allied themselves with other employees so that
together they could wield effective short-run power. Although engineers cannot usually stop
production when they strike, they are often effective in keeping production going when others go
on strike. And furthermore, it is not considered unethical, at least by the NSPE Ethics Review
Board, for them to take over the work of union members on strike. Hence engineers would, in
many cases, be useful allies of other workers, if only to eliminate them as strikebreakers.
The problem with such an alliance, however, is that it generally makes the engineers, a small
minority within the overall community of employees, subject to the dictates of the majority and is
likely to embroil them in disputes that they would prefer to avoid. This is a price that most
engineers have thus far been unwilling to pay for the economic benefits that might result.
An alternative to unions that is endorsed by NSPE is the “sounding board,” an association of
engineering employees of a single employer that gathers information, serves as a focal point for
discussion of employee problems, and helps communicate these to management. It does not engage
in any form of bargaining with the employer, nor does it use coercion in any form. The two largest
sounding boards are the General Electric Engineers Association and the Conference of
Professional Technical Personnel (at AT&T Bell Laboratories). An important function of the latter
group is the annual compilation and dissemination of detailed data on salaries received by technical
professionals at Bell Laboratories. Sounding boards, although serving a useful function, have not
proved to be the answer for engineers and are not very widespread.

Would Unions Help the Responsible Engineer?

 Now consider the initial question of whether unions are, or might be, an effective means for
supporting ethical engineers. Even apart from their general weakness there seems little on the
record indicating any great interest by unions in such a role. There are, however, some instructive
examples of the usefulness of unions to conscientious employees.
In 1979 Hugh DeWitt, a Livermore Laboratories physicist, antagonized the Department of
Energy by supplying an affidavit on behalf of the defense in the Progressive case. Retaliatory
measures were initiated with the placement of a warning letter in his employment file. DeWitt
fought back with the aid of the Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers (SPSE), a part of
Chapter 130 of the 100,000-member California State Employees Association (CSEA). The CSEA
supplied him with a capable attorney, paying all expenses, and a formal hearing was scheduled in
October 1980 before a panel of outside arbitrators (as provided for in an agreement on grievance
procedures previously negotiated by the SPSE). This support, combined with the backing of Rep.
Pete McCloskey and organizations such as AAAS, the American Physical Society, and the
Federation of American Scientists, induced the management of Livermore Laboratories to settle
the case by withdrawing the offending letter. Thus DeWitt emerged from the affair unscathed. The
SPSE, with a current membership of about 450 Livermore employees, appears to be an effective,
democratically run group and is in the process of seeking status as the collective bargaining unit
for the professional staff of Livermore Laboratories.
Gilbert Pugliese, a steelworker, was suspended for 5 days by his employer, Jones and Laughlin
Steel Corporation, and threatened with dismissal for refusing in 1971 to obey an order to dump oil
into the Cuyahoga River. In this case, it took threats of a wildcat strike by fellow workers to induce
the union to file a grievance on his behalf. It was successful in preserving Pugliese’s job.
Edward Gregory, an assembly line inspector, has had frequent clashes with his employer,
General Motors, over safety-related issues. Most notable was a prolonged battle over faulty
exhaust systems, which culminated in a 1969 recall costing over $100 million. Gregory’s union
(the UAW) supplied enough backing to keep him on the job.
These cases appear to be exceptional, as most unions focus their efforts almost exclusively on
matters of direct economic concern to their members. (There are indications, though, that some are
becoming increasingly interested in issues related to on-the-job health and safety.) I know of no
cases of unions giving support to engineers in ethics-related conflicts with management. Some
high-level union officials, during the course of efforts to recruit engineers into unions, have
suggested that their organizations might indeed play a useful role in such matters. But this idea
does not seem to have permeated to officers of union locals, and there is little to indicate that it
represents a dominant trend.
Trade unions have proved to be generally effective in improving the economic positions of
workers in the industries or occupations that they encompass. While the ideology of the labor
movement also includes many aspects pertaining to the public good, and while some unions have
on occasion acted in consonance with this ideal, the dominant trend is clearly for unions to promote
the selfish interests of their members. In a milieu in which various groups are fighting for larger
shares of the national income, engineers may indeed find it necessary to form collective bargaining
units in order to avoid winding up on the bottom of the heap. But they must be alert to the
drawbacks associated with this approach and must be prepared to exert much ingenuity in devising
organizational forms to minimize them. Incorporating ethics support functions into union
structures should be a particularly challenging task.
 The following section might well be subtitled “Unethical Engineers and the Law.” It concerns
a situation in which an engineering society and the very useful institution of technical standards
were used in an unscrupulous manner by a private corporation to injure a competitor.

6.10 STANDARDS AND CONFLICTS OF INTEREST

When you buy a light bulb for domestic use, you don’t normally worry about whether it will
fit properly into your ceiling fixture. If a computer program is correctly written in ANSI (American
National Standards Institute) C, then it can be compiled and run on any computer that has an ANSI
C compiler. A gas-fired home hot-water heater that meets ANSI standards and is installed properly
can be presumed to be safe. These are examples of the benefits of having engineering standards.
In the light bulb example, the advantage is in being able to interface products made by different
manufacturers. This leads to lower costs, since a smaller number of types can each be produced in
larger quantity, and since manufacturer, wholesaler, and retailer inventories can all be smaller.
Standardized computer programming languages make life easier for computer users, since it
enables them to run their programs on different types of machines. Having potentially dangerous
systems conform to safety standards obviously means fewer accidents.
The use of standard parts can extend the lives of devices by making repairs cheaper. It also
facilitates the reuse of parts of discarded systems. Both of these factors result in saving energy and
reducing waste disposal problems. It is possible to carry standardization too far. For example, if
the number of available sizes of some standardized part is too small, it might be necessary for the
designer of the system to make a choice that is so far from being optimal that a very high price
might have to be paid in terms of performance or some other important characteristic. When a new
technology is in the early stages of development, premature decisions with respect to standards
might close off important options.

How Are Standards Set?

In some countries, standards are set by government agencies. In the United States, they are set
mainly by committees of volunteers working through nongovernmental organizations. These
organizations may be professional engineering societies such as IEEE, or industrial coalitions such
as the American Gas Association, or organizations set up explicitly for the purpose of developing
and promulgating standards, for example, the National Fire Protection Association. A U.S.
government agency, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (formerly the Bureau of
Standards), maintains standards of weights and measures, sets certain standards for government
use, accredits other bodies that set standards or test products, and participates in international
standards activities. Some standards are adhered to on a voluntary basis; it would not make much
sense for a company to try to sell machine screws with nonstandard thread sizes. But many
standards, particularly those related to safety, are incorporated into law at some level of
government.
A basic problem with the American system is that few of the volunteers setting the standards
are unbiased. They are generally experts employed by companies whose products and services are
affected by the standards. Naturally, some volunteers try to influence the decisions of the standard-
making bodies so as to favor their employers. The way to deal with such inevitable conflicts of
interests is to ensure that the membership of decision-making committees includes a variety of
people with varying biases, and to carry out the entire process in an open fashion, that is, to make
the decision-making process transparent to all interested parties. Inviting comments from all
concerned groups and individuals and providing appeals processes are additional methods for
ensuring fair play. The system seems to work fairly well, but, as shown below, the potential for
abuse is substantial.

Sensing Water Levels in Boilers

One key to safe boiler operation is to ensure that heat is not applied to boilers containing very
little water. This is accomplished by installing in each boiler a device called a low-water fuel
cutoff, which turns off the fuel supply if the level of water in the boiler falls below some specified
height.
For several decades prior to the mid-1960s, one Chicago-based company, McDonnell &
Miller (M&M) dominated the market for low-water fuel cutoffs. Their device consisted of a bulb
that floated on the surface of the water in the boiler and a switch fixed at the desired cutoff level.
Should the water level fall to that of the switch, the bulb would trigger the switch, cutting off the
fuel supply. In 1965, Hydrolevel, a newly formed company, brought out a different type of cutoff,
consisting of an electric sensing device fixed at the desired level within the boiler. Because surging
and bubbling within the boiler might briefly remove the water immediately around the sensor even
when the actual water level was above it, the Hydrolevel device included a brief inertial delay to
prevent spurious transient operation of the cutoff.
For several years, Hydrolevel made slow progress in the marketplace. Then, in 1971, things
began looking up as Brooklyn Union Gas, a major customer of M&M, decided to switch to
Hydrolevel. Which brings us back to the issue of standards.

Ask a Question—Then Answer It

As was pointed out in Section 6.5, ASME played an important role in promoting the safe use
of boilers, by developing boiler codes in the mid-nineteenth century. The ASME Boiler and
Pressure Vessel Code Committee continues to be the organization responsible for standards related
to boilers. In particular, the standards for low-water fuel cutoffs (section IV of the code) are
administered by the correspondingly named subcommittee of the full committee, that is, the B-PV
Section IV subcommittee.
Concerned about the inroads that Hydrolevel was beginning to make in their business, the top
management of M&M held two meetings in March 1971 to devise countermeasures. Participants
included Vice President of Research John James, Vice President of Sales Eugene Mitchell, and T.
R. Hardin, an executive vice president of the Hartford Steam & Boiler Inspection and Insurance
Co., the leading underwriter of commercial boilers. The president of M&M, James Solon,
participated in the second meeting. Note that International Telephone and Telegraph Corporation
owned a controlling interest in Hartford, and, within the year, bought M&M.
The outcome of the meetings was that Hardin and James drafted a letter of inquiry to the
ASME B-PV Committee asking whether it was permissible under Section IV of the standard for a
time delay to be incorporated in a low-water fuel cutoff. (Recall that this is a feature of the
Hydrolevel device, not of the M&M cutoff.) The letter was signed, not by Hardin or James, its
authors, but by Mitchell.
Following normal procedure for such inquiries, B-PV Committee Secretary W. Bradford Hoyt
referred the letter to the chairman of the Section IV subcommittee, who just happened to be—T.
R. Hardin! (The vice chairman was John James.) Again following normal procedure, Hardin wrote
a response to the (his) letter. He designated it as an “unofficial response,” which under ASME
rules meant that it did not have to be approved by the subcommittee as a whole. After routine
approval by the chairman and vice chairman of the overall committee, the letter was sent out on
ASME stationery over the signature of Secretary Hoyt on April 29, 1971. The key sentence in the
letter was: “If a time-delay feature were incorporated in a low-water fuel cutoff, there would be no
positive assurance that the boiler water level would not fall to a dangerous point during a time-
delay period.” This conclusion is deceptive since the practice is to place the sensor sufficiently
above the desired cutoff point so that the water level cannot fall below that point during the brief
delay interval.
M&M immediately distributed copies of this letter to its sales force, who used it very
effectively to persuade prospective Hydrolevel customers that the Hydrolevel device did not
satisfy the ASME standard. Hydrolevel learned of the existence of this letter only many months
later (from a former customer). The response of the ASME committee to a request by Hydrolevel
President Russel Rymer for information about the letter was a copy of the key paragraphs sent on
February 8, 1972, without any information as to who had requested the letter or who had actually
composed it.
In March 1972, Rymer demanded that ASME do something to remedy the damage done by
the April 1971 letter. On June 9, the subcommittee responded with a reply that “confirmed the
intent” of the original letter but added that there was “no intent in Section IV to prohibit the use of
low-water fuel cutoffs having time delays.” An additional paragraph, modified at the suggestion
of James (now chairman of the subcommittee—Hardin having resigned), obscured the point
somewhat by warning that devices with delays must cut off the fuel before the water level falls too
low. This letter was not sufficient to enable Hydrolevel to recover; perhaps it was too late.

The Power of the Press

The next development in the story occurred 2 years later, when, on July 9, 1974, the Wall
Street Journal published an article by Priscilla Meyer critical of the behavior of M&M, of John
James, and of ASME for the way Hydro-level had been damaged. The story was incomplete in
that the precise double role of James had evidently not been uncovered by the reporter. Meyer’s
article initiated an important sequence of events.
Responding to a number of letters from ASME members concerned about what the article
revealed, the ASME Professional Practice Committee looked into the matter. But they didn’t look
very hard, failing even to question James, who had been singled out in the article as a central
figure. They did not learn about the parts played by James and Hardin in drafting the original
inquiry, or even about James’ involvement in the last paragraph of the June 9 letter by the
subcommittee. In fact, the committee actually passed a resolution commending James for having
yielded the chair during the discussion leading to the June 9 letter.
A second consequence of the Wall Street Journal article was that John James and Eugene
Mitchell (the M&M vice president of sales who signed the original inquiry) were called to testify
under oath before the Senate Antitrust and Monopoly Subcommittee. Here at last, in March 1975,
it was revealed that Hardin and James were directly involved with the writing of both the original
inquiry by M&M and of the response to it by ASME.
The reaction of ASME to all of this was a letter to the Wall Street Journal by ASME President
Robertson criticizing the original article by Meyer as well as a follow-up article by her published
on April 7. At about this time, the ASME Professional Practice Committee started to take another
look at the conduct of James, but dropped the matter when, on August 23, 1975, Hydrolevel, now
essentially out of business, filed lawsuits against M&M, Hartford, and ASME. (They never picked
it up again because, before the law suit was resolved, Hardin had died and James had resigned
from ASME.)

In the Courts

The basic charge was conspiracy to violate the Sherman Act (federal anti-trust law). As usual
for such cases, the pace was slow. Almost 3 years later, in 1978, M&M and Hartford settled out-
of-court for $725,000 and $75,000, respectively, but ASME refused to settle. On Feb. 2, 1979,
following an 11-day trial in the U.S. District Court for Eastern New York, a 6-person jury found
in favor of the plaintiff. ASME was ordered to pay a total of $7.5 million, which included triple
damages. Tragically, Hydrolevel President Rymer, upon hearing the good news, died of a heart
attack. ASME engaged a new law firm and appealed the verdict.
The main basis for the appeal was the argument that ASME knew nothing about the wrongful
and unauthorized acts of two of its volunteer members and that ASME in no way stood to profit
from those acts. The appeal was heard by the U.S. Second Circuit Court of Appeals, and the 3-
judge panel, on November 20, 1980, upheld the jury verdict on liability, but remanded the case for
a new trial on the amount of the award. An interesting aspect of the decision was the court’s
opinion that the lower court judge, in instructing the jury, erred in favor of the defendant.
ASME appealed and so the next battlefield was the Supreme Court. Of course, the arguments
were many and varied, often involving esoteric legal points and a large number of precedents.
These are omitted here. Two of the principal contentions of ASME are mentioned above in
connection with the discussion of the first appeal. In addition, ASME argued that it is unreasonable
to expect a large organization to be able to monitor all of the actions of volunteer members. If this
is required, went this argument, most of the volunteer organizations will get out of the standards
business altogether.
On May 17, 1982, the Supreme Court, by a 6-3 vote, affirmed the lower court ruling. The
majority opinion, delivered by Justice Blackmun, emphasized the great importance of standards
actions taken by ASME:
When ASME agents act in its name, they are able to affect the lives of large numbers of people
and the competitive fortunes of businesses throughout the country. By holding ASME liable under
the antitrust laws for the antitrust violations of its agents committed with apparent authority, we
recognize the important role of ASME and its agents in the economy, and we help to ensure that
standard-setting organizations will act with care when they permit their agents to speak for them.
We thus make it less likely that competitive challengers like Hydrolevel will be hindered by agents
of organizations like ASME in the future.
Elsewhere in the opinion, the deliberate nature of the manipulation of ASME by M&M was
clearly established by the following quotation from a November 1973 memorandum of an M&M
executive recommending that the company retain James in its employ:
A major reason for the continued success at M&M is a result of [James’] efforts and skill in
influencing the various code making bodies to “legislate” in favor of M&M products. This has
been a planned strategy for the business under E. N. McDonnell and carried out with considerable
success as evidenced by the M&M market penetration of 70 plus %.
The Blackmun opinion further states that:
 Only ASME can take systematic steps to make improper conduct on the part of all its agents
unlikely, and the possibility of civil liability will inevitably be a powerful incentive for ASME to
take those steps.
In a strongly worded dissenting opinion (with two other justices concurring), Justice Powell
argued, among other things, that it was inappropriate to prosecute a nonprofit organization under
the antitrust laws and certainly improper to impose triple damages on them. He states that “there
is no way an association adequately can protect itself from this sort of liability.”
After this ruling, the case went back to the district court for a new jury trial to reconsider the
amount of damages. The result, arrived at in June 1983, was to award Hydrolevel $2.5 million in
damages, plus an assessment for legal costs (including attorneys’ fees). Hydrolevel asked for about
$6 million in costs, but before further adjudication, a compromise was reached in October,
whereby ASME agreed to pay Hydrolevel a total of $4.74 million.

The Consequences

As suggested in the majority opinion, the threat of triple damages law suits did indeed get the
attention of ASME and other societies participating in standards activities. No major organization
withdrew from the arena, but significant changes have been made to improve procedures so as to
prevent the kind of abuse that occurred in the Hydrolevel case. Even before the conclusion of the
legal battle, ASME had already begun making reforms. First of all, “unofficial” responses to
inquiries have been eliminated altogether. In an effort to cancel out biases, at least five people must
review all interpretations of standards before their release. Committee chairpersons are required to
ensure that these people represent a “balance of interests.” All committee actions are required to
be published, and there is an appeals procedure. There are periodic reviews of the operations of
the standards committees to verify that all is in order. This general approach is now followed by
all of the major standards bodies.

6.11 SUMMARY

Sales engineer George Geary went over the heads of his immediate managers, and although
his concerns over inadequately tested piping appear to have been justified, he was fired. His suit
for wrongful discharge was dismissed in 1974 by a 4-3 vote of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
The basis for this and earlier rulings of the same nature is the venerable common law
employment-at-will doctrine, which allows arbitrary dismissal of employees. Exceptions are those
covered by individual or union contracts, tenured teachers, civil servants, and certain groups
protected by antidiscrimination laws. In most other industrialized nations, employment is more
secure. Recently enacted federal and state statutes offer support to those subjected to retaliation
after assisting certain regulatory agencies. Proposals have been made for laws that would help
engineers by making managers who ignore their professional judgments personally liable for any
resulting disasters.
In 1976, after a judge rejected a dismissal motion based on the at-will doctrine, a California
jury awarded $20,000 in damages to Marvin Murray, an electrical engineer fired for calling
attention to an electrically hazardous computer-type console. A more authoritative and broader
precedent was set by the New Jersey Supreme Court in a 1980 suit filed by physician Grace Pierce.
The essence was that an employer could not with impunity discharge professional employees for
refusing to obey orders violating ethics rules expressing public policy mandates.
 In 1852 the first federal regulatory agency was established to devise and enforce safety
standards for steamboat boilers. More such agencies followed. They serve to protect employees,
the public, and even the competitors against the excesses, often resulting from short-sighted
thinking, of competition run amok. The regulation of technology-based activities is particularly
difficult in areas characterized by complexity and change. In such cases success is impossible
without the cooperation of engineers engaged in the regulated activities. Problems also arise due
to various types of corruption, conflict of interest, political pressure, and inadequate funding.
Morris Baslow, a marine biologist, cooperated with the EPA by informing them that his
employer had withheld relevant information in the course of hearings. These concerned the effects
of electric power generation on Hudson River aquatic life. As a result, Baslow was fired. This led
to a test of the federal laws protecting people in such cases. It became evident that these laws need
strengthening to counter delaying tactics by employers. In this case, such tactics forced the
unemployed scientist to accept an out-of-court settlement. Another facet of this situation was the
conflict between the objective, open ethic of science and engineering and the adversarial ethic of
the legal profession.
The licensing (or registration) of engineers is intended to safeguard the public. Requirements
for licensing are based on examinations, experience, and references. Fewer than one-third of all
engineers are licensed, the bulk of these being civil engineers and others in private practice.
It has been suggested that the registration process could be a useful tool for supporting the
ethical practice of engineering. But this would require significant changes in attitudes and
procedures. At present, ethics enforcement varies considerably from state to state. Punishment for
endangering the public is at best extremely rare. Requirements should be upgraded and revamped
so as to accommodate all branches of the profession. State boards should include lay members and
should focus more on protecting the public interest. They might be given the mission of providing
positive support for ethical engineers.
It has been suggested that all engineers practice on a contract basis rather than as employees.
This might give them more autonomy as professionals. It would, however, entail problems of
stability for both engineers and organizations requiring their services.
Although collective bargaining might at first seem to be an attractive answer to many of their
problems, engineers have never joined unions in any significant numbers. Reasons include an
emphasis on individuality, traditional ties to management, and the weakness of the strike weapon
in the hands of engineers. With respect to ethics, the NSPE code, while not putting unions outside
the pale, does declare participation in strikes unethical. The grounds for this are questionable.
Although unions are potentially of great help to the ethical engineer, the record to date is not
encouraging. No examples of such help have been found in the engineering field. A physicist was
once given some help by his union in an ethics-related controversy. More conventional unions
gave support to an auto worker and to a steelworker involved in situations of the type discussed
here. It appears that engineers will have to exert some ingenuity to devise forms of collective
bargaining units that will satisfy their professional needs.
The benefits of engineering standards include safety, ease in interfacing products of different
companies, inventory reductions, extended product life, savings in energy and waste disposal
costs. In the United States, standards are generally administered by nongovernmental organizations
such as professional engineering societies. The Hydrolevel case was a dramatic example of how
volunteer members of standards organizations can manipulate matters so as to gain advantages for
their employers. It culminated in a Supreme Court decision upholding the levying of triple
damages against ASME for allowing this abuse of process. The result was that ASME and other
such organizations modified their procedures to combat conflicts of interest by making standards
activities more open and ensuring that representatives of a multiplicity of different interests are
involved in the decision-making process.

6.12 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. What, if any, legislation exists in the state (or country) in which you live that could serve
to protect engineers threatened with retaliation by their employers for behavior dictated by
provisions of engineering ethics codes? Are there legal precedents in your area that would
permit successful law suits in cases of wrongful discharge? Discuss the case or cases that
led to the key decision(s).
2. Find some examples of controversies concerning agencies that are involved in regulating
technology. What groups are parties to the controversies, and what are the issues? Can
these be related to some of the ideas discussed in Section 6.5?
3. List the principal reasons why engineers are not receptive to the idea of forming unions.
For each of these, try to come up with proposals for dealing with these objections or
indicate why you think there may not be any solutions.
4. In Justice Powell’s dissenting opinion in the Hydrolevel case, he buttressed his argument
against making ASME, a nonprofit organization, strictly liable for damage caused by its
agents, with the following example that he presents as a parallel case:

If a private pharmaceutical school—a tax-exempt corporation like ASME—

released a study condemning a particular drug, because a competing drug company
had suborned the professor who wrote the report, the Court’s rule would subject the
school to the full brunt of treble damages.

How might one defending the school in this example argue that the Hydrolevel precedent
was not applicable?

5. Identify some standards that have been adopted in your field of engineering or applied
science that might be a source of controversy. Discuss the issues.
6.13 SOURCES

Background information on the Geary case is in Nader (1972) and Ewing (1977). The former
also includes an article by Miller on the legal position of whistle blowers, and another article of a
similar nature is by Singer (see ASCE 1975). More detailed and up-to-date surveys of the law in
this area are by Conway (1977), Anonymous (1980), and Feliu (1979). The first of these also
includes further comment on the Geary case.
Legislation affecting the legal tenure of employees in Great Britain is described in Westin and
Salisbury (1980). Christopher Stone (1975) and David Ewing (1977) supply much interesting
information and many stimulating ideas about the relations between large organizations and their
employees. Stone also explores a variety of measures, including new legislation, intended to make
corporations more socially responsible. The Michigan law is discussed by Westin (1981b). A
report on the Murray case is in Davis (1976), and for the judge’s opinion, see Panelli (1976). I
interviewed Murray by telephone to fill out the picture a bit more.
 See Pollock (1980) for the Pierce case opinion. Additional information and commentary are
included in Feliu (1979).
My discussion of the steamboat regulation affair is based on the work of Burke (1979). The
use of deputized inspectors by the FAA is discussed, in connection with the DC-10 case, in Eddy
et al. (1976). Useful insights into managerial attitudes can be obtained from the books by Wright
(1979), Jackall (1988), and Halberstam (1986).
The Baslow case is reported on in Holden (1980), Pasztor (1980), Dannen (1981), and Legal
Times (1980). Responses by the engineering firm involved were published in Kannry (1980) and
Lawler (1981). I have also reviewed several other documents on the case, including an unpublished
rebuttal by Baslow (1981) to the firm’s response. I interviewed Baslow in person and a number of
others knowledgeable about the situation by telephone.
Information about GAP was obtained in discussions with Tom Devine and from Stewart
(1989), the book giving advice to conscientious dissenters.
Professional registration for engineers is discussed by Kemper (1975), Constance (1978),
Lunch (1974), Elden (1974), and Parcher (1977). Whitelaw (1975) is an advocate of the concept
of engineers as independent practitioners.
Engineering unions are the subjects of Stuart et al. (1973) and Duarte (1974). The examples
of positive action by unions in the Pugliese and Gregory cases were taken from Westin and
Salisbury (1980). Background on the DeWitt case is in DeWitt (1979), and information on his
union is in SPSE (1980). I have discussed the matter with him personally. The Progressive case,
which involved publication of information about the technology of hydrogen bombs is discussed
in De Volpi (1981).
The Hydrolevel Supreme Court opinions are in Supreme Court (1982), and other background
information on the case and on engineering standards can be found in Beardsley (1984) and in
Sherr (1982).
CHAPTER SEVEN: AVERTING CONFLICT AT THE SOURCE

Once a dispute between engineer and employer escalates to the point where it involves the
press, the courts, or other outside agencies, both parties are likely to suffer serious losses. It is
therefore of great importance to develop mechanisms and techniques for resolving such matters
within the organization whenever possible, provided, of course, that no significant sacrifice of
principle is entailed. In the following section, this is treated from the viewpoint of management.
Various methods are discussed for creating an atmosphere hospitable to the responsible practice
of engineering and for coping with dissent in a civilized manner.
The second section consists of advice to the employee engineer. It is intended as a guide to
avoiding conflict situations or containing conflicts when they do arise, while maximizing the
possibilities of having one’s arguments considered seriously.

7.1 INTERNAL PROCEDURES FOR CONSIDERING DISSENTING VIEWS

Enlightened managers understand that subordinate engineers (or other professionals) who
never express disagreement with their superiors are either not working to full capacity or else lack
character or competence. An important objective of management should be to create an
atmosphere in which professionals are encouraged to voice their views concerning all aspects of
their work and where such views are taken seriously. (Much of this discussion is applicable in
varying degrees to other occupational categories, but the focus here is on engineers and applied
scientists.)

General Criteria

Every organization employing professionals should establish mechanisms that encourage

them to express their views freely, in an orderly manner within the organization, on any issue
pertaining to its affairs. Provision should be made for incorporating such views into the decision-
making process. The procedures should be available to professional staff members in those cases
where they feel that the usual informal exchanges with immediate supervision have failed. Some
criteria for such systems follow:
• Attention should be focused on the ideas at issue rather than on the personalities
involved.
• These ideas should be reviewed by competent people inside the organization, with
outside consultants being called in as necessary. Those with the authority to implement
the views should be made aware of them.
• Feedback to the originator of the views should be as prompt as circumstances permit.
• Except perhaps when a mutually acceptable solution is achieved at the outset, written
records of all steps taken should be produced and retained so as to be available for
internal audit. In the case of a governmental entity, they should also be open to public
inspection.
• As a final stage, an appeal procedure should exist that involves individuals from
outside the organization. This may at first seem unacceptable to private enterprise
employers, but since an employee always has the option of going public with a
complaint, regardless of the internal rules, it makes good sense to provide for this in
 an orderly manner. Precedents already exist in the use of outside arbiters to help settle
grievances under union contracts (and even in some firms without unions).
• Explicit provision should be made to protect those expressing dissenting views against
retaliation, whether crude or subtle. Those responsible should be subject to significant
sanctions. (Allowing a dissenter some degree of anonymity can provide an added
safeguard.)
• The existence of alternative methods for dealing with dissenting ideas would add an
important element of flexibility.

Devising a good set of procedures, in itself a difficult task, is only half of the job. It is also
necessary to implement them so as to inspire confidence that they are not merely window dressing
but are vigorously backed by top-level management. There is, unfortunately, an extensive record
of organizations issuing fine-sounding regulations, often accompanied by eloquent essays over the
signatures of top-ranking managers, which are lightly brushed aside when invoked in any serious
matter.
Strict adherence to such procedures, even when the results are embarrassing to management,
is the price that must be paid to establish credibility. The returns in the form of goodwill and better
performance by professional employees should make this a most profitable investment.
Many organizations have in place one or more mechanisms intended to cover the kinds of
situations depicted here. In most cases their purpose is considerably broader, aimed at employees
at all levels and handling a very wide range of problems, including strictly personnel matters.

Open Doors

Probably the simplest and most widespread method is the “open-door” policy, whereby
employees are invited to bring their problems, suggestions, or complaints to any member of
management. This can be an effective means for resolving difficulties that stem from bad decisions
made by individual managers who then “dig in” and refuse to reverse themselves.
In general, success depends on the extent to which individual managers are committed to the
concept. Clearly, it can be a drain on the time and energy of middle- and upper-level executives.
They must be prepared to listen with sympathy and respect to the problems and ideas that are
brought through their open doors. Follow-up investigations must be carried out carefully, but
without inordinate delay. Since normal lines of command are being bypassed, consideration must
also be shown for the feelings of the managers being circumvented.
Conversely, it is important that all managers in the organization accept with good grace the
fact that their subordinates might sometimes use this procedure against them. Such contingencies
can be avoided if the original managers see to it that the ideas of their subordinates are given
careful consideration. If necessary, they themselves can broaden the discussions to include
knowledgeable people from elsewhere in the organization (including perhaps other managers at
the same or higher level). In fact, one effect of a properly functioning open-door policy is to
stimulate just this sort of openness that reduces the need for anyone to utilize the open door.
An example showing why employees often lack confidence in such mechanisms is alluded to
in Section 2.13, where mention is made of problems within the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.
In November 1976, a high NRC official issued a letter outlining procedures for staff members
to use in calling attention to disagreements with management decisions. These included a form of
open door. Assurance was given that “there will be no retribution or recriminations as a result of
any of these actions.” In December 1976, two NRC electrical engineers who had been, in effect,
using just such procedures were involuntarily transferred to other divisions remote from the areas
relevant to the concerns they had expressed. A consequence of this affair was a concerted effort to
improve NRC’s internal rules, the results of which are discussed later in this section.

Ombudsmen

A number of organizations employ ombudsmen to handle a wide variety of employee

complaints. These are high-ranking officials, reporting directly to the chief executive officer, who
are empowered to hear, investigate, and try to resolve problems brought to their attention by
employees at any level. They also recommend changes in internal procedures as a result of what
they learn from their investigations.
Ombudsmen are not likely to be able to mediate directly ethics-related technical disputes
between engineers and managers. But they can be effective in seeing to it that arrangements are
made for the engineers to receive fair hearings. An ombudsman can be a useful supplement to
other procedures for resolving such conflicts.

Putting It in Writing

Other mechanisms for allowing employees to “go around” their managers are based on written
communications. The starting point is a document generated by the employee, expressing a
complaint, a suggestion, an argument, or the like. Various flow patterns are prescribed for the
processing of such documents. One approach is to have it go to a very high official in the
organization, perhaps to the very top. That individual may then assign an administrator to
investigate and take appropriate action.
Another possibility is to have it pass up the administrative chain, each manager in turn
reviewing it, perhaps adding comments and suggestions. A third route is through the organization’s
personnel department or a special office set up to handle such matters. Subsequent investigations
are then made the responsibility of someone attached to that entity.
Regardless of the flow pattern, it may be desirable to give the originator the option of
requesting that the initial recipient be the only person in the chain to know the author’s identity.
Progress reports should be made periodically to the originators, and they should be given the
opportunity to append responses to any written comments made by those who review the document
as it moves along.

Are These Ideas Used?

The procedures outlined in this section have been put into practice, with varying degrees of
success, by a number of American organizations. For example, the Xerox Corporation, the Singer
Company, General Electric, and M.I.T. all use ombudsmen. The Bank of America has an open-
door policy, and the Food and Drug Administration has a Critical Problem Report System whereby
important issues may be brought directly to the attention of the commissioner via a special type of
memorandum.
IBM employs all three approaches, with the personnel department responsible for handling
written “Speak Up” complaints and the ombudsmen working out of the office of the chairman of
the board. It is clear that top management assigns a high priority to these procedures. Investigations
are carried out speedily and thoroughly, and confidentiality is preserved to the maximum extent
possible.
With respect to the crucial question of retaliation, it is apparently well understood at IBM that
punishing a subordinate for using one of the alternate channel appeals would be fatal to the career
of a manager. As a further safeguard, after having used such a procedure, employees are often
transferred within the company to equivalent positions under different managers.
On the other hand, IBM managers whose subordinates often find it necessary to go around
them, via the open door, for example, are not likely to rise very far in the organization. There is
thus a strong incentive for managers to make every effort to deal fairly with subordinates.
Apparently, technical problems do not usually find their way into these channels. Disputes with
immediate managers over technical issues are generally resolved by informal meetings involving
the manager at the next highest level.

NRC Procedures

The mechanism for coping with Differing Professional Views and Opinions (DPVs and
DPOs) that was added to the NRC’s personnel manual in 1980 and revised subsequently includes
the following components.
1. These procedures are invoked only after more conventional discussions with immediate
management leaves the staff member dissatisfied. Quite apart from these procedures, the
NRC has an open-door policy as an alternative. Dissents are explicitly not limited to the
individual’s own area of responsibility and may involve matters being dealt with in other
parts of the NRC. They may not deal with matters subject to employee grievance
procedures.
2. The process begins with a written statement summarizing the prevailing staff view, the
submitter’s dissenting view, and an assessment of the consequences expected if the
dissenter’s view is rejected.
3. This statement goes to a standing DPV Review Panel consisting of a high-level
administrator as chairperson, one person appointed by management, and a third person
selected by the chairperson from a list submitted by the employee. Provision is made for
the employee to remain anonymous.
4. The panel has 7 days to determine if adequate information has been supplied; it may
request more information from the dissenter. Within 30 days of having received complete
information, the panel makes its recommendation to the Regional Administrator or Office
Director. That official then, normally within 7 days, makes a decision and informs the
dissenter of that decision, along with the rationale behind it. (Provisions exist for
extending some of these time limits, but this may require justification to the commission.)
5. The dissenter, if dissatisfied with the result, has the option of escalating to the more formal
DPO procedure by sending another written statement to top management.
6. Either the commission or the executive director reviews the matter, utilizing whatever
qualified sources are appropriate, both within and outside the NRC. A decision is then
made within 30 days, or else any delay must be accounted for.
7. Files on each case (or, more precisely, “appropriate portions of the files”) are made
publicly available.
 8. Retaliation against dissenters is strictly prohibited, and dissenters may use one of several
grievance procedures to seek redress if they believe that they have been the subject of
retaliatory measures.
9. Provision is made for periodic reviews of the DPV and DPO procedures by a special
review panel. The reviewers are also charged with recommending awards for those who,
through their dissents have made significant contributions to the agency or to the public
health and safety.
The procedures outlined above are a somewhat streamlined version of the original procedures
(modified in 1987). The system has not worked out very well. There is a widely held perception
within the NRC that, regardless of the provisions prohibiting retaliation, using the DPO procedures
would be the “kiss of death” for one’s career within the NRC. The belief is that there is no effective
way to rule out subtle forms of punishment by managers, such as downgrading evaluations,
refusing permission to travel, or not recommending promotions.
It is also believed that the procedures are likely to cause managers to “dig in,” close ranks,
and defend their positions rather than back down in the face of formal criticism. Most NRC
employees doubt that this is an effective way to get their points across. The majority of those that
have used the procedures say that they would not do so again. Whatever the intentions of NRC
management were, they apparently failed to convince their employees that they really value
dissenting opinions.
A concern of mine that has not yet proved to be a problem pertains to item 7, where it appears
that certain portions of the record dealing with some DPOs might be kept confidential. There is an
unfortunate history of government agencies (including NRC and its predecessors) using secrecy
based on “national security” to cloak blunders or manipulate public opinion. In the present
instance, there are at least two ways in which national security can be a factor. First, attempts may
be made to cover up key information that might justify a DPO. Second, the DPO itself might be to
the effect that national security is being invoked improperly to withhold information from the
public. Since one of the most important features of the NRC DPO process is that a written record
is compiled that can be audited later, it is essential to head off bogus secrecy claims.
A possible solution would be to allow the originator of a DPO to request that a special panel
be formed to rule on the legitimacy of secrecy claims by NRC management. This panel should
include people from outside NRC (and from outside the government) who have the necessary
security clearances.
An alternative (or perhaps an additional) channel for dissent might be to permit those who
disagree with a proposed agency policy or decision to append to the accepted statement of that
policy or decision their dissenting view. This view might then stay with the documents as they
move along through the agency, thus coming to the attention of decision makers at all levels. This
method is apparently used by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and was suggested
to the NRC in the course of the 1987 review.
Commenting on the NRC DPO procedures, a prominent engineering employee of the NRC,
who often found himself in the role of dissenter, commented that “a system of procedures, or a
system of people cannot be any better than the people who run it.” More important than any
particular set of rules is the determination of those in positions of authority to make the system
work.

Are Such Programs Workable?

 In the case of all internal mechanisms, it is to be expected that cases will arise (rarely, one
hopes) in which the problem cannot be resolved inside the organization because it involves a clash
over basic policy. In such instances, other means, such as are discussed elsewhere in this work,
must be available to support the ethical engineer.
Looking at matters from the other side, what about the disruptive effects of procedures that
seem designed to encourage employees of an organization to circumvent established protocol?
Would executives have to spend most of their time dealing with malcontents crowding through
their open doors? I have not heard of any organization experiencing difficulties of this nature.
Quite the contrary. The problem is usually to convince employees that it is safe to use the bypass
channels. An employee unstable enough to use such procedures to annoy high-level managers with
frivolous complaints would probably be a nuisance even in the absence of formal procedures, and
is unlikely to last very long in any organization.

7.2 ADVICE TO THE RESPONSIBLE ENGINEER:

HOW TO BE ETHICAL AND GET AWAY WITH IT

Prior to considering the handling of specific controversies, some attention should be paid to
the importance, in this context, of professional standing. Engineers who, by virtue of competence
and diligence, have acquired excellent reputations within their organizations are likely to have
their views treated with respect, even when they diverge from prevailing trends. When disputes
escalate to high levels, they will have more leverage because of their value to their organizations.
If, furthermore, the reputations of these engineers extend beyond their organizations (e.g., as a
result of published papers or professional society activities), they will be in even stronger positions,
since their words will carry greater weight should the controversy become public, and they can be
more confident of finding new jobs if necessary. (On the last point, technical versatility would also
be a significant asset.) Clearly, then, professional competence and diligence are valuable adjuncts
to a strong sense of responsibility.

Check Out the Arguments and Maintain an Open Mind

Whether or not a workplace conflict has an ethical component, the approach taken, at least in
the early stages, should be essentially the same. This is under the assumption that the goal in either
case is to get the job done better (or perhaps to get the better job done) rather than to gain some
personal advantage.
The first consideration is to make sure that one’s position is valid. This entails a thorough
review of the facts, calculations, and principles involved. Engineers should listen carefully to
opposing arguments. They should understand them well enough to be able to state them to the
satisfaction of their proponents (a very useful general technique propounded by Anatol Rapoport).
There should be no hesitation in modifying one’s position or even abandoning it altogether if one
is convinced by this process that it is not correct. One should remain receptive to new data or
arguments at every stage of the controversy.
It should not, however, be inferred from the above that one must be absolutely correct on all
points before pressing a dissenting view. The criteria for evaluating a dissenting position should
not differ substantially from those used in evaluating other positions in the same engineering
context. In common with many engineering situations, complete information may be lacking, and
the exercise of professional judgment may be necessary.
 Indeed, the essence of one’s argument might well be that risks are being taken in the absence
of data adequate to justify them. For example, Virginia Edgerton (see Section 2.4) argued that a
study was called for to determine if the response time of the SPRINT system might be significantly
degraded by the proposed additional load on the computer. She did not claim to know the answer.
To justify her position, it was only necessary to establish that harm might reasonably result from
such a degradation and that there was no a priori basis for assuming that it would not occur.
Even where the engineer does take a firm position, as opposed to raising a question, it is the
basis for that position that determines its validity, rather than the ultimate outcome. Suppose, for
example, that an airline pilot refuses an order to take off in the midst of a raging storm of a
magnitude generally regarded as clearly unsafe for flying and is replaced by a second pilot who
obeys the order. The fact that the flight might be completed safely does not thereby invalidate the
judgment of the first pilot or justify either the original order or the decision of the second pilot to
obey it. (Assuming that there are no other extraordinary circumstances involved.) On the other
hand, a pilot who decides to take off on a clear day, when all weather forecasts are favorable,
cannot fairly be accused of recklessness if an unpredictable storm subsequently causes a crash.

Stick to the Point—Be Calm and Timely

Being right, although of prime importance, is not sufficient to ensure that one’s views will
prevail. It is essential to behave in a manner that will not stimulate or prolong opposition on
extraneous grounds. Arguments should be conducted in a calm, objective, tactful, and good-
natured manner. Care should be taken to avoid personal attacks. Attempts to assign motives to
others rarely accomplish anything useful, and are likely to deflect attention from the principal
issues. They can easily generate counterproductive animosities.
Timeliness is another important element. Flagging an error at an early stage makes it far more
likely that it will be acknowledged and corrected. As time passes, commitment to an erroneous
course of action grows, and the cost of turning back increases in terms of prestige, schedules, and
tangible expenditures.
Every effort should be made to keep the discussion focused on the main issue. The time to
complain about an inadequate pay increase is not during a debate over whether the software for
the air traffic control system has been adequately tested. Nor is this the moment to suggest that the
manager involved wants to release it prematurely in order to meet a schedule and thereby win a
promotion.
Overstatement must be carefully avoided, even regarding peripheral aspects of the problem.
Opponents are likely to seize on any exaggeration to undermine one’s credibility. Better to err on
the conservative side and to have subsequent studies strengthen rather than weaken one’s case.

Seek Advice, Collect Paper, Compile a Record

Suppose now that an impasse is reached in that an engineer, despite having made a strong
case, is getting nowhere with a manager who has either refused to listen or who has rejected the
arguments on what the engineer regards as inadequate grounds. Further assume that the manager
has indicated that the matter is closed. At this point, the engineer must decide whether to escalate
the dispute and thereby most probably seriously damage relations with supervision.
In addition to reviewing the basic issues, the engineer must consider the importance of the
matter, the question of responsibility, and possible strategies for further action. Informal
discussions with friends and colleagues would be useful in clarifying matters. Help might also be
sought from a friend high up in the organization (if one exists) who could supply advice or even
try to mediate in an off-the-record manner.
Should the engineer decide to press on and should the last-mentioned approach be unfeasible
or unsuccessful, then the next step is to determine what appeal procedures exist within the
organization (see the previous section). Preparations should then be made for utilizing them.
Before going ahead, it would usually be a good idea to notify the manager, tactfully, about one’s
intention. Apart from being good form, it might cause the manager to reconsider the matter.
At this stage the dispute is “official,” and a paper record becomes essential. Actually, this
should have been initiated as soon as it became clear that a serious conflict was possible. Copies
of documents such as letters, memorandums, reports, data sheets, program listings, patent
applications, and policy statements should be assembled. Notes should be made (with dates and
times) regarding key conversations, and a detailed log maintained of all contacts made. A clear,
concise summary should be drafted outlining the issue, why it is important, what one’s own
position is, and what one understands the manager’s position to be. It would be very helpful to get
the manager’s views in writing. Sometimes this can be done indirectly by sending the manager a
memo stating that one believes the manager’s position to be such and such and requesting (always
tactfully!) corrections of any inaccuracies. A wise precaution would be to keep the file on the
dispute at home, rather than at work, to guard against the possibility of suddenly being discharged
and denied further access to one’s office.

Be Clear and Concise

Every phase of the controversy must be conducted in a highly professional manner, free of
rancor. The importance of accuracy, objectivity, and precision cannot be overemphasized. Apart
from the fact that such an approach is more likely to produce a satisfactory solution in the early
stages, it is the only way to build a sound base for a more protracted struggle. When such matters
develop into major confrontations between engineers and management, the latter will nearly
always try to shift attention from the issue to the individual. Every effort will be made to portray
the engineer as a paranoid crackpot, an incompetent, or a chronic complainer seeking vengeance
for some imaginary grievance. Great care must be taken to avoid behavior that might reinforce
such an image. Nothing could be more destructive to the engineer’s case than a long, rambling
recitation, full of irrelevancies and laced with spiteful personal attacks.
On the positive side, clarity is the key. An engineer well versed in a particular technology is
likely to assume too much knowledge on the part of the reader (or listener). Particularly when the
controversy is being carried to upper-level management (or outside the organization), great care
must be taken to explain clearly, not only the technical issue, but the context that makes it
important. If a written statement of the case exceeds a few pages in length, it should be prefaced
by a one-page executive summary. The body of the statement should include references to
supporting material and indicate sources of key information.

A Little Help from Your Friends

An all-too-common characteristic of engineer-management conflicts that reach a serious stage

is the isolation of the engineer. This is of great value to management, since it facilitates arguments
of this form: “Since no member of our highly skilled and knowledgeable engineering staff concurs
with Johnson’s claim that the failure rate will be excessive, he must be either incompetent or. ...”
The reasons for such isolation are, of course, obvious: Not many are anxious to get involved
in confrontations with management that can be costly in so many ways. But it is nevertheless
worthwhile making a real effort to get some sort of support from colleagues. For example, one
might be able to persuade four or five others to act in unison on the basis of a rather strong
expectation that this would lead to a quick and successful resolution of the matter with little
likelihood of any individual being penalized. Or one’s own willingness to “lay it on the line” might
inspire one or more associates to follow their consciences. It would be wise to get written
confirmation of such support as early as possible, since it is not uncommon for recruits in these
situations to fade away under heavy fire. Even limited backing from others in the form of memos
or reports supporting portions of one’s position could help.

Choosing the Right Door

If the in-house appeal procedure to be used is an open door, then a decision must be made as
to whose open door one should go through. The individual chosen should, if possible:

• Have some interest and responsibility in the problem area

• Be likely to sympathize with the engineer’s approach or at least not already be committed
on the other side
• Have enough clout to get something done about the problem

It is often difficult to identify the best candidate, particularly with respect to the second point
above. Discreet inquiries among friends may be of some help. When in doubt, it is probably best
to choose a higher-ranking manager, as in such matters height is likely to be correlated with
detachment and objectivity, not to mention greater power to set things right.

Step Outside and Fight?

Suppose next that all in-house appeal procedures have been exhausted without a satisfactory
solution having been achieved. (There may be some doubt here as to what should be considered
“satisfactory.” For example, although no remedial action was taken about a specific instance of
bad design complained about, the results of the appeal process may have made it most unlikely
that this type of error would be repeated. If the consequences of letting the single bad design get
through are not deemed too serious, then perhaps the outcome might be rated as satisfactory and
the matter laid to rest.)
The engineer must now weigh the situation very carefully to decide whether to carry on the
fight. Since this would mean going outside the organization, “fight” would indeed be the
appropriate word. As is made amply clear elsewhere in this book, the consequences to the
engineer’s career are likely to be severe if this step is taken.
Once more, the engineer should review the arguments, the importance of the issue, and the
group affected by it. For example, if the matter at issue had consequences only for the financial
well-being of the employer—a private corporation—then the engineer might consider that having
brought it to the attention of top management was sufficient. But if a serious threat to the public
safety was clearly involved, then the obligation to continue would obviously be much greater.
The severity of the consequences alluded to above should not be overstated. Confrontations
with managers, being fired, having trouble getting a new job, seeing savings melt away and debts
mount—these are certainly not pleasant prospects. But seldom is the result fatal. Usually, after a
few years, the engineer’s career gets back on the track and the wounds begin to heal. There is also
a very positive satisfaction in having lived up to one’s principles. My impression from contacts
with a number of individuals who have gone through this process is that, painful as it was, they do
not regret what they did.
There are certainly people in this world who have risked much more on behalf of their
principles. Consider, for example, the distinguished Soviet physicist Peter Kapitsa. During the
mid-1940s he refused to participate in the development of nuclear weapons, directly defying
Joseph Stalin. He was fortunate enough to escape with the loss of his various prestigious positions
and 7 years of house arrest (terminated only by Stalin’s death).
Finally, one must also consider the personal consequences of not standing by one’s principles
where serious harm may come to others as a result. The resulting feelings of guilt and loss of self-
respect might last a lifetime.
In deciding whether to go outside the organization, it would be wise to seek advice from one’s
professional society, if this has not been done at an earlier stage. Here is where the importance of
engineering society procedures to support ethical engineers, discussed in Chapter 5, becomes
evident. Technical, ethical, and legal counsel might be supplied at this stage. Simply having a
sympathetic, objective, and experienced colleague to talk things over with can be of immense
value. Initial contact might be made via a telephone ethics hotline, if available (see Section 5.4).
Up to now, it is assumed, the engineer has been careful to keep the entire matter confidential,
in full accord with organizational practices. Assurances should be obtained that confidentiality will
be respected by the individuals representing the society. Under certain circumstances, it might also
be appropriate for the engineer to consult an attorney.

Resign?

If not already fired—a very real possibility—should the engineer resign at this point and
continue the battle from the outside? There are several arguments in favor of resignation:
• The seriousness of this act adds credibility to subsequent statements by the engineer.
• Criticisms based on the argument that one should not attack one’s employer are thereby
disarmed.
• It may be obvious that animosities generated by the controversy have made a continuing
work relationship impossible.
• As a result of bitter feelings engendered about the organization by the dispute, the engineer
may no longer wish to be affiliated with it.
• If one anticipates that going public will lead to dismissal anyway, it may be felt that
resigning would strengthen one’s position in the public arena.
• A resignation might be preferable to a discharge on one’s employment record.
Arguments opposed to resignation include the following:
 • It would mean losing influence within the organization.
• Access to internal sources of information would be lost.
• Keeping the spotlight on the problem might be easier from inside the organization.
• There might be a feeling that resigning would be quitting under fire, perhaps abandoning
supporters within the organization.
• An important aspect of the dispute might be the right to dissent from within the
organization.
• Remaining inside would preserve income and possibly valuable pension rights (assuming
that there is a reasonable chance to avoid being fired).
• There might be legal and financial consequences, such as losing the right to sue or the right
to unemployment compensation.
Clearly this may be a difficult decision, depending on the details of the situation.

Outside Resources

If one decides to appeal to some outside entity (regardless of the decision made on resigning),
a choice must be made among a range of possibilities. One option, not at present well developed,
is an engineering society. A top priority for engineering societies should be the establishment of
effective procedures, not only to support the conscientious engineer (see Chapter 5) but also, where
appropriate, to provide a forum for public discussion of the issues raised by the engineer. The
Zwiep proposal, mentioned in Section 5.4, is along these lines. But nothing has been done to
implement it.
In many situations, the appropriate entity is a government agency. This may be a regulatory
commission such as the NRC or OSHA, a law enforcement arm such as the FBI, or some other
governmental branch such as the Department of Agriculture. There are advantages to reporting to
certain federal agencies in that, as noted in Section 6.2, there are laws protecting those who assist
them in their missions. Branches of local and state governments should also be considered in some
cases.
Legislators, particularly members of Congress, are an important resource for engineers
seeking help in defending the public interest. They can appeal to their own representatives or
senators, to the chairmen of congressional committees having jurisdiction over the subject matter
involved, or to any other member of Congress who they have some reason to believe might be
helpful. Legislators often act as ombudsmen, cutting through bureaucratic tangles on behalf of
constituents or others, and often succeeding in galvanizing administrative agencies into action.
U.S. senators thus played useful roles in the Fitzgerald case (see Section 2.5) and in the Houston
case (see Section 2.6), and a committee of the California State Senate was an important factor in
the BART case (see Section 2.3).
Public interest groups are another potentially useful resource. For example, an organization
such as Public Citizen is well positioned to call attention to a problem involving improper waste
disposal. Care should be taken to choose an organization that one feels reasonably compatible
with, and there should be some sort of agreement about the general approach that the group will
take in handling the matter.
If the issue or the surrounding circumstances are newsworthy, then a likely consequence of
an appeal to an organization or individual in any of the aforementioned categories is that the
conflict will eventually be picked up by the news media. It is also possible for the engineer to bring
the story directly to the attention of one or more journalists. This might be done by preparing a
news release and distributing it on a shotgun basis to the widest possible audience: newspapers,
wire services, magazines, radio and TV stations, and networks. Or, at the other extreme, a
particular journalist might be contacted personally and given the story. In either event, the engineer
must be very careful to present the case clearly and accurately, avoiding any hint of
misrepresentation and shunning sensationalism. Because of the tricky nature of the media, the high
degree of uncertainty as to how (or even //) they will handle a story, and the fact that they seldom
stay with it for any period of time, a direct approach to them should be regarded as a last resort.

Special Situations

The above discussion is of a general nature, and in particular cases one must develop strategies
to fit the circumstances (although most of the principles enunciated, such as attention to accuracy
and avoiding vituperation, are universally applicable). One special aspect justifying a major
departure from the outlined approach would be extreme time pressure. If, for example, an engineer
observes a condition in a chemical plant that could result in a major explosion, and if those in
charge refuse to take remedial action, then it would not be reasonable to embark on a protracted
conflict resolution process that might terminate long after a dozen mangled bodies have been
buried.
Another departure from the model presented here concerns the nature of the parties to the
dispute. In some situations, the engineer’s supervisor and perhaps one or more other managers in
the chain of command concur with his position, and the problem is with those in a different branch
of the organization, or with management at a still higher level. While the general rules enunciated
still apply, it is necessary to improvise an approach that takes into account the existence of
important allies. Accomplishing this without sacrificing basic principles may be quite difficult.

Wear a Mask?

Suppose that, owing to personal circumstances, an engineer is unwilling to risk being fired by
opposing management over some issue, even while recognizing an ethical obligation to do so. In
some cases of this kind engineers can take a middle course that, although not really satisfactory,
may be better than doing nothing. They can anonymously transmit information to those who might
be able to act on it, for example, upper-level management, outside agencies, members of Congress,
or the press. This approach is common among government employees, who often surreptitiously
pass on to members of Congress and news reporters information exposing wrongdoing within their
departments.
There are several major drawbacks. First, recipients of anonymous information are likely to
ignore it, and the sender is in no position to apply personal pressure. Perhaps even more important,
there is something distasteful about a method that can be, and indeed has been, used unfairly to
malign reputations. Finally, it is in any event far from being risk free. The more information
included in the anonymous message (and hence the more useful and credible it is), the easier it is
to track down the originator by restricting the search to those in the organization knowledgeable
enough to have sent it. Once unmasked, the originator is in a far weaker position than would have
been the case if no attempt had been made at concealment. If, despite these arguments, this route
is nevertheless chosen, then the engineer should take particular care to avoid attacks on individuals
and should explicitly indicate in the message how the claims made can be verified.
 Looking back over this section, one might easily conclude that engineers are constantly on the
brink of hostilities with their managers—a nasty bunch bent on endangering workers in the
production of faulty products destructive to the environment and the general public. Not so. Most
of the time, for most engineers, work relations are not a problem. Occasionally they may differ
with their managers, usually over some technical point (sometimes over purely personal matters).
Such disagreements are generally settled in an amicable manner, since all concerned wish to find
the best solutions to the problems they are working on. The common-sense suggestions presented
here are intended to avert unnecessary quarrels at this stage.
Occasionally a dispute with an immediate supervisor is not so easily resolved, whereupon, in
most organizations, others, including perhaps the next level of management, are brought in to
mediate. Unfortunately, some organizations lack such procedures. In other cases managers may
implement them poorly or not at all. Problems of these types usually are resolved once the engineer
gets through to a higher level of management.
There are two general categories into which the relatively small number of really tough cases
seem to fall (although it is not always clear which one applies):
1. The top executives simply rubber-stamp the decisions of low- or middle-level managers
and acquiesce in the firing of the engineer for “making waves.”
2. The engineer’s position is indeed in conflict with the considered policy of top management.
The Edgerton, Murray, and Goodrich cases seem to fall into the first category, and the BART,
Fitzgerald, and DC-10 cases appear to be in the second class. Either type of situation can produce
conditions that, when faced by conscientious, strong-willed engineers, result in dramatic
confrontations.

7.3 SUMMARY

It is always best to resolve disputes amicably before they erupt into serious conflicts. Internal
procedures for dealing with disagreements between engineers and their managers in a civilized
manner have been established or are being considered by a number of organizations. Such
procedures should focus on the issues and assure the employees that these will be handled fairly
and promptly without retaliation against them.
Principal general approaches are the open-door policy, organizational ombudsmen, and
channels for processing written communications. Wherever possible, disputes should be resolved
informally at low levels.
The NRC has implemented an elaborate, carefully thought-out set of procedures for handling
“differing professional opinions.” It includes provision for permanent written records of all actions
taken, progress reports to the originator, time limits to minimize delay, alternate channels, and
rules against retaliation. There are some problems related to security considerations. As is the case
for all such procedures, the most important ingredient is the spirit with which it will be carried out,
particularly with respect to the question of retaliation.
In general, such procedures have not been unduly burdensome to management.
Underutilization because of a lack of confidence in them has been the main problem.
An engineer recognizing that a problem is arising with management over a difference of
opinion should proceed carefully so as to optimize the outcome. Arguments and data should be
reviewed, opposing viewpoints fully understood, and personality clashes assiduously avoided.
 Dissent may be appropriate even in the absence of certainty. Its reasonableness should be
assessed on the same basis as are other engineering judgments made under conditions of
incomplete information.
Should it appear that an impasse has been reached with immediate management, the engineer
should review the situation, seek advice, and consider using whatever internal appeal procedures
exist. If the decision is to press on, then copies of all pertinent records and documents should be
collected, including notes on conversations and, if possible, a written position statement from the
manager involved. The engineer’s statements, both written and oral, should be clear, concise,
objective, accurate, and free of rancor. Support should be sought from colleagues. If an open door
is to be utilized, care should be taken in selecting the door of a person likely to be interested,
sympathetic, and powerful enough to be able to help.
The many advantages and disadvantages of a resignation should be carefully weighed. Should
a decision be made to seek support outside the organization, a choice must be made among many
alternatives. These include government agencies, legislators, engineering societies, public-interest
groups, and journalists.
Acting anonymously, while sometimes better than doing nothing, is usually not a very
effective tactic for solving problems. It may even fail as a defense against retaliation.
One should not exaggerate the frequency with which serious clashes occur between engineers
and their managers. Most disagreements are settled amicably. The tough cases are those in which
the engineer disagrees with the considered policies of top management or where the latter routinely
back lower-level managers in disputes with their subordinates.

7.4 DISCUSSION QUESTIONS

1. Summarize what you see as the relative advantages and disadvantages of using an “open
door,” appealing to an ombudsman, and submitting a written statement (quasi-
anonymously as in the IBM “Speak Up” channel). Are there certain types of problems
suited to each of these methods of dispute resolution?
2. Give some examples, real or hypothetical, of situations where correcting problems at an
earlier stage would have been very much less costly than delaying corrective action.
3. Give some examples of situations in which contacting the media at any stage of the dispute
would be inappropriate and other situations where such a step must be seriously considered.
4. Consider the following situation: In the course of designing a new computer workstation,
it is necessary to choose the size of the memory cache to be used. This will affect the
performance of the system. A dispute arises in which the three engineers working on this
aspect of the design have arrived at a solution that they believe to be optimal. But their
manager disagrees sharply. The engineers all feel that the manager is being unreasonable
and arbitrary, not reacting rationally to their arguments. The consequences of a bad
decision might have very detrimental effects on the company’s well-being, as competition
is very keen in this field. What should the engineers do? For various plausible scenarios,
discuss the ethical obligations and the practical considerations involved.
7.5 SOURCES
The rights of employees, and abuse of those rights by employers, as well as information about
such mechanisms as ombudsmen and the open door for resolving problems internally, are
discussed in Ewing (1977), Westin (1980), and Stone (1975). Ombudsmen are also the subject of
Silver (1978). The “private line” approach of New England Telephone is described by Harriman
(1974).
Background information about IBM procedures can be found in HBR (1976) and in Foy
(1974). In addition to published material, my treatment of IBM’s dispute-handling methods is
based on conversations with several acquaintances who are IBM employees.
The need for improvements in NRC procedures is documented in Leahy (1978). The survey
made by NRC is NRC (1978), the proposal by Hogan & Hartson, which led to the DPO procedures,
is Hogan & Hartson (1977), and the NRC regulations are NRC (1980). The updated regulations
are in NRC (1991). My critique of the original draft of the regulations is Unger (1980b).
Information on how the system has been working is in NRC (1987). The misuse of secrecy is
illustrated in DeVolpi (1981), Primak and von Hippel (1974), Brooks (1980), and Unger (1982).
Discussions of strategies for dissenting professional employees are in Unger (1979), Raven-
Hansen (1980), and Perry (1981b). The Kapitsa case is reported on in Salisbury (1956). A valuable
source of advice for prospective whistleblowers, prepared by GAP and the Project on Government
Procurement is in Stewart (1989). Interesting ideas on conflict resolution are in Rapoport (1974).
CHAPTER EIGHT: IN CONCLUSION
8.1 THE NATURE OF COMPLICATED ENTERPRISES

A characteristic of our industrial society, in which the enormous power of modern technology
greatly amplifies both our ability to do good and our ability to do harm, is that the complexity of
many enterprises necessitates a great deal of division of labor. Furthermore, no large project can
be successfully carried out in a purely hierarchical manner, with each level of management passing
commands down to the next lower level to be executed without question. Unforeseen difficulties
are inevitable in executing some of the commands. Problems are likely in the interfaces between
subdivisions of the project. Some of the specifications may be found to be impractical to satisfy.
Opportunities for substantial improvements may be discovered. Significant changes in the overall
project targets may be required or found to be highly desirable.
Thus, at all levels, judgments must be made that have widespread ramifications in all
directions. The end results are shaped by this diffuse process in which the origins of crucial
decisions may be obscure. It is often exceedingly difficult in identify those responsible for serious
mistakes, particularly for errors of omission. Evasion of responsibility has become an important
skill among managers and politicians, as is epitomized in such current terms as “deniability” and
“the need not to know.” Recent history has furnished us with all too many instances where the
responsibility for disastrous consequences has been diffused among large numbers of not
particularly villainous people.
Assuming that we are not willing—or able—to revert to a simpler world in which such
complexities do not exist, what can be done? Although some relief might be possible through
improved methods of organization incorporating various procedural safeguards, it is unlikely that
mechanical solutions would suffice. An essential factor is an enhanced sense of responsibility on
the part of individuals. While this applies to people in every occupational category, the focus here
is on the engineer, who is often in a pivotal position.

8.2 TEAM PLAY, ORGANIZATIONAL REFORM

AND ENGINEERING EDUCATION

It is crucial to distinguish between true “team spirit,” which makes possible the cooperation
necessary for the successful accomplishment of beneficial tasks requiring the work of many
people, and blind obedience to orders, which opens the way to a wide variety of catastrophes. The
ideal team player feels responsible for the outcome of the entire operation, including incidental
side effects and the validity of its objectives. Such an individual will endeavor to understand as
much as possible about the project and will, as appropriate, raise questions, point out problems,
criticize plans and procedures, and offer constructive suggestions. This should of course be done
in an orderly, competent manner, so as not to be counterproductive. Engineers whose criticisms
and suggestions are almost invariably invalid thereby display professional incompetence.
Unfortunately, as illustrated in earlier chapters, some organizations function so as to
discourage conscientious behavior on the part of their engineer employees. Others are more
enlightened, and still others may become so. Management reform is well worth attempting, and
even partial success would be all to the good. But there seem to be fundamental obstacles making
it unlikely that a complete solution to the problems of concern here can be found along that path.
An alternative is to rely on heroic behavior by individuals on a large scale. While occasions
calling for heroism will always arise, it is unwise to count on it routinely when so much is at stake.
Sensitizing engineers to the importance of their societal functions is nevertheless a worthy
enterprise. It should include formal codes on engineering ethics and technology-society issues,
occasional special colloquia, and the inclusion within regular engineering courses of discussions
of relevant topics that have professional, as opposed to purely technical, implications (e.g., the
need to consider, from the outset, the testability of certain systems). Continuing education along
these lines can be carried out by professional societies via articles in their journals and sessions at
technical meetings.

8.3 LAW-BASED SUPPORT FOR RESPONSIBLE ENGINEERS

But since the previous two approaches are not likely to be sufficient, it is necessary to develop
external institutions that can effectively help employee engineers to protect the public interest. One
such institution is the regulatory agency, which now plays an important role in this area. However,
its effectiveness is significantly limited by factors including subtle individual biases, various forms
of corruption, political pressure, and inadequate funding. Where an evolving, complex technology
is involved, no outside group can really keep track of what is going on without the cooperation of
those actually doing the technical work.
Although initially of little value, recent court decisions in such cases as Geary, Murray, and
Pierce (see Chapter 6) indicate that the common law is evolving to the point where it might indeed
be of material assistance to the ethical engineer. Furthermore, statutes such as the Michigan law
and the federal amendments designed to protect those assisting certain agencies (see Section 6.2)
may strengthen this pillar. Just how effective this help will be is not yet clear, given the outcome
of the Baslow case (see Section 6.6).
Another law-based mechanism is the licensing process for engineers (see Section 6.8). This is
intended to impose standards of competence and integrity on those engineers whose work directly
affects the public. However, thus far it has been important in only a few aspects of the profession,
principally that involving large construction projects. Before licensing can become more widely
effective, it will be necessary to upgrade and modernize standards, to make them relevant to a
wider segment of the profession, to eliminate the industry exemption, and to reorient the attitudes
of licensing boards. The boards must revamp their ethics codes and become actively involved on
behalf of ethical engineers. Better coordination among the various state boards would also be
desirable.

8.4 ENGINEERING SOCIETIES—A KEY ELEMENT

Their own professional societies are potentially the most effective allies of responsible
engineers. They can act indirectly by pressing for improvements in the institutions discussed
above, and they can be of direct assistance in a number of important ways. One is to define the
professional responsibilities of engineers through the development of ethics codes. Much has been
done in recent years to redirect such codes away from narrow, “guild”-type matters, mainly of
interest to independent consultants, and toward a concern for the proper practice of the profession
in the public interest. This process, by no means complete, is still going on.
Direct support for engineers who, by virtue of adherence to ethics codes, thereby encounter
problems with employers is an area now being cautiously explored by some societies, notably the
IEEE (see Section 5.3). The basis for such support is an investigation of the circumstances,
followed by the preparation of a report. Publication of such reports can have a significant effect in
deterring the same or other employers from pressuring engineers to behave unethically. This
approach is patterned after the analogous process that has long been used with considerable success
by the AAUP to defend academic freedom (see Section 5.2). Other support measures being
experimented with or being seriously considered by societies are awards for exemplary behavior
by engineers under stress, provision of legal support services, and an honor roll for employers who
generally abide by employment guidelines established by a consortium of societies (see Section
5.4).
There are several forces operating to attenuate the effectiveness of engineering societies in
performing the functions outlined above. One is of an inertial nature, since large, cumbersome
organizations are being asked to take on a new set of responsibilities, in addition to their traditional
areas of activity. The fact that a large portion of the leadership of engineering societies is drawn
from the ranks of management causes further problems. Not unnaturally, such people often feel
somewhat uncomfortable about proposed procedures intended to enhance the autonomy of
employee engineers. Only after careful consideration of the matter does it become evident that this
does not represent a loss to management but rather, in many respects, a gain.
Given the difficulties involved, it is clear that engineers will have to make their voices heard
more effectively within their own societies if they are to achieve the status necessary for the
fulfillment of their societal responsibilities.

8.5 SOURCES

Several surveys of courses in the area of technology and society are Hawk (1976), Roy (1976),
and Heitowit (1976). Articles concerned with the education of engineers with respect to their
ethical responsibilities are by Paschkis (1976), Baum (1980c), Martin (1981), and McQueen
(1980). An interesting view of the role of engineers, is presented by Schinzinger (1980). The need
for engineers to have rights commensurate with their responsibilities is presented by Flores
(1980b).
 SUPPLEMENTARY LINKS

The two lists that follow contain web links to resources that might be of use to readers: two
dozen or so engineering ethics codes; a dozen or so sites with resources related to engineering
ethics.
The list of codes is not meant to be comprehensive. For example, many states have their own
engineering societies—as do some groups of engineering students—in a variety of specialty areas;
some of those are “freestanding,” others amount to chapters of national organizations. Many have
adopted the codes of the corresponding national societies wholesale; some have adapted tenets
piecemeal.
For the most part, these are US-based organizations. One notable exception is the World
Federation of Engineering Societies (WFES), which is affiliated with the United Nations
Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO):

http://www.wfeo.org/ethics/

An online list of codes, including links, can be found here:

http://www.onlineethics.org/Resources.aspx?resource-type=29_810

On the list of resources, two bear particular emphasis:

The IEEE Ethics History Repository (IEHR):

http://ethw.org/IEEE_Ethics_History_Repository_(IEHR)

And a collection of ethics case studies at Texas A&M University:

http://ethics.tamu.edu/ethicscasestudies.htm

These links are not meant to imply my endorsement of all of these codes and resources. All
material remains the property of the copyright holders. My apologies for any dead links—all of
these were functional in August of 2017.

Ethics Codes

http://www.acm.org/about/se-code
https://www.aeecenter.org/sites/default/files/styles/advertisement_255x255/public/modules/imag
e/pdf/CEMCodeofEthics.pdf
https://www.aiaa.org/CodeOfEthics/
https://www.aiche.org/about/code-ethics
http://www.ans.org/about/coe/
http://www.asce.org/code-of-ethics/
https://www.ascet.org/Ethics
https://www.asem.org/Code-of-Ethics
https://www.asme.org/getmedia/9eb36017-fa98-477e-8a73-77b04b36d410/p157_ethics.aspx
http://www.asse.org/about/code-of-professional-conduct/
https://www.asee.org/member-resources/resources/Code_of_Ethics.pdf
http://www.bmes.org/files/CodeEthics04.pdf
https://www.embs.org/ethics/
http://www.ieee.org/about/corporate/governance/p7-8.html
http://www.iise.org/details.aspx?id=299
https://www.nspe.org/resources/ethics/code-ethics
http://pledge-of-the-computing-professional.org/home-page/the-oath
http://www.raeng.org.uk/policy/engineering-ethics/ethics
http://www.resna.org/get-certified/code-ethics/code-ethics
http://www.sname.org/sname/thesociety/codeofethics
http://www.spe.org/about/professional-code-of-conduct.php
https://spie.org/conferences-and-exhibitions/authors-and-presenters/spie-code-of-ethics?SSO=1
UNESCO Partner: http://www.wfeo.org/ethics/

Resources

http://www.aaes.org/resources
https://csulb.libguides.com/c.php?g=93854&p=2426847
http://engineering.missouri.edu/mae/files/engineering_ethics1.pdf
http://ethics.tamu.edu/ethicscasestudies.htm
http://ethw.org/IEEE_Ethics_History_Repository_(IEHR)
http://mspe.com/resources/#ethics
https://www.nae.edu/19582/Bridge/168631/168676.aspx
https://www.nap.edu/author/CEES/national-academy-of-engineering/center-for-engineering-
ethics-and-society
https://sites.tufts.edu/eeseniordesignhandbook/2013/engineering-ethics-2/
US sues NSPE (1978); Canon of Ethics found, by Supreme Court, to violate antitrust law:
https://supreme.justia.com/cases/federal/us/435/679/case.html
https://www.uefoundation.org/
 APPENDICES

A.1 Abbreviations
A.2 DC-10 Case—The Applegate Memorandum
A. 3 BART Case Documents
A.3.1 Oliver Letter
A.3.2 IEEE BART Case Brief
A.4 Edgerton Case Reports
A.4.1 CSIT Report
A.4.2 MCC Report
A.5 Ethics Codes
A.5.1 Model Ethics Code
A.5.2 IEEE Code of Ethics
A.5.3 ABET Code of Ethics of Engineers
A.5.4 Code of Ethics, Association of Professional Engineers,
Province of Ontario
A.5.5 Slowter-Oldenquist Core Concepts
in Engineering Ethics
A.5.6 AAES Model Guide for Professional Conduct
A.5.7 National Society of Professional Engineers
Code of Ethics for Engineers
A.5.8 ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct
A.5.9 Code of Ethics, American Institute of
Chemical Engineers
A.5.10 Code of Ethics, American Society Mechanical
Engineers: Fundamental Principles
A.6 Guidelines to Professional Employment
For Engineers and Scientists
A.7 Ethics Investigations—Ways and Means
A.l ABBREVIATIONS

AAAS American Association for Advancement of Science

AAES American Association of Engineering Societies
AAUP American Association of University Professors
ABET Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology
ACEC American Council of Engineering Consultants
ACRS Advisory Committee on Reactor Safeguards
ACS American Chemical Society
AEC Atomic Energy Commission
AIChE American Institute of Chemical Engineers
AIEE American Institute of Electrical Engineers
AIME American Institute of Mining Engineers
ANSI American National Standards Institute
APS American Physical Society
ASCE American Society of Civil Engineers
ASEE American Society of Engineering Education
ASME American Society of Mechanical Engineers
BART Bay Area Rapid Transit
BOD Board of Directors
CSFR Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (AAAS)
CSIT Committee on Social Implications of Technology (IEEE)
CSPE California Society of Professional Engineers
CU Consumers Union
ECPD Engineers’ Council for Professional Development (now ABET)
EPA Environmental Protection Agency
EXCOM Executive Committee of Board of Directors (IEEE)
FAA Federal Aviation Agency
FAS Federation of American Scientists
FERC Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
IEEE Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
MCC Member Conduct Committee (IEEE)
NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration
NCEE National Council of Engineering Examiners
NEH National Endowment for the Humanities
NRC Nuclear Regulatory Commission
NSF National Science Foundation
NSPE National Society of Professional Engineers
OSHA Occupational Safety and Health Administration
PE Professional Engineer(in)
SSIT Society on Social Implications of Technology (IEEE)
USAB United States Activities Board (IEEE)
VEPCO Virginia Electric and Power Corporation
A.2 DC-10 CASE—THE APPLEGATE MEMORANDUM

27 June 1972
Subject: DC-10 Future Accident Liability
The potential for long-term Convair liability on the DC-10 has caused me increased concern
for several reasons.

1. The fundamental safety of the cargo door latching system has been progressively degraded
since the program began in 1968.
2. The airplane demonstrated an inherent susceptibility to catastrophic failure when exposed
to explosive decompression of the cargo compartment in 1970 ground tests.
3. Douglas has taken an increasingly “hard-line” with regards to the relative division of design
responsibility between Douglas and Convair during change cost negotiations.
4. The growing “consumerism” environment indicates increasing Convair exposure to
accident liability claims in the years ahead.
Let me expand my thoughts in more detail. At the beginning of the DC-10 program it was
Douglas’ declared intention to design the DC-10 cargo doors and door latch systems much like the
DC-8s and -9s. Documentation in April 1968 said that they would be hydraulically operated. In
October and November of 1968 they changed to electrical actuation which is fundamentally less
positive. At that time we discussed internally the wisdom of this change and recognized the
degradation of safety, however, we also recognized that it was Douglas’ prerogative to make such
conceptual system design decisions whereas it was our responsibility as a sub-contractor, to carry
out the detail design within the framework of their decision. It never occurred to us at that point
that Douglas would attempt to shift the responsibility for these kinds of conceptual system
decisions to Convair as they appear to be now doing in our change negotiations, since we did not
then nor at any later date have any voice in such decisions. The lines of authority and responsibility
between Douglas and Convair engineering were clearly defined and understood by both of us at
that time.
In July 1970 DC-10 Number 2 was being pressure tested in the “hangar” by Douglas, on the
second shift, without electrical power in the airplane. This meant that the electrically powered
cargo door actuators and latch position warning switches were inoperative. The “green” second
shift test crew manually cranked the latching system closed but failed to fully engage the latches
on the forward door. They also failed to note that the external latch “lock” position indicator
showed that the latches were not fully engaged. Subsequently, when the increasing cabin pressure
reached about 3 psi (pounds per square inch) the forward door blew open. The resulting explosive
decompression failed the cabin floor downward rendering tail controls, plumbing, wiring, etc.
which passed through the floor, inoperative. This inherent failure mode is catastrophic, since it
results in the loss of control of the horizontal and vertical tail and the aft center engine. We
informally studied and discussed with Douglas alternative corrective actions including blow out
panels in the cabin floor which would provide a predictable cabin floor failure mode which would
accommodate the explosive loss of cargo compartmental pressure without loss of tail surface and
aft center engine control. It seemed to us then prudent that such a change was indicated since


Reprinted by permission of attorney Lee S. Kreindler.
“Murphy’s Law” being what it is, cargo doors will come open sometime during the twenty years
of use ahead for the DC-10.
Douglas concurrently studied alternative corrective actions, in-house, and made a unilateral
decision to incorporate vent doors in the cargo doors. This “Band-Aid fix” not only failed to correct
the inherent DC-10 catastrophic failure mode of cabin floor collapse, but the detail design of the
vent door change further degraded the safety of the original door latch system by replacing the
direct, short-coupled and stiff latch “lock” indicator system with a complex and relatively flexible
linkage. (This change was accomplished entirely by Douglas with the exception of the assistance
of one Convair engineer who was sent to Long Beach at their request to help their vent door system
design team.)
This progressive deterioration of the fundamental safety of the cargo door latch system since
1968 has exposed us to increasing liability claims.
On June 12, 1972 in Detroit, the cargo door latch electrical actuator system in DC-10 # 5 failed
to fully engage the latches of the left rear cargo door and the complex and relatively flexible latch
“lock system failed to make it impossible to close the vent door. When the door blew open before
the DC-10 reached 12,000 feet altitude the cabin floor collapsed disabling most of the control to
the tail surfaces and the aft center engine. It is only chance that the airplane was not lost. Douglas
has again studied alternative corrective actions and appears to be applying more “Band-Aids”. So
far they have directed us to install small one-inch diameter, transparent inspection windows
through which you can view latch “lock pin” position, they are revising the rigging instructions to
increase “lock pin” engagement and then plan to reinforce and stiffen the flexible linkage.
It might well be asked why not make the cargo door latch system really “fool-proof” and leave
the cabin floor alone. Assuming it is possible to make the latch “fool-proof” this doesn’t solve the
fundamental deficiency in the airplane. A cargo compartment can experience explosive
decompression from a number of causes such as: sabotage, mid-air collision, explosion of
combustibles in the compartment and perhaps others, any one of which may result in damage
which would not be fatal to the DC-10 were it not for the tendency of the cabin floor to collapse.
The responsibility for primary damage from these kinds of causes would clearly not be our
responsibility, however, we might very well be held responsible for the secondary damage, that is
the floor collapse which could cause the loss of the aircraft. It might be asked why we did not
originally detail design the cabin floor to withstand the loads of cargo compartment decompression
or design blowout panels in the cabin floors to fail in a safe and predictable way.
I can only say that our contract with Douglas provided that Douglas would furnish all design
criteria and loads (which in fact they did) and that we would design to satisfy these design criteria
and loads (which in fact we did). There is nothing in our experience history which would have led
us to expect that the DC-10 cabin floor would be inherently susceptible to catastrophic failure
when exposed to explosive decompression of the cargo compartment, and I must presume that
there is nothing in Douglas’ experience history which would have led them to expect that the
airplane would have this inherent characteristic or they would have provided for this in their loads
and criteria which they furnished to us.
My only criticism of Douglas in this regard is that once this inherent weakness was
demonstrated by the July 1970 test failure, they did not take immediate steps to correct it. It seems
to be inevitable that, in the twenty years ahead of us, DC-10 cargo doors will come open and I
would expect this to usually result in the loss of the airplane. This fundamental failure mode has
been discussed in the past and is being discussed again in the bowels of both the Douglas and
Convair organizations. It appears however that Douglas is waiting and hoping for government
directions or regulations in the hope of passing costs on to us or their customers.
If you can judge from Douglas’ position during ongoing contract change negotiations they
may feel that any liability incurred in the meantime for loss of life, property and equipment may
be legally passed on to us.
It is recommended that overtures be made at the highest management level to persuade
Douglas to immediately make a decision to incorporate changes in the DC-10 which will correct
the fundamental cabin floor catastrophic failure mode. Correction will take a good bit of time,
hopefully there is time before the national Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) or the FAA ground
the airplane which would have disastrous effects upon sales and production both near and long
term. This corrective action becomes more expensive every day as production continues. However
it may well be less than the cost of damages resulting from the loss of one plane load of people.

F. D. APPLEGATE
Director of Product Engineering
A.3 BART CASE DOCUMENTS

A.3.1 Oliver Letter

Hewlett-Packard Company
1501 Page Mill Road
Palo Alto, California 94304

12 March 1973

Bernard M. Oliver
Vice-President
Research and Development

Dear Sy:

You may have heard that I was a member of the recent Senate Panel charged with the
evaluation of the safety aspects of the BART Automatic Train Control System. A copy of our
report is attached. I must ask you to be forgiving of its poor organization and typographical errors.
Our time schedule did not permit polishing the prose.
I am pleased that many of our recommendations are being carried out. I am also disturbed that
one in particular is apparently being ignored by Westinghouse. I refer to recommendation 5A.
The Fremont accident was caused by a partial short circuit that developed across the crystal
in the 27 mph speed command oscillator in car 143 causing it to generate a 70 mph command.
These oscillators employ a non-inverting emitter coupled amplifier with feedback via the crystal
from the second collector to the base of the first transistor, which is connected to ground by an
anti-resonant LC circuit. When the crystal developed a resistive shunt the circuit oscillated at the
LC resonant frequency.
Although the crystals are now being X-rayed to detect improper mounting in their cans, this
step alone will not ensure safe operation. The crystal could be shunted by metallic whisker growth
after a few months or years. Leakage paths could develop on the PC board. It is simply poor
practice, in a circuit where frequency shift can be dangerous, to have a second resonant system
that can determine the frequency if the crystal fails. Our recommendation would remove this
hazard.
I find it difficult to understand how a company like Westinghouse, with so much at stake,
would balk at such a relatively inexpensive fix. I would think simple pride would compel those in
charge to correct a hazard that already produced one accident.
There are other aspects of the train control system that suggest that the design did not enjoy
the attention of your top people. In some instances it is not clear whether the fault was in the
specifications or in their interpretation, but the result was the same: BART did not get the best
system modern technology could provide for the price that was bid. In view of the growing interest
in public transit systems and the critical role of BART in future decisions by other communities,
it is lamentable that the BART system is not a more shining example of modern system design.
Let me cite you a few examples:


Reprinted with permission from California State Senator Alfred E. Alquist
 1. Multiplex System. There are about 10,000 printed circuit boards in the BART system that
would not be there if individual cable pairs had been run to the wayside stations. Most of
these will fail over the next 20 years. Cable pairs would not, and are not that expensive.
2. Car borne speed command circuitry. This is unbelievably and unnecessarily complicated.
Much of it is fail safe but the reliability still suffers from the complexity. It would have
been far simpler to have used a speed code in which the number of ones in the code group
was a direct measure of the speed (except that all ones would be interpreted as zero speed
as would all zeros). All the crystal oscillators would be eliminated along with many other
back-up circuits.
3. Speed profiles. These should have been flexible so the protection length behind a train
could be extended under poor rail adhesion conditions. This would permit a performance
mode in which only the accelerations were reduced, rather than the top speed, thus giving
greater throughput in slippery weather. At some extra complication the entire profiling
could be switched to allow automatic operation in reverse runs.
4. Data degradation. It seems ridiculous to transmit occupancy by zone (a group of adjacent
blocks) back to the central control rather than occupancy by block, since this could have
been done at no increase in cost. The crude display presently given of the state of the
system handicaps both the central computer and the operators. If and when BART reaches
its planned full scale operation, the whole display will be lit up red and the location of
trains will be further confused as adjacent zones become occupied. Why not give the
computers and the operators a decent picture?
5. Computer phobia. As mentioned in the report, very little use is made of the computer as a
backup system. It could be better at this function than all the central control operators put
together, except under some unforeseeable situation. I get the impression that this whole
aspect of the system was designed by a group that feared computers rather than one that
knew how to use them to full advantage. Incidentally, I would venture the opinion that the
whole control job could be done by a much smaller computer. The data rates are just not
very great.
6. Traction system. Although series motors are commonly used, shunt motors offer several
important advantages such as better speed regulation, simplified switching to regenerative
braking, and automatic jerk limitation at the end of dynamic braking. A great deal of the
complexity in the propulsion system circuitry arises out of having to compensate for the
inherent characteristics of the wrong motor. This part of the system is rather a mess. One
non-linear servo loop after another all interacting. Patches on patches department.
I mention all these points not merely to carp, but in the hope that future systems may enjoy a
more integrated, simplified and elegant design.
Sy, I hope to see you at the IEEE convention, at the President’s reception if nowhere else.
Perhaps you may have had a chance by then to discuss these observations and we can chat about
them.
In the meantime,

Best personal regards,

(signed) B. M. Oliver
Dr. Seymour W. Herwald Vice President, Westinghouse Electric Co. Corporate Engineering,
Gateway 3 Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania 15222
bcc: Senator Alquist, Steve Larson, Clarence Lovell, Bill Brobeck, Len Cutler, Dave Cochran
A.3.2 IEEE BART Case Brief2

(Filed on Jan. 9,1975 in Superior Court of California for the County of Alameda by Attorneys
Frank Cummings and Jill Cummings in the case of Hjortsvang vs. San Francisco Bay Area Rapid
Transit District and ten Does)

I. Statement

This brief is filed as amicus curiae because, on the basis of the pleadings, it is clear that rulings
in this case will involve important questions concerning the proper ethics of an engineer in the
employ of a public employer.
The Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers (IEEE) is the largest engineering society
in the nation and has a direct concern with the establishment, maintenance, and recognition
(including governmental and judicial recognition) of ethics within the engineering field.
This brief is submitted with two limited aims: first, to inform this Court of the existence and
terms of established standards and codes of ethics for engineers, in the employment context
generally and particularly in the context of public employment; and, second, to seek the Court’s
recognition that such standards and codes are relevant and material to this case for the reasons
discussed below

II. Summary of Argument

This Court is expected to rule, as the trial proceeds, on questions of law, and this amicus curiae
brief is addressed solely to those rulings.
Within that framework, we urge this Court to rule:
1. As to Admissibility of Evidence: That evidence of professional ethics of engineers, as
outlined herein and as further developed by the parties, is relevant, material, and
admissible;
2. As to Any Motions for Judgment: That, in consideration of any motion to dismiss or for
judgment by this Court, the Court should rule that an engineer is obligated to protect the
public safety, that every contract of employment of an engineer contains within it an
implied term to the effect that such engineer will protect the public safety, and that a
discharge of an engineer solely or in substantial part because he acted to protect the public
safety is a breach of such implied term; and
3. As to Jury Instructions: In any charge to the jury herein, this Court should instruct the jury
that if it finds, based upon the evidence, that an engineer has been discharged solely or in
substantial part because of his bona fide efforts to conform to recognized ethics of his

2
Reprinted by permission from Technology and Society, No. 12, Dec. 1975, published by the IEEE Committee
on Social Implications of Technology.

IEEE, moreover, is familiar with and can supply expert evidence concerning the ethical codes of engineers.

IEEE takes no position on the merits and the claims, as IEEE has no direct evidence to offer as to what the
claimants did, what defendants did, or why.
 profession involving his duty to protect the public safety, then such discharge was in
breach of an implied term of his contract of employment.
We base this position upon the cases, statutes and ethical codes discussed below.

Point I

Professional Ethics Are Material and Relevant

California judicially recognizes that an employee may not be arbitrarily discharged where the
discharge would be inconsistent with the public good, even if his employment contract is
terminable at will. In Petermann v. International Brotherhood of Teamsters, 174 Cal. App. 2d
(1959), it was held that an employer may not discharge an employee because the employee refuses
to commit perjury. The public has too great a stake in the integrity of the judicial process to permit
such a discharge.1
In Petermann, the District Court of Appeal for the Second District noted that the contract of
employment did not provide for any fixed period of duration and that such a relationship is
generally terminable at will, “for any reason whatsoever.” But it also noted that such a right of
discharge “may be limited by statute” or “by considerations of public policy.” The Court then said
at page 188:

By “public policy” is intended that principle of law which holds that no citizen can lawfully
do that which has a tendency to be injurious to the public or against the public order. . . .
[emphasis by the Court]

The Court then noted that, because the State has a declared policy against perjury, “the civil
law, too, must deny the employer his generally unlimited right to discharge an employee whose
employment is for an unspecified duration, when the reason for the dismissal is the employee’s
refusal to commit perjury.” The Court said that “the law must encourage and not discourage
truthful testimony. The public policy of this state requires that every impediment, however remote
to the above objective, must be struck down when encountered.” Id. at 188,189. The lower court
having dismissed, the Court of Appeals reversed.
When questions of public safety are at stake, an engineer’s code of ethics stands in the same
position as the laws against perjury. If a code of ethics properly requires the protection of the
public, a discharge because an employee insisted on following that code would be inconsistent
with the public good. Thus compliance with such a code must be deemed an implied term of the
employment contract.2
California statutes clearly recognize an engineer’s obligation to protect the public. California
Government Code, Section 835 waives the State’s sovereign immunity and makes a public entity
liable for conditions dangerous to the public. Section 840.2(b) of the same Code makes a public
employee liable if he falls to take adequate measures to protect the public from such conditions.
That section obviously encompasses any and all engineers engaged in public employment.
The same recognition is reflected in California statutes governing licensing3 of professional
engineers, including electrical and mechanical engineers. California Business and Professional
Code Section 6730 states that the purpose of that Code is “to safeguard life, health, property and
public welfare.” And Section 6775 provides that a licensed engineer may be disciplined—indeed
his registration may be revoked—for “negligence, incompetency in his practice,” or if he “has not
a good character”
What is “negligent” under ordinary common law principles, is determined by the scope of the
negligent person’s duties, and those duties are in part determined by what is generally recognized
to be ethical.
“Incompetency in his practice” involves failure to adhere to generally accepted standards of
conduct and must be taken to include ethical standards, if those standards are widely publicized
and generally recognized. And, most important, the notion of “good character” particularly in a
professional sense, certainly involves adherence to generally accepted ethical standards, and
particularly standards of professional ethics.
California law, then, mandates adherence to ethical and moral standards. Engineers have
adopted (see Point II below) proper ethical codes to complement statutory codes. We urge this
Court on the Petermann principle to recognize (1) that an engineer has an overriding duty to protect
the public, and (2) that California law, including statutes and case law, supports the drafting of
ethical codes, makes the terms of generally accepted professional ethics relevant and material in a
case such as this, and effects a legally enforceable incorporation of such codes into engineering
contracts of public employment, insofar as such codes are widely acknowledged to be necessary
for the protection of the public.

Point II

Engineering Professional Codes Require Protection of the Public

1. A Common Thread: The Duty to Protect the Public. The various professional engineering
societies have, for many years, adopted and published codes of professional ethics. Such
codes contain at least one common thread—that the engineer owes an overriding duty to
protect the public safety.
For example, the Canons of Ethics for Engineers was prepared and adopted by the Engineers’
Council for Professional Development (ECPD. Now called ABET—Accreditation Board for
Engineering and Technology) in I946.4 These canons were then adopted by the Board of Directors
of the National Society of Professional Engineers (NSPE) in October 1946, and were published in
NSPE’s Journal, The American Engineer, in its November 1947 issue.

Section 4 of these Canons provided:

He [the engineer] will have due regard for the safety of life and health of public employees
who may be affected by the work for which he is responsible.
This code has an even longer history, having been discussed initially in the May 1935 issue
of The American Engineer, although the code was formally adopted in 1946, in a form differing
little from the present code.5
NSPE’s own code of ethics (distinct from ECPD’s) was adopted in 1964 and published in the
September 1964 issue of The American Engineer.6 This code provided, in Section 2:
Section 2—The Engineer will have proper regard for the safety, health, and welfare of the
public in the performance of his professional duties. If his engineering judgment is overruled by
nontechnical authority, he will clearly point out the consequences. He will notify the proper
authority of any observed conditions which endanger public safety and health.

a. He will regard his duty to the public welfare as paramount.

b. He shall seek opportunities to be of constructive service in civic affairs and work for the
advancement of the safety, health and well-being of his community.
c. He will not complete, sign, or seal plans and/or specifications that are not of a design safe
to the public health and welfare and in conformity with accepted engineering standards. If the
client or employer insists on such unprofessional conduct, he shall notify the proper authorities
and withdraw from further service on the project.

We emphasize in this regard the code’s injunction to the engineer that he must “notify the
proper authority” of anything he observes which may “endanger public safety.” We think it fair to
say that the ultimate proper authority in the case of public employment is the public itself.
ECPD, meanwhile, adopted revised canons in September 1963, which stated, in the very
opening paragraph:

1.1—The Engineer will have proper regard for the safety, health and welfare of the public in
the performance of his professional duties.
These canons were adopted by a variety of professional engineering societies. The American
Society of Mechanical Engineers, whose membership now totals close to 70,000, ratified these
canons in 1963, and they were published in ASME’s magazine, Mechanical Engineering.
The same principles are carried forward to the current day. For example, a set of “Guidelines
to Professional Employment of Engineers and Scientists” published by the IEEE Board of
Directors in its national monthly magazine, Spectrum, in April 1973, contains the following
paragraph:
The professional employee should have due regard for the safety, life, and health of the public
and fellow employees in all work for which he/she is responsible. Where the technical adequacy
of a process or product is involved, he/she should protect the public and his/her employer by
withholding approval of plans that do not meet accepted professional standards and by presenting
clearly the consequences to be expected if his/her professional judgment is not followed.
2. General Acceptance and Publication of the Common Thread. Because the cited codes have
been widely circulated and generally endorsed, it seems eminently reasonable to conclude that
every engineer is aware of his obligation to the public. The guidelines published by IEEE, for
example, have also been endorsed by over twenty so¬cieties8.
Even before the engineer’s obligation to serve the public was fully codified in writing,
moreover, there was an historical recognition of that obligation, discussed in professional
journals.9

Conclusion

Based upon the foregoing, we submit and we urge this Court to acknowledge that an engineer
has an overriding obligation to protect the public.
Specifically, we urge this Court:
(1) To rule that evidence of professional ethics is relevant, material and admissible in this
case; and
 (2) To rule, as to any motions for judgment or any jury instructions, that an engineer is
obligated to protect the public safety, that an engineer’s contract of employment includes as a
matter of law, an implied term that such engineer will protect the public safety, and that a discharge
of an engineer solely or in substantial part because he acted to protect the public safety constitutes
a breach of such implied term.

NOTES

1. See also Slochower v. Board of Higher Education of the City of New York, 350 U.S. 551
(1956).
2. This court may, but need not, decide the extent to which the principles of this case would
be applicable in the case of a private employer. The complaint in this case alleges that a
public employer discharged public employees because those employees informed the
public of a danger to the public safety. In a very real sense, the public at large was the
“employer” of the plaintiffs herein; whatever may be the limits of the duties of public
disclosure by the engineer in private employment, there is clearly a higher duty in the case
of public employment.
3. Not all members of IEEE or other professional engineering societies are (nor are they all
required to be) licensed to practice engineering in their home states. The ethical standards
covering both licensed engineers and other engineers are the same, and this is particularly
true where both types of engineers are working together on the same project, as was the
case, we understand, in the BART situation.
4. ECPD is an organization founded by a group of professional engineering societies, whose
participants and affiliates now include the American Institute of Aeronautics and
Astronautics, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, the American Institute of
Industrial Engineers, the American Institute of Mining, Metallurgical and Petroleum
Engineers, the American Nuclear Society, the American Society of Agricultural
Engineers, the American Society of Civil Engineers, the American Society for
Engineering Education, the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers’, National Council of Engineering Examiners, the
Society of Automotive Engineers, National Institute of Ceramic Engineers, and the
National Society of Professional Engineers.
5. The ethical proposal originally published by NSPE in the May 1935 issue of The American
Engineer included the following: “The engineer shall at all times and under all conditions
seek to promote the public welfare by safeguarding life, health and property.”
6. NSPE, when it published its code in 1964, had a membership of 62,038 engineers, and its
journal was circulated, in addition, to over 1,000 libraries and institutions. Its membership
today is approximately 70,000 engineers.
7. A much earlier code, adopted and published by the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers (IEEE’s predecessor) in 1912 provided: “An engineer should consider it his
duty to make every effort to remedy dangerous defects in apparatus or structures or
dangerous conditions of operation, and should bring these to the attention of his client or
employer” The “employer,” in a case such as this, is first the public entity and ultimately
the California general public which is the entity’s own employer. IEEE supplemented the
1912 code in 1974 by a new code which includes the following: “Engineers shall,
 Fulfilling their responsibilities to the community: (1) protect the safety, health and welfare
of the public and speak out against abuses in these areas affecting the public interest.. ..”
8. The endorsing societies include: American Association of Cost Engineers, American
Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, American Institute of Chemical Engineers,
American Institute of Chemists, American Institute of Industrial Engineers, American
Institute of Professional Geologists, American Nuclear Society, American Society of
Agricultural Engineers, American Society of Engineering Education, American Society
of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, American Society of
Quality Control, Data Processing Management Association, Engineering Societies of New
England, Inc., Engineers’ Council for Professional Development, Engineers Joint Council,
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Instrument Society of America, Institute
of Traffic Engineers, National Association of Corrosion Engineers, National Institute of
Ceramic Engineers, National Society of Professional Engineers, Society for Technical
Communications, Society for Experimental Stress Analysis, Society of Fire Protection
Engineers, Society of Women Engineers, Technical Association of the Pulp & Paper
Industry.
9. The code of ethics of the NSPE, for example, was discussed initially in the May 1935,
issue of The American Engineer although that code was first formally adopted in 1946 (in
a form differing little from the present code.)
A.4 EDGERTON CASE REPORTS

A.4.1 CSIT Report

Professional Responsibility and the Dispatching of Police Cars: A Case Study3

1. Introduction

On May 25,1977, IEEE member Virginia Edgerton, a senior information scientist employed
by the City of New York, telephoned the chairman of CSIT’s Working Group on Ethics and
Employment Practices, having been referred to the committee by IEEE Headquarters. She said
that she had encountered a situation that might lead to the degradation of a data processing system
(called SPRINT) used to dispatch police cars in response to emergency calls, and that her
immediate superior, who disagreed with this assessment, refused to have the problem studied. Ms.
Edgerton sought advice from the committee.
The problem involved predicting the effects on the SPRINT system if additional real-time
tasks were to be executed on the same machine. The working group chairman referred Ms.
Edgerton to Dr. Howard Eskin, Manager of Systems Programming, at the Columbia University
Computer Center, in order to obtain a preliminary assessment of the technical aspects of the
situation.
He reported after meeting with her that the matter was complex, that Ms. Edgerton was raising
a legitimate issue and that definitive answers could not easily be found. Shortly afterward, Ms.
Edgerton submitted a memorandum to her superior, Project Director Sarwar A. Kashmeri,
outlining the danger as she saw it. He rejected it. Two weeks later, expressing concern for the
public safety, Ms. Edgerton circulated a revised version of this memorandum to the members of
the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council, the organization employing her.
Following this action, she was summarily discharged by Mr. Kashmeri on grounds of
insubordination. Ms. Edgerton then asked our committee to formally investigate the situation,
signed a waiver letter in accordance with our procedures, and sent us various documents bearing
on the case. We then wrote to the Project Director Kashmeri, asking for his version of the matter.
No response was received and so, after a suitable interval, we wrote to District Attorney
Robert M. Morgenthau, CIRCLE Project Chairman, asking him to look into the situation and to
respond to the prima facie case presented by Ms. Edgerton. This letter was answered by Mr.
Kashmeri (acting, he stated, at Mr. Morgenthau’s request). A letter to Mr. Gerald Hecht, Director
of the Probation Department, for which Ms. Edgerton did some work during her tenure with the
CJCC, elicited the response that she had been “extremely diligent” in carrying out these
responsibilities, evidencing “loyalty and enthusiasm.”
A letter to Captain4 R. J. Noonan, the police official in charge of the division that operates
SPRINT, has not been answered.


Reprinted by permission from Technology and Society, No. 22, June 1978 (late), published by the IEEE
Committee on Social Implications of Technology.
3
A draft of this report was sent to the individual who requested assistance (V. Edgerton), to the technical supervisor
directly involved (S. A. Kashmeri) and to the principal officials in overall charge of the project (R. J. McGuire, R. M.
Morgenthau and H. Sturz). It was then revised in the light of their responses.
4
Now Deputy Inspector.
 2. Background

SPRINT is a presently operational police and emergency on-line dispatching system that
accepts as inputs (from a police terminal) New York City street addresses and responds (typically
within seconds) with street coordinates and the location of the nearest patrol car. Police
dispatchers, upon receipt of emergency calls for assistance, enter the address given and use the
output to direct the nearest patrol cars to the scene. The system has been successfully operating for
several years to reduce response times and may thereby be presumed to have helped save lives in
critical situations. It is operated by the NYC Police Department on a pair of IBM 370-158
computers, one of which is used for back-up and test purposes.
PROMIS is another on-line system, intended for use by prosecutors to keep track of various
data pertinent to cases scheduled for trial. Under the aegis of the NYC Criminal Justice Steering
Committee (CJSC), a project called the Criminal Justice Information System (CJIS) or CIRCLE
project (these terms appear to be synonymous) was established to install the PROM IS system for
use by the offices of the various District Attorneys of NYC. The project Chairman is Robert M.
Morgenthau (Manhattan District Attorney), the Project Director (and technical manager) is Sarwar
A. Kashmeri. Note that the SPRINT system and host computer are under the jurisdiction of the
police department—not the CIRCLE project—while PROMIS is under the jurisdiction of the
CIRCLE staff.
Ms. Edgerton has had 13 years of experience in the data processing field, a good deal of this
time in responsible positions involving the installation and use of on-line systems. She was hired
early in 1977 by the CIRCLE project as a consultant with the title of Senior Information Scientist
(see Appendix A for job description).

3. The Technical Issue

As indicated in the introduction, the technical issue is whether the host computer currently
being used by the SPRINT system could also handle the PROMIS system without appreciably
increasing the response time to SPRINT inputs. More precisely, the question is whether a serious
analysis should be undertaken to estimate the likelihood of such an overload condition occurring.
Ms. Edgerton does not assert that it would necessarily occur, but rather that it is her professional
judgment that the possibility cannot be excluded a priori on the basis of existing data. She contends
that, in view of the likely consequences to human life of an increase in response time to emergency
police calls, a reasonable study is essential.
Dr. Eskin, on the basis of the limited information supplied to him, informs us that the problem
is quite complex, requiring an assessment of the hardware and software involved, measurements
of the load imposed by SPRINT, and a prediction of the amount of activity (at its peak) likely to
be generated by users of PROMIS. No formal techniques exist for solving such problems, he stated.
One can only study all of the data carefully, watch such installations (or similar ones) operate and
then make estimates based on experience and intuition. He agrees that an off-the-cuff estimate in
such a case could easily be wrong.
The point might be raised that the overload question could be dealt with by assuming that the
load can be handled satisfactorily and then observing what actually occurs as various features of
PROMIS are put into operation, and as terminals are added to extend the community of users.
When an overload condition is reached, load could be removed and other arrangements made to
deal with the situation. The problem is that overloading of such interactive systems can occur with
very little warning, and the effects can be quite intermittent when the overload is marginal. In a
situation, where commitments have been made, substantial sums spent on hardware and software,
and personal prestige invested, one can easily imagine a prolonged period of degraded SPRINT
operation during which those responsible might procrastinate about admitting that they had erred.
If only inconvenience or marginal monetary losses were involved, this would not necessarily be
too serious. But where individual human lives are thereby endangered, such an approach is highly
questionable. It therefore would seem prudent to give the matter careful consideration before
making a decision.

4. The Salient Events

Ms. Edgerton’s duties included reviewing and evaluating computer programs and projects and
doing feasibility studies for the CIRCLE project. At an early stage, after learning that the plan was
to run PROMIS on the SPRINT computer, she recognized the possibility of overload and attempted
to obtain the data necessary to study the problem. These attempts were unsuccessful, and the
Project Director, according to her account, tried to dissuade her from pursuing the matter. She
claims that no other efforts had been made or were planned to do such a study.
Mr. Kashmeri, in his response to our letter to Mr. Morgenthau (Appendix B), asserts that the
issues she raised “were at the time (and still are) under continuing discussion with the computer
staff of the New York City Police Department and members of the CIRCLE Committee.” He does
not however mention any specific individuals or documents. Our understanding is that no members
of the CIRCLE Committee are computer experts, and that other than Mr. Kashmeri and Ms.
Edgerton, no computer experts were employed by the Committee. Furthermore, Ms. Edgerton
informs us that she knows of no police department employees who were senior systems analysts
expert in on-line systems.
Ms. Edgerton maintains that Mr. Kashmeri refused to allow her to circulate memoranda on
the overload question to others involved in the project (that is, the CIRCLE Committee). She was
summarily dismissed when she did circulate such a memorandum.
There seems to be no dispute as to immediate reason for her termination. In his letters both to
her and to us, Mr. Kashmeri states (the quote is from the latter—see Appendix B):
The termination . . . was effected because (1) her distribution of the memorandum to the
members of the CIRCLE Committee was in direct violation of policy established by me, and (2)
against expressly given orders that all communications sent to the members must be approved by
the Project Director.

5. The Issue of Professional Responsibility

A key aspect of this case is the conflict between the concept of hierarchical responsibility—
the chain of command—and the idea that a professional has certain direct responsibilities that
cannot be delegated. In the present instance, the particular responsibility involved from the
engineer’s point of view is embodied in Article IV, item I of the IEEE Code of Ethics. “Engineers
shall . . . protect the safety, health and welfare of the public and speak out against abuses in these
areas affecting the public interest.” (Virtually all codes of ethics for engineers and scientists
contain similar provisions.)
 A distinguishing characteristic of a profession is that practitioners, in important aspects of
their work, cannot allow their professional judgments to be peremptorily overridden by
organizational superiors. The head of surgery in a hospital, for example, cannot order a staff
surgeon to use a particular technique in a certain operation when the surgeon considers it to be
inappropriate. A lawyer who believes that it is in the best interest of his client to advise a plea of
guilty cannot properly give contrary advice when ordered to do so by the head by his law firm.
The obligation entails more than simple refusal to participate directly in acts one judges to be
improper. Professionals must view the consequences of their acts broadly. Where it is clear that
simple abstention, which usually implies a resignation, is unlikely to avert the likelihood of serious
harm being done, than a more active stance is required. This might entail appeals within the
organization to higher ranking technical managers or to top officials in the organization.
Professional societies, governmental regulatory agencies, volunteer public interest groups,
legislators, the press or other outside groups might be alerted. The kind of action appropriate to a
given situation depends on such factors as the seriousness of the matter, the degree of certainty felt
by the professional, and the structure of the organizations involved. If the only legitimate recourse
were the principled resignation; then, apart from the fact that this may often be ineffectual, the
high personal cost to the individual will result in the quiet acceptance of many very serious errors.
On the other side is the concept of a manager making a decision for his organization and taking
full responsibility for the consequences. This may be considered an appropriate mode of operation
in the great majority of cases. However, when a professional within the organization who has
responsibilities in an area affected by that decision feels strongly that an error with potentially
serious consequences is being made, then means should exist for having that decision reviewed by
other qualified people. Any organization using technology in a manner that may affect the public
safety or welfare is operating in an irresponsible manner if it does not provide for such reviews.
The situations contemplated here are clearly not analogous to those faced by an army on a
battlefield or a ship at sea, where, on the basis of extreme time constraints, rational cases can be
made for demanding immediate, unquestioning obedience to orders from superiors; though even
there exceptional situations sometimes arise. Where an individual repeatedly challenges
managerial decisions and competent technical reviews subsequently find these challenges to be
without merit, then that person’s professional competence may be legitimately questioned, as it
should be in any instance of serious technical error. For this reason, and because of the natural
reluctance of most people to “make waves,” competent managers need not fear that their positions
would be made untenable by the overzealous application of the aforementioned principle by
subordinate professionals.

6. The Response

As stated in our opening footnote, a draft of this report was sent to the principals involved.
The only response from a NYC official came from Deputy Mayor for Criminal Justice Herbert
Sturz (Appendix C). Note that he assumed office in 1978, many months after the events related
here.
Mr. Sturz states his understanding that the matter raised by Ms. Edgerton has been, and
continues to be, under consideration. If indeed this important and difficult technical question has
been seriously studied, there would surely exist at least one technical memorandum discussing the
issues. No reference to such a document appears in Mr. Sturz’s letter. Nor does he name any
individual who made such a study. Similar omissions also characterize the earlier letter (Appendix
B) from Mr. Kashmeri.
While Mr. Sturz expresses general agreement with our view of the responsibility of
professionals in matters of the kind involved here, he does not comment on the treatment meted
out to Ms. Edgerton when she exercised that responsibility.

7. Conclusions

On the basis of the information and principles discussed above, the investigating committee
has arrived at the following conclusions:
(1.) Ms. Edgerton encountered in the course of her professional work a situation that might
reasonably be considered as entailing a risk to the public safety.
(2.) She made a professional judgment that a detailed study of this problem was necessary.
(3.) No appropriate formal study was under way.
(4.) Ms. Edgerton conveyed her judgment to her superior in a written report, and this was
rejected out of hand, with a warning not to take the matter further.
(5.) She then circulated a report on the subject to the next level of management in her
organization.
(6.) Her action was in full accord with the letter and spirit of the IEEE Code of Ethics.
(7.) She was peremptorily discharged on the basis of the acts cited above.
(8.) This discharge constituted seriously improper treatment of a professional.
(9.) Ms. Edgerton’s action (at considerable personal sacrifice) on behalf of the public safety
was in the highest tradition of professionalism in engineering.
Investigating Committee (IEEE-CSIT Working Group on Ethics and Employment Practices).

Stephen H. Unger (Chairman) R. Jeffrey Bogumil Joseph S. Kaufman March 20, 1978
APPENDIX A

Duties of Position (Virginia Edgerton)

Will serve as senior information scientist for the criminal justice steering committee grant
program. Will assist the director by reviewing computer projects, evaluating computer programs
and doing feasibility and cost/benefit studies. Will work with criminal justice agency personnel to
create short and long range systems plans and do the detailed work on individual installation plans.
Will be responsible for keeping the citywide information system plan current and liaise with DCJS
to coordinate local and state planning.


This and the appendices that follow references the appendix for the document, not the book.
APPENDIX B

City of New York

Office of the Mayor
Criminal Justice Coordinating Council
111 John Street New York, N.Y. 10038

August 12, 1977

Mr. Stephen Unger

229 Cambridge Avenue
Englewood, N. J. 07631

Dear Mr. Unger:

Your follow-up letter of August 4,1977 addressed to Mr. Robert M. Morgenthau has been
received and I have been asked to direct the following reply to your office.
The termination of Ms. Virginia Edgerton from the CIRCLE Project was effected because 1)
her distribution of the memorandum to the members of the CIRCLE Committee was in direct
violation of policy established by me and 2) against expressly given orders that all communications
sent to the members must be approved by the Project Director. Also, as her termination letter of
June 24, 1977, of which I believe you have a copy states, the issues raised in her memorandum
were at that time (and still are) under continuing discussion with the computer staff of the New
York City Police Department and members of the CIRCLE Committee.
I would like to assure you that the policy makers in the City of New York are as concerned
with public safety and the treatment of technical professionals as is your Committee. It is however
imperative that an employee who is in a highly professional capacity, and has the exposure that
accompanies a position dealing with top level policy makers, follow expressly given orders and
adhere to established policy.
We hope that the above will provide satisfactory answers to the questions that you have raised.

Sincerely yours,

(signed)

Sarwar A. Kashmeri, Director, CIRCLE Project SAK/rs

Hon. Michael J. Codd, Vice-Chairman, CIRCLE Committee
Hon. Cesar A. Perales, Director, CJCC

cc: Hon. Nicholas Scoppetta, Deputy Mayor, Criminal Justice

Hon. Robert M. Morgenthau, Chairman, CIRCLE Committee
APPENDIX C

The City of New York

OFFICE OF THE DEPUTY MAYOR FOR CRIMINAL JUSTICE
CRIMINAL JUSTICE COORDINATOR
HERBERT STURZ
DEPUTY MAYOR
130 John Street
New York, N.Y 10038
825-5900
Direct Dial 825-2875

February 16, 1978

Professor Stephen H. Unger

Chairman, Working Group, Ethics and Employment Practices
229 Cambridge Avenue
Englewood, New Jersey 07631

Dear Professor Unger:

Thank you very much for sending to me your draft report in the matter of Virginia Edgerton.
I appreciate the opportunity that you have given me to comment upon the report. As it happens, I
am unable to make any contribution to the report in terms of factual material because, at the time
the events described in the report occurred, I did not occupy my present office as Deputy Mayor
for Criminal Justice and, accordingly, I have no firsthand knowledge as to any of the facts
concerning the dismissal of Ms. Edgerton.
For what it may be worth, I agree with your general conclusion that a professional person has
a special responsibility to seek to be heard by principal policy makers on issues directly affecting
the public safety. As your report makes clear, the pivotal issue in this regard is whether,
notwithstanding the alleged frustration of Ms. Edgerton’s efforts to communicate directly with
members of the CIRCLE Committee, the SPRINT degradation issue was receiving attention by
New York City policy makers. My understanding, which admittedly is secondhand, is that this
issue was considered by the City in its planning for the development of a criminal justice
information system. It is also my understanding that the issue raised by Ms. Edgerton is continuing
to receive attention by the City and, of course, now that I am in office as Deputy Mayor for
Criminal Justice, I will be concerned with this issue also.
Certainly, we do not intend to develop a criminal justice information system at the expense of
any existing computer application which may affect the public safety.
Again, I thank you for the opportunity to examine your report and I commend you for your
professional and thorough approach to the matter.

Sincerely yours,
(signed) Herbert Sturz
A.4.2 MCC Report

MCC REPORT IN THE MATTER OF VIRGINIA EDGERTON

(IEEE-7366040)5

The Complaint

Ms. Edgerton was engaged as a consultant by the Criminal Justice Coordinating Council of
the City of New York in December 1976, on a per diem basis, which employment was approved
by the Office of the Mayor in January 1977 (Exhs. 1 and 3). Her duties as Senior Information
Scientist included the review, evaluation, feasibility analysis and development of computer
programs and associated plans, including liaison activities with the police department and the
Criminal Justice Steering Committee (Exh. 2), each of which groups were utilizing or planned to
utilize computer facilities available to the city for programs in operation or contemplated. SPRINT,
an on-line police emergency dispatch system was in operation.
PROMIS, a second on-line system, was in development for use by district attorneys
throughout New York City to aid in the prosecution of current litigation. The latter program was
the responsibility of the Criminal Justice Steering Committee, the project chairman of which was
Robert M. Morgenthau and whose project director was Sarwar A. Kashmeri, Ms. Edgerton’s
immediate supervisor (Exhs. I, 9).
Ms. Edgerton, during the course of her work, determined that concurrent use of the computer
facilities available to the SPRINT and PROMIS programs raised, in her judgment, important
questions pertaining to the possible degradation of the performance of the police dispatch program
(Exhs. 4, 5, 15). These concerns were expressed to Mr. Kashmeri in a June 3, 1977 memo from
Ms. Edgerton (Exh. 5).
By memo of June 17,1977 to the Criminal Justice Steering Committee transmitting a copy of
the memo to Kashmeri, Ms. Edgerton advised its members of her continuing concern for the public
safety in light of her evaluation of the possible consequence of overloading the computer facilities
when the PROMIS program was fully developed and in operation (Exh. 5).
Mr. Kashmeri, by letter to Ms. Edgerton dated June 24,1977, terminated her employment,
effective June 21,1977. The stated reasons were that distribution of her memo of June 17 to the
Steering Committee violated his policy that all such memos must be approved by him and the
matters raised therein were then under discussion by the police department and members of the
CIRCLE (Criminal Justice Information Systems) project (Exhs. 9, 19). Shortly thereafter, Ms.
Edgerton requested the project chairman for a hearing on the matter of her discharge (Exh. 12).
There is no indication that such a review was afforded Ms. Edgerton.

The IEEE Code of Ethics

The foregoing circumstances suggest that the relevant portions of the code are:
5
This matter was initially brought to the attention of the Committee on Social Implications of Technology,
Working Group on Ethics and Employment Practices (IEEE-CSIT), in 1977. Ms. Edgerton by letter dated 6/25/77
requested the assistance of CSIT (Exh. 10). The Working Group, composed of Joseph S. Kaufman, R. Jeffrey Bogumil
and Stephen H. Unger, Chairman, investigated the matter extensively, and submitted its report to the Executive
Committee of IEEE. The Executive Committee on May 21,1978, referred the matter to the Member Conduct
Committee established pursuant to Bylaw 112 (as amended) which was adopted by the Board of Directors in February
1978. This is the first member request for support submitted to the MCC.
 1) Article I, section 3: engineers shall “undertake engineering tasks and accept responsibility
only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure to their employers or clients
of pertinent qualifications”;
2) Article I, section 2: engineers shall be “honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates
from available data”;
3) Article III, section 5: engineers shall: “assist and advise their employers or clients in
anticipating the possible consequences, direct and indirect, immediate or remote, of the
projects, work or plans of which they have knowledge”; and
4) Article IV, section 1: engineers shall “protect the safety, health and welfare of the public
and speak out against abuses in these areas affecting the public interest.”

Discussion

Ms. Edgerton’s education and employment history, prior to her retainer by New York City in
1977, show her to have had more than a decade of relevant experience in computer programming
and application, including seven years management responsibility with various employers. The
City, itself, had been her employer for over a year in 1972-1973 (Exh. 11). That the City anticipated
benefits from her work was made clear by Mr. Kashmeri’s letter to her dated December 23,1976
which declared “the project and the city . . . will benefit from the background and expertise that
you will bring to this senior technical position” (Exh. 11). It is the opinion of the Member Conduct
Committee (hereafter “MCC”) that Ms. Edgerton was professionally qualified by training and
experience to undertake the tasks assigned to her and accept the responsibilities of a senior
information scientist (Exh. 2), thus satisfying the provisions of Article I, section 3 of the Code of
Ethics.
The Code also requires IEEE members to be “honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates
from available data” (Article I, section 2), coupled with the attendant responsibility to her
employer to “assist and advise ... in anticipating the possible consequences, direct or indirect,
immediate or remote, of the projects, work or plans of which [she had] knowledge” (Article III,
section 5). From the information available to the MCC it is reasonable to conclude that Ms.
Edgerton in her capacity as senior information scientist has adhered to these two obligations in the
discharge of her professional responsibilities. She was selected to join the staff of the CJIS Project,
of which Mr. Kashmeri was the Director, and Mr. Morgenthau the Chairman (Exhs. 1, 3). By
memo of June 3,1977 Ms. Edgerton, on the basis of information available from her activities and
consultation with others not employed by the City (Exh. 4), advised the project director of the
possible consequences which she anticipated from the proposed joint use of available computer
facilities for both the SPRINT and PROMIS programs. In so doing Ms. Edgerton clearly was
following the mandates of Articles I (Section 2) and III (Section 5) of the Code of Ethics.
We need not address the issue whether Ms. Edgerton’s judgment was formed from more
reliable or different information than that available to others working within the police department,
for the CIRCLE (CJIS) project or other groups with which Ms. Edgerton had contact. Nor is it
relevant to the Code of Ethics whether judgment of other responsible or cognizant persons differed.
It was Ms. Edgerton’s responsibility under the Code to advise her employer, the project director,
of her judgments with respect to possible consequences, remote, immediate, direct or indirect. This
she did.
The remaining question relates to Ms. Edgerton’s conduct following the submission of her
memo of June 3,1977 to the project director. As discussed below, it is the opinion of the MCC that
Ms. Edgerton adhered to the Code in her attempts to bring her concern to the attention of the
Criminal Justice Steering Committee.
Two elements are undisputed. Ms. Edgerton transmitted to the Steering Committee a memo
substantially in the form submitted to the project director (Exh. 8) and shortly thereafter her
employment was terminated by written notice from the project director (Exh. 9). Was the
transmittal to the Steering Committee consistent with the Code of Ethics? As an employed
professional and IEEE member, Ms. Edgerton had the obligation in fulfilling her responsibilities
to the New York community, to “protect the safety, health and welfare ... in these areas affecting
the public interest” (Article IV, section 1).
This provision does not, of course, deal with procedures or management policies operative
within the administrative organization of the City of New York. Rather, it pertains to IEEE member
conduct. Further, “public interest” is undefined. The material reviewed by the MCC discloses,
however, that the computer facilities and associated programs in operation and under development
during the period Ms. Edgerton was employed by the City, were used by the police department in
dispatching personnel in response to emergencies and was intended to aid, among others, the
district attorneys in their work as litigators in the courts. The communications show that in one
manner or another the scope of Ms. Edgerton’s responsibilities were related to the activities of the
Deputy Mayor for Criminal Justice, Mr. Morgenthau, the Criminal Justice Coordination Council
and its Steering Committee, officers of the police department and state and local planning related
to these groups (Exhs. 1,2, 5,12, 21, 22). In this context, then, we conclude the “public interest”
means the interest of the citizens to be served by effective law enforcement on the streets and in
the courts. Though neither a police officer, nor a district attorney Ms. Edgerton’s responsibilities
and professional judgments did (or could) affect that public interest (immediately, remotely,
directly, or indirectly).
Indeed, the MCC is of the opinion that Ms. Edgerton’s responsibilities placed her at the
interface between the potentially divergent interests or competing needs for computer access of
the police and the court. This circumstance enhances the importance and relevance of Article IV,
Section 1 of the Code of Ethics.
It is not to be inferred from this discussion that there are “abuses” existent in the programs
within the City with which Ms. Edgerton had contact. Rather, Ms. Edgerton has, under Article IV,
Section 1, a responsibility to the community to protect the safety and welfare. By her distribution
of her memo to the Steering Committee she endeavored to have her views of an important,
potentially adverse consequence affecting the public safety considered by the committee within
the organizational framework of the City that had responsibility for the computer application
contemplated.
In our view this action by Ms. Edgerton was reasonable in light of her apparent inability to
resolve the matter with the project director. By first submitting her memo to the project director,
the director was afforded an opportunity to consider her analysis of the potential problem. The
Steering Committee was the cognizant and responsible group closest in relationship to the
activities of both Ms. Edgerton and the project director. The memo initially submitted to the project
director indicates that copies were directed to the official responsible for the relevant computer
operations within the police department, an attorney assisting in the coordination and the
committee responsible for programs under development for use by the district attorneys (Exhs. 5,
21). At no time, apparently, was the subject of Ms. Edgerton’s memo discussed among the project
director, the author, and others to whom it was directed. There is no indication that Ms. Edgerton

We accept as authentic all the documents furnished to the MCC for its consideration.
was requested to pursue the matter further, and little to suggest that the project director or others
undertook to do so.
The police commissioner, the director and the Chairman of the CIRCLE (PROMIS) project
and the deputy mayor for criminal justice were asked to comment on the report prepared by the
Working Group (IEEE-CSIT) prior to its submission to the IEEE Executive Committee (Exh. 28).
Only the deputy mayor replied (Exh. 30). He responded that he was not the deputy mayor during
Ms. Edgerton’s employment and the period relevant to the inquiry, and declined to make any
contributions to the report.

Conclusion

The MCC concludes that Ms. Edgerton has adhered to the IEEE Code of Ethics. It is our
opinion (1) that her professional training and experience qualified her to discern the potential for
degradation of the police-emergency dispatch system, (2) that she undertook reasonably to inform
the project director of her concern, and (3) that her communication of this same concern to the
Criminal Justice Steering Committee represented a good faith attempt to protect the community
interests served by the computer applications about which she was informed. We believe the
attempts were appropriately directed to those persons which were in part or whole responsible for
the ultimate compatibility of the systems involved. Ms. Edgerton’s adherence to the Code has
jeopardized her livelihood. Moreover, it is our opinion that the action by those responsible for her
employment termination compromised the discharge by her of her professional responsibilities.

Comment

The stated reason for Ms. Edgerton’s termination was her distribution of the memorandum to
the members of the CIRCLE committee “in violation of policy established by” the project director,
and against express “orders that all communications sent to the members must be approved by the
Project Director” (Exh. 19). The fact of termination and the reasons stated therefore are not in
dispute. The Code of Ethics becomes relevant in this matter as the basis upon which to ascertain
the reasonableness of the IEEE member’s conduct, not that of the project director. Because we
have determined that Ms. Edgerton’s actions are consistent with the Code, however, there is
presented a conflict of “policies,” those principles guiding professional activities in an employment
relationship which we endorse, and those “policies” which guide the administration of,
communications by, and supervision of employed persons.
This is not a circumstance in which the IEEE member, dissatisfied with the consideration or
treatment afforded by supervisory personnel, took the issue outside of the confines of the
employer’s organization either in the search of relief of the member’s personal grievance or to
remedy a potential detriment to the public interest through publication in the media or otherwise.


The Chairman of the Working Group on Ethics and Employment Practices by letter (Exh. 24) to the police
officer to whom her initial memo was sent sought information relevant to the assertion by the project director that the
issues raised by Ms. Edgerton were under continuing discussion with the police computer staff and members of the
CIRCLE (PROMIS) committee (Exh. 9). It is our understanding no reply (written or verbal) was made. Similar
inquiries were transmitted to the project director (Exh. 13) and the Chairman of CIRCLE (Exh. 18). Only the director
replied (Exh. 18), but he did not provide further information as to the nature, extent or outcome of discussions to
which his letter discharging Ms. Edgerton referred.

The Code of Ethics would be relevant to the project director (if an IEEE member) should a complaint be
submitted alleging violation of the Code.
Under the circumstances, we are of the opinion that Ms. Edgerton’s action was demonstrably a
more professional approach in her relation to the employer. With benefit of hindsight, it is possible,
of course, to suggest Ms. Edgerton might have persisted in her efforts to resolve the matters
satisfactorily with the project director, thus eliminating the need to solicit participation by the
Steering Committee, which effort led to her discharge. In a similarly facile manner, it can be
suggested that the project director could have undertaken to deal constructively, and more
responsively, to the substance of Ms. Edgerton’ s professional judgments. Neither approach,
however, addresses what we perceive to be the focal point in this matter. Was it reasonable to
resolve what apparently was a matter of divergent judgment by the discharge of Ms. Edgerton?
We conclude that it was not. We have found Ms. Edgerton to have acted in a manner consistent
with the Code of Ethics. We have found no indication that the discharge was influenced by any
circumstance other than the distribution of the memorandum. The prohibition against such
distribution to the Steering Committee stemmed from a policy prescribed by the project director.
No matters have been brought to our attention that explain the need for, the purpose or efficacy of
such a policy. Neither has it been shown that such a policy was existent elsewhere among the
relevant committees, directors or staff serving to implement the subject computer applications.
Finally, we believe the circumstances of the situation described herein indicate the present
need of employers to develop a means whereby professional employees can raise and be afforded
review of their judgments, responsibly formulated, so as to avoid their summary discharge for
violation of “policy,” when the result of such policy serves to prevent the dissemination and
reasonable consideration of professional opinions related to the successful functioning of systems
or equipment involving safety and welfare considerations, directly or indirectly, affecting the
public interest of a community of citizens to be served by such systems or equipment.

Member Conduct Committee

J. F. Fairman, Jr., Chairman
R. F. Cotellessa
R. W. Sears

June 1978
A.5 ETHICS CODES

A.5.1 Model Ethics Code (Discussed in Section 4.4)

Preamble

In the pursuit of their professions, engineers and scientists should use their skills and
knowledge to enhance the quality of life for all and should conduct themselves in an honorable
and ethical manner so as to merit confidence and respect. This code is a guide to the balanced
discharge of their responsibilities to society, to their employers and clients, to their co-workers and
subordinates, to their professional colleagues, and to themselves.

Article 1. Engineers shall regard their responsibility to society as paramount and shall:
1.1 Inform themselves and others, as appropriate, of the consequences, direct and indirect,
immediate and remote, of projects they are involved in
1.2 Endeavor to direct their professional skills toward conscientiously chosen ends they deem, on
balance, to be of positive value to humanity; declining to use those skills for purposes they
consider, on balance, to conflict with their moral values
1.3 Hold paramount the safety, health, and welfare of the public, speaking out against abuses of
the public interest that they may encounter in the course of professional activities in whatever
manner is best calculated to lead to a remedy
1.4 Help inform the public about technological developments, the alternatives they make feasible,
and possible associated problems
1.5 Contribute professional services to worthy causes as appropriate
Article 2. Engineers shall practice their profession in a responsible manner, associating themselves
only with honorable enterprises and shaft

2.1 Keep their professional skills up to date and be aware of current events and societal issues
pertinent to their work
2.2 Be honest and realistic in making claims and estimates, never falsifying data
2.3 Accurately describe their qualifications for proposed engineering assignments

Article 3. Engineers shall, in relations with employers and clients:

3.1 Act as faithful agents or trustees in business or professional matters, provided such actions
conform with other parts of this code
3.2 Keep information on the business affairs or technical processes of an employer or client in
confidence while employed and later, until such information is properly released, provided such
confidentiality conforms with other parts of this code
3.3 Disclose any circumstance that could lead to a conflict of interest
3.4 Neither offer nor accept bribes

Article 4. Engineers shall, in relations with colleagues, co-workers and subordinates:

4.1 Seek, accept, and offer honest professional criticism, properly credit others for their
contributions, never claiming credit for work not done
4.2 Treat them fairly in all respects, regardless of such factors as race, religion, sex, age, ethnic
background, or disabilities, and respect their privacy
4.3 Help promote their professional growth
4.4 Report, publish, and disseminate information freely, subject to legal and reasonable proprietary
or privacy restraints, provided such actions conform with other parts of this code
4.5 Promote health and safety in work situations
4.6 Encourage and support adherence to this code, never giving directions that could encourage
others to compromise their professional responsibilities
A.5.2 IEEE Code of Ethics

We, the members of the IEEE, in recognition of the importance of our technologies in
affecting the quality of life throughout the world, and in accepting a personal obligation to our
profession, its members and the communities we serve, do hereby commit ourselves to the highest
ethical and professional conduct and agree:
1. to accept responsibility in making engineering decisions consistent with the safety, health
and welfare of the public, and to disclose promptly factors that might endanger the public
or the environment;
2. to avoid real or perceived conflicts of interest whenever possible, and to disclose them to
affected parties when they do exist;
3. to be honest and realistic in stating claims or estimates based on available data;
4. to reject bribery in all its forms;
5. to improve the understanding of technology, its appropriate application, and potential
consequences;
6. to maintain and improve our technical competence and to undertake technological tasks
for others only if qualified by training or experience, or after full disclosure of pertinent
limitations;
7. to seek, and offer honest criticism of technical work, to acknowledge and correct errors,
and to credit properly the contributions of others;
8. to treat fairly all persons regardless of such factors as race, religion, gender, disability,
age, or national origin;
9. to avoid injuring others, their property, reputation, or employment by false or malicious
action;
10. to assist colleagues and co-workers in their professional development and to support them
in following this code of ethics.


Approved by the IEEE Board of Directors, August 1990.
A.5.3 ABET Code of Ethics of Engineers

ACCREDITATION BOARD FOR ENGINEERING AND TECHNOLOGY (FORMERLY

ECPD)

The Fundamental Principles

Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession
by:

I. using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare;
II. being honest and impartial, and serving with fidelity the public, their employers and clients;
III. striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession; and
IV. supporting the professional and technical societies of their disciplines.

The Fundamental Canons

1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the
performance of their professional duties.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence.
3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents
or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest.
5. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their services and shall
not compete unfairly with others.
6. Engineers shall act in such a manner as to uphold and enhance the honor, integrity and
dignity of the profession.
7. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers and shall
provide opportunities for the professional development of those engineers under their
supervision.


Printed here by permission of the Accreditation Board for Engineering and Technology (successor to the
ECPD). This code was approved by the Board of Directors of the ECPD October 5. 1977.
 A.5.4 Code of Ethics of the Association of Professional Engineers, Province of Ontario

General

1. A professional engineer owes certain duties to the public, to his employers, to his clients,
to other members of his profession, and to himself, and shall act at all times with:

(a) fairness and loyalty to his associates, employers, clients, subordinates and employees;
(b) fidelity to public needs; and
(c)devotion to high ideals of personal honor and professional integrity.

Duty of Professional Engineer to the Public

2. A professional engineer shall:

(a) regard his duty to public welfare as paramount;

(b) endeavor at all times to enhance the public regard for his profession by extending the
public knowledge thereof and discouraging untrue, unfair or exaggerated statements with
respect to professional engineering;
(c) not give opinions or make statements on professional engineering projects of public
interest that are inspired or paid for by private interests unless he clearly discloses on whose
behalf he is giving the opinions or making the statements;
(d) not express publicly, or while he is serving as a witness before a court, commission or
other tribunal opinions on professional engineering matters that are not founded on adequate
knowledge and honest conviction;
(e) make effective provisions for the safety of life and health of a person who may be affected
by the work for which he is responsible; and at all times shall act to correct or report any
situation which he feels may endanger the safety or the welfare of the public;
(f) make effective provision for meeting lawful standards, rules, or regulations relating to
environmental control and protection, in connection with any work being undertaken by him
or under his responsibility; and
(g) sign or seal only those plans, specifications and reports actually made by him or under his
personal supervision and direction.

Duty of Professional Engineer to Employer

3. A professional engineer shall:

(a) act in professional engineering matters for each employer as a faithful agent or trustee and
shall regard as confidential any information obtained by him as to the business affairs,
technical methods or processes of an employer and avoid or disclose any conflict of interest
which might influence his actions or judgment;
(b) present clearly to his employers the consequences to be expected from any deviations
proposed in the work if his professional engineering judgment is overruled by non-technical


Reprinted with the permission of the Association of Professional Engineers of the Province of Ontario. As
amended May, 1980.
authority in cases where he is responsible for the technical adequacy of professional
engineering work;
(c) have no interest, direct or indirect, in any materials, supplies or equipment used by his
employer or in any persons or firms receiving contracts from his employer unless he informs
his employer in advance of the nature of the interest;
(d) not tender on competitive work upon which he may be acting as a professional engineer
unless he first advises his employer;
(e) not act as consulting engineer in respect of any work upon which he may be the contractor
unless he first advises his employer; and
(f) not accept compensation, financial or otherwise, for a particular service, from more than
one person except with the full knowledge of all interested parties.

Duty of Professional Engineer

In Independent Practice to Client

4. A professional engineer in private practice, in addition to all other sections, shall:

(a) disclose immediately any interest, direct or indirect, which might in any way be construed
as prejudicial to his professional judgment in rendering service to his client;
(b) if he is an employee-engineer and is contracting in his own name to perform professional
engineering work for other than his employer, provide his client with a written statement of
the nature of his status as an employee and the attendant limitations on his services to the
client. In addition he shall satisfy himself that such work will not conflict with his duty to his
employer;
(c) carry out his work in accordance with applicable statutes, regulations, standards, codes,
and by-laws; and
(d) cooperate as necessary in working with such other professionals as may be engaged on a
project.

Duty of Professional Engineer

To Other Professional Engineers

5. A professional engineer shall:

(a) conduct himself towards other professional engineers with courtesy and good faith;
(b) not accept any engagement to review the work of another professional engineer for the
same employer except with the knowledge of that engineer, or except where the connection
of that engineer with the work has been terminated;
(c) not maliciously injure the reputation or business of another professional engineer;
(d) not attempt to gain an advantage over other members of his profession by paying or
accepting a commission in securing professional engineering work;
(e) not advertise in a misleading manner or in a manner injurious to the dignity of his
profession, but shall seek to advertise by establishing a well-merited reputation for personal
capability; and
(f) give proper credit for engineering work, uphold the principle of adequate compensation for
engineering work, provide opportunity for professional development and advancement of his
associates and subordinates; and extend the effectiveness of the profession through the
interchange of engineering information and experience.

Duty of Professional Engineer to Himself

6. A professional engineer shall:

(a) maintain the honor and integrity of his profession and without fear or favor expose before
the proper tribunals unprofessional or dishonest conduct by any other members of the
profession; and
(b) undertake only such work as he is competent to perform by virtue of his training and
experience, and shall, where advisable, retain and cooperate with other professional engineers
or specialists.
A.5.5 Slowter-Oldenquist
Core Concepts in Engineering Ethics

I. The Public Interest

a. Paramount responsibility to the public health, safety, and welfare, including that of future
generations.
b. Call attention to threats to the public safety, health, and welfare, and act to eliminate them.
Work through professional societies to encourage and support engineers who follow these
concepts.
d. Apply knowledge, skill, and imagination to enhance human welfare and the quality of life
for all.
e. Work only with those who follow these concepts.

II. Qualities of Truth, Honesty, and Fairness

a. Be honest and impartial.

b. Advise employer, client, or public of all consequences of work.
c. Maintain confidences; act as faithful agent or trustee.
d. Avoid conflicts of interest.
e. Give fair and equitable treatment to all others.
f. Base decisions and actions on merit, competence, and knowledge, and without bias because
of race, religion, sex, age, or national origin.
g. Neither pay nor accept bribes, gifts, or gratuities.
h. Be objective and truthful in discussions, reports, and actions.

III. Professional Performance

a. Competence for work undertaken.

b. Strive to improve competence, and assist others in so doing.
c. Extend public and professional knowledge of technical projects and their results.
d. Accept responsibility for actions and give appropriate credit to others.


Extracted from Oldenquist (1979, Table I).
A.5.6 AAES Model Guide for Professional Conduct
American Association of Engineering Societies

Engineers recognize that the practice of engineering has a direct and vital influence on the
quality of life for all people. Therefore, engineers should exhibit high standards of competency,
honesty and impartiality; be fair and equitable; and accept a personal responsibility for adherence
to applicable laws, the protection of public health, and maintenance of safety in their professional
actions and behavior. These principles govern professional conduct in serving the interests of the
public, clients, employers, colleagues and the profession.

The Fundamental Principle

The engineer as a professional is dedicated to improving competence, service, fairness and

the exercise of well-founded judgment in the practice of engineering for the public, employers and
clients with fundamental concern for the public health and safety in the pursuit of this practice.

Canons of Professional Conduct

Engineers offer services in the areas of their competence and experience, affording full
disclosure of their qualifications.
Engineers consider the consequences of their work and societal issues pertinent to it and seek
to extend public understanding of those relationships.
Engineers are honest, truthful and fair in presenting information and in making public
statements reflecting on professional matters and their professional role.
Engineers engage in professional relationships without bias because of race, religion, sex, age,
national origin or handicap.
Engineers act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees,
disclosing nothing of a proprietary nature concerning the business affairs or technical processes of
any present or former client or employer without specific consent.
Engineers disclose to affected parties known or potential conflicts of interest or other
circumstances which might influence—or appear to influence—judgment or impair the fairness or
quality of their performance.
Engineers are responsible for enhancing their professional competence throughout their
careers and for encouraging similar actions by their colleagues.
Engineers accept responsibility for their actions; seek and acknowledge criticism of their
work; offer honest criticism of the work of others; properly credit the contributions of others; and
do not accept credit for work not theirs.
Engineers perceiving a consequence of their professional duties to adverse affect the present
or future health and safety shall formally advise their employers or clients and, if warranted,
consider further disclosure.
Engineers act in accordance with all applicable laws and the t rules of conduct, and lend
support to others who strive to do likewise.
+AAES Member Societies are urged to make reference here to the appropriate code of conduct
to which their members will be bound.


Approved by AAES Board of Governors 12/13/84. Reprinted here with permission of the American
Association of Engineering Societies.
A.5.7 National Society of Professional Engineers
Code of Ethics for Engineers

Preamble

Engineering is an important and learned profession. The members of the profession recognize
that their work has a direct and vital impact on the quality of life for all people. Accordingly, the
services provided by engineers require honesty, impartiality, fairness and equity, and must be
dedicated to the protection of the public health, safety and welfare. In the practice of their
profession, engineers must perform under a standard of professional behavior which requires
adherence to the highest principles of ethical conduct on behalf of the public, clients, employers
and the profession.

I. Fundamental Canons
Engineers, in the fulfillment of their professional duties, shall:
1. Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the performance of their
professional duties.
2. Perform services only in areas of their competence.
3. Issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.
4. Act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees.
5. Avoid deceptive acts in the solicitation of professional employment.
II. Rules of Practice

1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the
performance of their professional duties.
a. Engineers shall at all times recognize that their primary obligation is to protect the safety,
health, property and welfare of the public. If their professional judgment is overruled, under
circumstances where the safety, health, property or welfare of the public are endangered, they
shall notify their employer or client and such other authority as may be appropriate.
b. Engineers shall approve only those engineering documents which are safe for public health,
property and welfare in conformity with accepted standards.
c. Engineers shall not reveal facts, data or information obtained in a professional capacity
without the prior consent of the client or employer except as authorized or required by law or
this Code.
d. Engineers shall not permit the use of their name or firm name nor associate in business
ventures with any person or firm which they have reason to believe is engaging in fraudulent
or dishonest business or professional practices.
e. Engineers having knowledge of any alleged violation of this Code shall cooperate with the
proper authorities in furnishing such information or assistance as may be required.

2. Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence:


NSPE Publication No. I 102 as revised January 1990. Reprinted with the permission of the National Society of
Professional Engineers.
a. Engineers shall undertake assignments only when qualified by education or experience in
the specific technical fields involved.
b. Engineers shall not affix their signatures to any plans or documents dealing with subject
matter in which they lack competence, nor to any plan or document not prepared under their
direction and control.
c. Engineers may accept assignments and assume responsibility for coordination of an entire
project and sign and seal the engineering documents for the entire project, provided that each
technical segment is signed and sealed only by the qualified engineers who prepared the
segment.

3. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.

a. Engineers shall be objective and truthful in professional reports, statements or testimony.

They shall include all relevant and pertinent information in such reports, statements or
testimony.
b. Engineers may express publicly a professional opinion on technical subjects only when
that opinion is founded upon adequate knowledge of the facts and competence in the subject
matter.
c. Engineers shall issue no statements, criticisms or arguments on technical matters which are
inspired or paid for by interested parties, unless they have prefaced their comments by
explicitly identifying the interested parties on whose behalf they are speaking, and by
revealing the existence of any interest the engineers may have in the matters.

4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or
trustees.

a. Engineers shall disclose all known or potential conflicts of interest to their employers or
clients by promptly informing them of any business association, interest, or other
circumstances which could influence or appear to influence their judgment or the quality of
their services.
b. Engineers shall not accept compensation, financial or otherwise, from more than one party
for services on the same project, or for services pertaining to the same project, unless the
circumstances are fully disclosed to, and agreed to by, all interested parties.
c. Engineers shall not solicit or accept financial or other valuable consideration, directly or
indirectly, from contractors, their agents, or other parties in connection with work for
employers or clients for which they are responsible.
d. Engineers in public service as members, advisors or employees of a governmental or quasi-
governmental body or department shall not participate in decisions with respect to
professional services solicited or provided by them or their organizations in private or public
engineering practice.
e. Engineers shall not solicit or accept a professional contract from a governmental body on
which a principal or officer of their organization serves as a member.

5. Engineers shall avoid deceptive acts in the solicitation of professional employment.

a. Engineers shall not falsify or permit misrepresentation of their, or their associates’,
academic or professional qualifications. They shall not misrepresent or exaggerate their
degree of responsibility in or for the subject matter of prior assignments. Brochures or other
presentations incident to the solicitation of employment shall not misrepresent pertinent facts
concerning employers, employees, associates, joint ventures or past accomplishments with
the intent and purpose of enhancing their qualifications and their work.
b. Engineers shall not offer, give, solicit or receive, either directly or indirectly, any political
contribution in an amount intended to influence the award of a contract by public authority,
or which may be reasonably construed by the public of having the effect or intent to influence
the award of a contract. They shall not offer any gift, or other valuable consideration in order
to secure work. They shall not pay a commission, percentage or brokerage fee in order to
secure work except to a bona fide employee or bona fide established commercial or marketing
agencies retained by them.

III. Professional Obligations

1. Engineers shall be guided in all their professional relations by the highest standards of
integrity.

a. Engineers shall admit and accept their own errors when proven wrong and refrain from
distorting or altering the facts in an attempt to justify their decisions.
b. Engineers shall advise their clients or employers when they believe a project will not be
successful.
c. Engineers shall not accept outside employment to the detriment of their regular work or
interest. Before accepting any outside employment, they will notify their employers.
d. Engineers shall not attempt to attract an engineer from another employer by false or
misleading pretenses.
e. Engineers shall not actively participate in strikes, picket lines, or other collective coercive
action.
f. Engineers shall avoid any act tending to promote their own interest at the expense of the
dignity and integrity of the profession.

2. Engineers shall at all times strive to serve the public interest.

a. Engineers shall seek opportunities to be of constructive service in civic affairs and work
for the advancement of the safety, health and well-being of their community.
b. Engineers shall not complete, sign, or seal plans and/or specifications that are not of a
design safe to the public health and welfare and in conformity with accepted engineering
standards. If the client or employer insists on such unprofessional conduct, they shall notify
the proper authorities and withdraw from further service on the project.
c. Engineers shall endeavor to extend public knowledge and appreciation of engineering and
its achievements and to protect the engineering profession from misrepresentation and
misunderstanding.

3. Engineers shall avoid all conduct or practice which is likely to discredit the profession or
deceive the public.
a. Engineers shall avoid the use of statements containing a material misrepresentation of fact
or omitting a material fact necessary to keep statements from being misleading or intended or
likely to create an unjustified expectation; statements containing prediction of future success;
statements containing an opinion as to the quality of the Engineers’ services; or statements
intended or likely to attract clients by the use of showmanship, puffery, or self-laudation,
including the use of slogans, jingles, or sensational language or format.
b. Consistent with the foregoing, Engineers may advertise for recruitment of personnel.
c. Consistent with the foregoing, Engineers may prepare articles for the lay or technical press,
but such articles shall not imply credit to the author for work performed by others.

4. Engineers shall not disclose confidential information concerning the business affairs or
technical processes of any present or former client or employer without his consent.

a. Engineers in the employ of others shall not without the consent of all interested parties
enter promotional efforts or negotiations for work or make arrangements for other
employment as a principal or to practice in connection with a specific project for which the
Engineer has gained particular and specialized knowledge.
b. Engineers shall not, without the consent of all interested parties, participate in or represent
an adversary interest in connection with a specific project or proceeding in which the Engineer
has gained particular specialized knowledge on behalf of a former client or employer.

5. Engineers shall not be influenced in their professional duties by conflicting interests.

a. Engineers shall not accept financial or other considerations, including free engineering
designs, from material or equipment suppliers for specifying their product.
b. Engineers shall not accept commissions or allowances, directly or indirectly, from
contractors or other parties dealing with clients or employers of the Engineer in connection
with work for which the Engineer is responsible.

6. Engineers shall uphold the principle of appropriate and adequate compensation for those
engaged in engineering work.

a. Engineers shall not accept remuneration from either an employee or employment agency
for giving employment.
b. Engineers, when employing other engineers, shall offer a salary according to professional
qualifications.

7. Engineers shall not attempt to obtain employment or advancement or professional

engagements by untruthfully criticizing other engineers, or by other improper or questionable
methods.

a. Engineers shall not request, propose, or accept a professional commission on a contingent

basis under circumstances in which their professional judgment may be compromised.
b. Engineers in salaried positions shall accept part-time engineering work only to the extent
consistent with policies of the employer and in accordance with ethical consideration.
c. Engineers shall not use equipment, supplies, laboratory, or office facilities of an employer
to carry on outside private practice without consent.

8. Engineers shall not attempt to injure, maliciously or falsely, directly or indirectly,

professional reputation, prospects, practice or employment of other engineers, nor untruthfully
criticize other engineers’ work. Engineers who believe others are guilty of unethical or illegal
practice shall present such information to the proper authority for action.

a. Engineers in private practice shall not review the work of another engineer for the same
client, except with the knowledge of such engineer, or unless the connection of such engineer
with the work has been terminated.
b. Engineers in governmental, industrial or educational employ are entitled to review and
evaluate the work of other engineers when so required by their employment duties.
c. Engineers in sales or industrial employ are entitled to make engineering comparisons of
represented products with products of other suppliers.

9. Engineers shall accept responsibility for their professional activities; provided, however,
that Engineers may seek indemnification for professional services arising out of their practice
for other than gross negligence, where the Engineer’s interests cannot otherwise be protected.

a. Engineers shall conform with state registration taws in the practice of engineering.
b. Engineers shall not use association with a non-engineer, a corporation, or partnership, as a
“cloak” for unethical acts, but must accept personal responsibility for all professional acts.

10. Engineers shall give credit for engineering work to those to whom credit is due, and will
recognize the proprietary interests of others.

a. Engineers shall, whenever possible, name the person or persons who may be individually
responsible for designs, inventions, writings, or other accomplishments.
b. Engineers using designs supplied by a client recognize that the designs remain the property
of the client and may not be duplicated by the Engineer for others without express permission.
c. Engineers, before undertaking work for others in connection with which the Engineer may
make improvements, plans, designs, inventions, or other records which may justify copyrights
or patents, should enter into a positive agreement regarding ownership.
d. Engineers’ designs, data, records, and notes referring exclusively to an employer’s work
are the employer’s property.

11. Engineers shall cooperate in extending the effectiveness of the profession by interchanging
information and experience with other engineers and students, and will endeavor to provide
opportunity for the professional development and advancement of engineers under their
supervision.

a. Engineers shall encourage engineering employees’ efforts to improve their education.

b. Engineers shall encourage engineering employees to attend and present papers at
professional and technical society meetings.
 c. Engineers shall urge engineering employees to become registered at the earliest possible
date.
d. Engineers shall assign a professional engineer duties of a nature to utilize full training and
experience, insofar as possible, and delegate lesser functions to sub-professionals or to
technicians.
e. Engineers shall provide a prospective engineering employee with complete information on
working conditions and proposed status of employment, and after employment will keep
employees informed of any changes.

“By order of the United States District Court for the District of Columbia, former Section
11(c) of the NSPE Code of Ethics prohibiting competitive bidding, and all policy statements,
opinions, rulings or other guidelines interpreting its scope, have been rescinded as unlawfully
interfering with the legal right of engineers, protected under the antitrust laws, to provide price
information to prospective clients; accordingly, nothing contained in the NSPE Code of Ethics,
policy statements, opinions, rulings or other guidelines prohibits the submission of price quotations
or competitive bids for engineering services at any time or in any amount.”

Statement by NSPE Executive Committee

In order to correct misunderstandings which have been indicated in some instances since the
issuance of the Supreme Court decision and the entry of the Final Judgment, it is noted that in its
decision of April 25, 1978, the Supreme Court of the United States declared: “The Sherman Act
does not require competitive bidding.” It is further noted that, as made clear in the Supreme Court
decision:

1. Engineers and firms may individually refuse to bid for engineering services.
2. Clients are not required to seek bids for engineering services.
3. Federal, state, and local laws governing procedures to procure engineering services are
not affected, and remain in full force and effect.
4. State societies and local chapters are free to actively and aggressively seek legislation for
professional selection and negotiation procedures by public agencies.
5. State registration board rules of professional conduct, including rules prohibiting
competitive bidding for engineering services, are not affected and remain in full force and
effect. State registration boards with authority to adopt rules of professional conduct may
adopt rules governing procedures to obtain engineering services.
6. As noted by the Supreme Court, “nothing in the judgment prevents NSPE and its members
from attempting to influence governmental action. . . .”
Note: In regard to the question of application of the Code to corporations vis-à-vis real
persons, business form or type should not negate nor influence conformance of individuals to the
Code. The Code deals with professional services, which services must be performed by real
persons. Real persons in turn establish and implement policies within business structures. The
Code is clearly written to apply to the Engineer and it is incumbent on a member of NSPE to
endeavor to live up to its provisions. This applies to all pertinent sections of the Code.
A.5.8 ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct

Preamble

Commitment to ethical professional conduct is expected of every member (voting members,

associate members, and student members) of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM).
This Code, consisting of 24 imperatives formulated as statements of personal responsibility,
identifies the elements of such a commitment. It contains many, but not all, issues professionals
are likely to face. Section 1 outlines fundamental ethical considerations, while Section 2 addresses
additional, more specific considerations of professional conduct. Statements in Section 3 pertain
more specifically to individuals who have a leadership role, whether in the workplace or in a
volunteer capacity such as with organizations like ACM. Principles involving compliance with
this Code are given in Section 4.
The Code shall be supplemented by a set of Guidelines, which provide explanation to assist
members in dealing with the various issues contained in the Code. It is expected that the Guidelines
will be changed more frequently than the Code. The Code and its supplemented Guidelines are
intended to serve as a basis for ethical decision making in the conduct of professional work.
Secondarily, they may serve as a basis for judging the merit of a formal complaint pertaining to
violation of professional ethical standards. It should be noted that although computing is not
mentioned in the imperatives of section 1.0, the Code is concerned with how these fundamental
imperatives apply to one’s conduct as a computing professional. These imperatives are expressed
in a general form to emphasize that ethical principles which apply to computer ethics are derived
from more general ethical principles. It is understood that some words and phrases in a code of
ethics are subject to varying interpretations, and that any ethical principle may conflict with other
ethical principles in specific situations. Questions related to ethical conflicts can best be answered
via thoughtful consideration of fundamental principles, rather than reliance on detailed regulations.

1. General Moral Imperatives

As an ACM member I will . . .

1.1 Contribute to society and human well-being.

1.2 Avoid harm to others.
1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.
1.4 Be fair and take action not to discriminate.
1.5 Honor property rights including copyrights and patents.
1.6 Give proper credit for intellectual property.
1.7 Respect the privacy of others.
1.8 Honor confidentiality.
2. More Specific Professional Responsibilities

As an ACM computing professional I will . . .


Adopted by ACM Council 10/16/92. Reprinted with the permission of the Association for Computing
Machinery.
2.1 Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and dignity in both the process and products
of professional work.
2.2 Acquire and maintain professional competence.
2.3 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to professional work.
2.4 Accept and provide appropriate professional review.
2.5 Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer systems and their impacts,
including analysis of possible risks.
2.6 Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities.
2.7 Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences
2.8 Access computing and communication resources only when authorized to do so.

3. Organizational Leadership Imperatives

As an ACM member and an organizational leader, I will . . .

3.1 Articulate social responsibilities of members of an organizational unit and encourage full
acceptance of those responsibilities.
3.2 Manage personnel and resources to design and build information systems that enhance the
quality of working life.
3.3 Acknowledge and support proper and authorized uses of an organization’s computing and
communication resources.
3.4 Ensure that users and those who will be affected by a system have their needs clearly articulated
during the assessment and design of requirements; later the system must be validated to meet
requirements.
3.5 Articulate and support policies that protect the dignity of users and others affected by a
computing system.
3.6 Create opportunities for members of the organization to learn the principles and limitations of
computer systems.

4. Compliance with the Code

As an ACM member, I will . . .

4.1 Uphold and promote the principles of this Code.

4.2 Treat violations of this code as inconsistent with membership in the ACM.

GUIDELINES

1. General Moral Imperatives

As an ACM member I will . . .

1.1 Contribute to society and human well-being.

This principle concerning the quality of life of all people affirms an obligation to protect
fundamental human rights and to respect the diversity of all cultures. An essential aim of
computing professionals is to minimize negative consequences of computing systems, including
threats to health and safety. When designing or implementing systems, computing professionals
must attempt to ensure that the products of their efforts will be used in socially responsible ways,
will meet social needs, and will avoid harmful effects to health and welfare.
In addition to a safe social environment, human well-being includes a safe natural
environment. Therefore, computing professionals who design and develop systems must be alert
to, and make others aware of, any potential damage to the local or global environment.

1.2 Avoid harm to others.

“Harm” means injury or negative consequences, such as undesirable loss of information, loss
of property, property damage, or unwanted environmental impacts. This principle prohibits use of
computing technology in ways that result in harm to any of the following: users, the general public,
employees, employers. Harmful actions include intentional destruction or modification of files and
programs leading to serious loss of resources or unnecessary expenditure of human resources such
as the time and effort required to purge systems of “computer viruses.”
Well-intended actions, including those that accomplish assigned duties, may lead to harm
unexpectedly. In such an event the responsible person or persons are obligated to undo or mitigate
the negative consequences as much as possible. One way to avoid unintentional harm is to carefully
consider potential impacts on all those affected by decisions made during design and
implementation.
To minimize the possibility of indirectly harming others, computing professionals must
minimize malfunctions by following generally accepted standards for system design and testing.
Furthermore, it is often necessary to assess the social consequences of systems to project the
likelihood of any serious harm to others. If system features are misrepresented to users, co-
workers, or supervisors, the individual computing professional is responsible for any resulting
injury.
In the work environment the computing professional has the additional obligation to report
any signs of system dangers that might result in serious personal or social damage. If one’s
superiors do not act to curtail or mitigate such dangers, it may be necessary to “blow the whistle”
to help correct the problem or reduce the risk. However, capricious or misguided reporting of
violations can, itself, be harmful. Before reporting violations, all relevant aspects of the incident
must be thoroughly assessed. In particular, the assessment of risk and responsibility must be
credible. It is suggested that advice be sought from other computing professionals. See principle
2.5 regarding thorough evaluations.

1.3 Be honest and trustworthy.

Honesty is an essential component of trust. Without trust an organization cannot function

effectively. The honest computing professional will not make deliberately false or deceptive claims
about a system or system design, but will instead provide full disclosure of all pertinent system
limitations and problems.
A computer professional has a duty to be honest about his or her own qualifications, and about
any circumstances that might lead to conflicts of interest.
Membership in volunteer organizations such as ACM may at times place individuals in
situations where their statements or actions could be interpreted as carrying the “weight” of a larger
group of professionals. An ACM member will exercise care to not misrepresent ACM or positions
and policies of ACM or any ACM units.

1.4 Be fair and take action not to discriminate.

The values of equality, tolerance, respect for others, and the principles of equal justice govern
this imperative. Discrimination on the basis of race, sex, religion, age, disability, national origin,
or other such factors is an explicit violation of ACM policy and will not be tolerated.
Inequities between different groups of people may result from the use or misuse of information
and technology. In a fair society, all individuals would have equal opportunity to participate in, or
benefit from, the use of computer resources regardless of race, sex, religion, age, disability,
national origin or other such similar factors. However, these ideals do not justify unauthorized use
of computer resources nor do they provide an adequate basis for violation of any other ethical
imperatives of this code.

1.5 Honor property rights including copyrights and patents.

Violation of copyrights, patents, trade secrets and the terms of license agreements is prohibited
by law in most circumstances. Even when software is not so protected, such violations are contrary
to professional behavior. Copies of software should be made only with proper authorization.
Unauthorized duplication of materials must not be condoned.

1.6 Give proper credit for intellectual property.

Computing professionals are obligated to protect the integrity of intellectual property.

Specifically, one must not take credit for other’s ideas or work, even in cases where the work has
not been explicitly protected by copyright, patent, etc.

1.7 Respect the privacy of others.

Computing and communication technology enables the collection and exchange of personal
information on a scale unprecedented in the history of civilization. Thus there is increased potential
for violating the privacy of individuals and groups. It is the responsibility of professionals to
maintain the privacy and integrity of data describing individuals. This includes taking precautions
to ensure the accuracy of data, as well as protecting it from unauthorized access or accidental
disclosure to inappropriate individuals. Furthermore, procedures must be established to allow
individuals to review their records and correct inaccuracies.
This imperative implies that only the necessary amount of personal information be collected
in a system, that retention and disposal periods for that information be clearly defined and
enforced, and that personal information gathered for a specific purpose not be used for other
purposes without consent of the individual(s). These principles apply to electronic
communications, including electronic mail, and prohibit procedures that capture or monitor
electronic user data, including messages, without the permission of users or bona fide authorization
related to system operation and maintenance. User data observed during the normal duties of
system operation and maintenance must be treated with strictest confidentiality, except in cases
where it is evidence for the violation of law, organizational regulations, or this Code. In these
cases, the nature or contents of that information must be disclosed only to proper authorities. (See
1.9)

1.8 Honor confidentiality.

The principle of honesty extends to issues of confidentiality of information whenever one has
made an explicit promise to honor confidentiality or, implicitly, when private information not
directly related to the performance of one’s duties becomes available. The ethical concern is to
respect all obligations of confidentiality to employers, clients, and users unless discharged from
such obligations by requirements of the law or other principles of this Code.

2. More Specific Professional Responsibilities

As an ACM computing professional I will. . .

2.1 Strive to achieve the highest quality, effectiveness and dignity in both the process and
products of professional work.

Excellence is perhaps the most important obligation of a professional. The computing

professional must strive to achieve quality and to be cognizant of the serious negative
consequences that may result from poor quality in a system.

2.2 Acquire and maintain professional competence.

Excellence depends on individuals who take responsibility for acquiring and maintaining
professional competence. A professional must participate in setting standards for appropriate
levels of competence, and strive to achieve those standards. Upgrading technical knowledge and
competence can be achieved in several ways: doing independent study; attending seminars,
conferences, or courses; and being involved in professional organizations.

2.3 Know and respect existing laws pertaining to professional work.

ACM members must obey existing local, state, province, national, and international laws
unless there is a compelling ethical basis not to do so. Policies and procedures of the organizations
in which one participates must also be obeyed. But compliance must be balanced with the
recognition that sometimes existing laws and rules may be immoral or inappropriate and, therefore,
must be challenged. Violation of a law or regulation may be ethical when that law or rule has
inadequate moral basis or when it conflicts with another law judged to be more important. If one
decides to violate a law or rule because it is viewed as unethical, or for any other reason, one must
fully accept responsibility for one’s actions and for the consequences.

2.4 Accept and provide appropriate professional review.

Quality professional work, especially in the computing profession, depends on professional

reviewing and critiquing. Whenever appropriate, individual members should seek and utilize peer
review as well as provide critical review of the work of others.
 2.5 Give comprehensive and thorough evaluations of computer systems and their impacts,
including analysis of possible risks.

Computer professionals must strive to be perceptive, thorough, and objective when evaluating,
recommending, and presenting system descriptions and alternatives. Computer professionals are
in a position of special trust, and therefore have a special responsibility to provide objective,
credible evaluations to employers, clients, users, and the public. When providing evaluations the
professional must also identify any relevant conflicts of interest, as stated in imperative 1.3.
As noted in the discussion of principle 1.2 on avoiding harm, any signs of danger from systems
must be reported to those who have opportunity and/or responsibility to resolve them. See the
guidelines for imperative 1.2 for more details concerning harm, including the reporting of
professional violations.

2.6 Honor contracts, agreements, and assigned responsibilities.

Honoring one’s commitments is a matter of integrity and honesty. For the computer
professional this includes ensuring that system elements perform as intended. Also, when one
contracts for work with another party, one has an obligation to keep that party properly informed
about progress toward completing that work.
A computing professional has a responsibility to request a change in any assignment that he
or she feels cannot be completed as defined. Only after serious consideration and with full
disclosure of risks and concerns to the employer or client, should one accept the assignment. The
major underlying principle here is the obligation to accept personal accountability for professional
work. On some occasions other ethical principles may take greater priority.
A judgment that a specific assignment should not be performed may not be accepted. Having
clearly identified one’s concerns and reasons for that judgment, but failing to procure a change in
that assignment, one may yet be obligated, by contract or by law, to proceed as directed. The
computing professional’s ethical judgment should be the final guide in deciding whether or not to
proceed. Regardless of the decision, one must accept the responsibility for the consequences.
However, performing assignments “against one’s own judgment” does not relieve the
professional of responsibility for any negative consequences.

2.7 Improve public understanding of computing and its consequences.

Computing professionals have a responsibility to share technical knowledge with the public
by encouraging understanding of computing, including the impacts of computer systems and their
limitations. This imperative implies an obligation to counter any false views related to computing.

2.8 Access computing and communication resources only when authorized to do so.

Theft or destruction of tangible and electronic property is prohibited by imperative 1.2—

”Avoid harm to others.” Trespassing and unauthorized use of a computer or communication
system is addressed by this imperative. Trespassing includes accessing communication networks
and computer systems, or accounts and/or files associated with those systems, without explicit
authorization to do so. Individuals and organizations have the right to restrict access to their
systems so long as they do not violate the discrimination principle (see 1.4). No one should enter
or use another’s computer system, software, or data files without permission. One must always
have appropriate approval before using system resources, including communication ports, file
space, other system peripherals, and computer time.
2. Organizational Leadership Imperatives
BACKGROUND NOTE: This section draws extensively from the draft IFIP Code of Ethics,
especially its sections on organizational ethics and international concerns. The ethical obligations
of organizations tend to be neglected in most codes of professional conduct, perhaps because these
codes are written from the perspective of the individual member. This dilemma is addressed by
stating these imperatives from the perspective of the organizational leader. In this context
“leader” is viewed as any organizational member who has leadership or educational
responsibilities. These imperatives generally may apply to organizations as well as their leaders.
In this context “organizations” are corporations, government agencies, and other “employers,”
as well as volunteer professional organizations.

As an ACM member and an organizational leader, I will ....

3.1 Articulate social responsibilities of members of an organizational unit and encourage full
acceptance of those responsibilities.

Because organizations of all kinds have impacts on the public, they must accept
responsibilities to society. Organizational procedures and attitudes oriented toward quality and the
welfare of society will reduce harm to members of the public, thereby serving public interest and
fulfilling social responsibility. Therefore, organizational leaders must encourage full participation
in meeting social responsibilities as well as quality performance.

3.2 Manage personnel and resources to design and build information systems that enhance the
quality of working life.

Organizational leaders are responsible for ensuring that computer systems enhance, not
degrade, the quality of working life. When implementing a computer system, organizations must
consider the personal and professional development, physical safety, and human dignity of all
workers. Appropriate human-computer ergonomic standards should be considered in system
design and in the workplace.

3.3 Acknowledge and support proper and authorized uses of an organization’s computing and
communication resources.

Because computer systems can become tools to harm as well as to benefit an organization, the
leadership has the responsibility to clearly define appropriate and inappropriate uses of
organizational computing resources. While the number and scope of such rules should be minimal,
they should be fully enforced when established.

3.4 Ensure that users and those who will be affected by a system have their needs clearly
 articulated during the assessment and design of requirements; later the system must be
validated to meet requirements.

Current system users, potential users and other persons whose lives may be affected by a
system must have their needs assessed and incorporated in the statement of requirements. System
validation should ensure compliance with those requirements.

3.5 Articulate and support policies that protect the dignity of users and others effected by a
computing system.

Designing or implementing systems that deliberately or inadvertently demean individuals or

groups is ethically unacceptable. Computer professionals who are in decision making positions
should verify that systems are designed and implemented to protect personal privacy and enhance
personal dignity.

3.6 Create opportunities for members of the organization to learn the principles and limitations
of computer systems.

This complements the imperative on public understanding (2.7). Educational opportunities are
essential to facilitate optimal participation of all organizational members. Opportunities must be
available to all members to help them improve their knowledge and skills in computing, including
courses that familiarize them with the consequences and limitations of particular types of systems.
In particular, professionals must be made aware of the dangers of building systems around
oversimplified models, the improbability of anticipating and designing for every possible
operating condition, and other issues related to the complexity of this profession.

4. Compliance with the Code

As an ACM member I will . . .

4.1 Uphold and promote the principles of this Code.

The future of the computing profession depends on both technical and ethical excellence. Not
only is it important for ACM computing professionals to adhere to the principles expressed in this
Code, each member should encourage and support adherence by other members.

4.2 Treat violations of this code as inconsistent with membership in the ACM.

Adherence of professionals to a code of ethics is largely a voluntary matter. However, if a

member does not follow this code by engaging in gross misconduct, membership in ACM may be
terminated.

__

This Code and the supplemental Guidelines were developed by the Task Force for the
Revision of the ACM Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct: Ronald E. Anderson, Chair,
Gerald Engel, Donald Gotterbarn, Grace C. Hertlein, Alex Hoffman, Bruce Jawer, Deborah G.
Johnson, Doris K. Lidtke, Joyce Currie Little, Dianne Martin, Donn B. Parker, Judith A. Perrolle,
and Richard S. Rosenberg. The Task Force was organized by ACM/SIGCAS and funding was
provided by the ACM SIG Discretionary Fund. This Code and the supplemental Guidelines were
adopted by the ACM Council on October 16, 1992.
A.5.9 Code of Ethics of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers

Members of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers shall uphold and advance the
integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession by: being honest and impartial and
serving with fidelity their employers, their clients, and the public; striving to increase the
competence and prestige of the engineering profession; and using their knowledge and skill for the
enhancement of human welfare. To achieve these goals, members shall
1. Hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in performance of their
professional duties.
2. Formally advise their employers or clients (and consider further disclosure, if warranted)
if they perceive that a consequence of their duties will adversely affect the present or future
health or safety of their colleagues or the public.
3. Accept responsibility for their actions and recognize the contributions of others; seek
critical review of their work and offer objective criticism of the work of others.
4. Issue statements or present information only in an objective and truthful manner.
5. Act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents or trustees, and
avoid conflicts of interest.
6. Treat fairly all colleagues and co-workers, recognizing their unique contributions and
capabilities.
7. Perform professional services only in areas of their competence.
8. Build their professional reputations on the merits their services.
9. Continue their professional development throughout their careers and provide
opportunities for the professional development of those under their supervision.


Adopted in 1992 by the Council of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers.
A.5.10 Code of Ethics of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers:

The Fundamental Principles

Engineers uphold and advance the integrity, honor and dignity of the engineering profession by:

I. using their knowledge and skill for the enhancement of human welfare;
II. being honest and impartial, and serving with fidelity the public, their employers and
clients; and
III. striving to increase the competence and prestige of the engineering profession.

The Fundamental Canons

1. Engineers shall hold paramount the safety, health and welfare of the public in the
performance of their professional duties.
2. Engineers shall perform services only in the areas of their competence.
3. Engineers shall continue their professional development throughout their careers and shall
provide opportunities for the professional and ethical development of those engineers
under their supervision.
4. Engineers shall act in professional matters for each employer or client as faithful agents
or trustees, and shall avoid conflicts of interest or the appearance of conflicts of interest.
5. Engineers shall build their professional reputation on the merit of their services and shall
not compete unfairly with others.
6. Engineers shall associate only with reputable persons or organizations.
7. Engineers shall issue public statements only in an objective and truthful manner.


Last revised 9/12/91. Reprinted by permission of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers. Note that
this code is similar to, but not identical to, the ABET code (A.5.3).
A.6 GUIDELINES TO PROFESSIONAL EMPLOYMENT
FOR ENGINEERS AND SCIENTISTS

Introduction

A year and a half after it began work on the project, the Intersociety Committee for
Professional Employment Guidelines has announced that the second edition of the Guidelines to
Professional Employment for Engineers and Scientists has been endorsed by enough societies to
officially replace the first edition. NSPE endorsed the new edition at its Winter Meeting last
January in New Orleans.
A special subcommittee, following an elaborate procedure to assure that all interested
societies had ample opportunity to comment, completed the revision last August. The draft was
then edited further by the full intersociety committee and released in October for review and
endorsement by engineering and scientific societies.
As agreed upon by the intersociety committee, the second edition was to officially replace the
first upon endorsement by four out of five of the societies “principally concerned with
implementation,” including NSPE, the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, American
Society of Civil Engineers, American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the Institute of
Electrical and Electronics Engineers. A second requirement was that two thirds of the societies
endorsing the first edition, which was adopted January I, 1973, must also endorse the second. All
five of the listed societies have endorsed, as have at least 26 of the 32 first-edition endorsers.

Endorsing Societies:

American Society for Engineering Education

American Association of Cost Engineers
American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics
American Institute of Chemical Engineers
American Institute of Industrial Engineers
American Society of Agricultural Engineers
American Society of Civil Engineers
American Society of Mechanical Engineers
Association for Systems Management
Association of Professional Geological Scientists
Data Processing Management Association
Engineering Societies of New England, Inc.
Engineers’ Council for Professional Development
Engineers Joint Council
Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers
Institute of Transportation Engineers
National Association of Corrosion Engineers
National Institute of Ceramic Engineers
National Society of Professional Engineers
Society for the Advancement of Materials and Process Engineering
Society for Experimental Stress Analysis

Reprinted by permission of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers.
 Society for Technical Communications
Society of Fire Protection Engineers
Society of Manufacturing Engineers
Society of Packaging and Handling Engineers
Society of Plastics Engineers

Foreword

The first edition, January 1,1973, stated that the Guidelines would be kept current by periodic
review. Such a review has now been completed which indicates that the principles outlined in the
first edition remain sound and should be retained, but that some changes and additions are needed
to improve clarity and reflect experience. These have been incorporated in this second edition.
Despite the changes, the Guidelines remain a summary of mutually satisfying relationships
between employers and professional employees such as engineers and scientists. But now it is
recognized that they reflect the combined experience and judgment of many employers and
professional employees. The first edition gave the credit for the Guidelines solely to the endorsing
societies.
Other differences between the first and second editions consist of addition of some thoughts
on employee-employer responsibilities regarding patents, control of proprietary information, and
use of engineering titles. The distinction is clarified between the performance evaluation by the
employer for salary administration and the performance review by the employer and employee in
face-to-face discussion for career planning, exchange of viewpoints, and letting the employee
know how he/she is doing. The text has been edited to take account of female as well as male
employees. An effort has been made to minimize redundancy, clarify ambiguities, and improve
the style.
The second edition does not add any qualification of employee benefits beyond what was
included in the first edition. A benefits study, which was made with the help and cooperation of
the EJC Corporate Affiliates, revealed that qualification calls for an excessive amount of detail
which is perhaps more appropriate to implementation than to the content of the Guidelines. It was
concluded that the Guidelines should remain as broad statements of principle pursuant to the basic
concepts and format of the first edition. The results of the benefits study are being published
separately.
It is anticipated that the Guidelines will continue to be used by employers in evaluating their
own practices, by professional employees in evaluating their own responsibilities and those of their
employers, and by new graduates and other employment seekers in evaluating their prospective
employers.
Because of wide variations in individual circumstances and organizational practices, it is
inappropriate to make such evaluations on the basis of any single policy or fringe benefit. Rather,
attention should be devoted to evaluating the entire employment “package,” including
compensation (salary and other benefits) and such intangibles as opportunities for future
advancement and participation in profits, location, local cost of living, and other factors which
may be important to the professional employee.
Where practices do not measure up to the spirit of the Guidelines, it is hoped that
improvements will be implemented by employer initiative and employee-employer discussion and
joint action to minimize personnel problems, reduce misunderstandings, and generate greater
mutual respect. In the process of implementation, it is recommended that the Guidelines continue
to be viewed as desirable general goals rather than as a set of minimum standards. A constructive
and flexible approach is essential to deal with the aforesaid wide variations in individual
circumstances.
Where differences in interpretation occur, they may be referred to the headquarters office of
any of the endorsing societies. This document is subject to periodic review by the endorsing
societies to keep it current.

Objectives

The endorsing societies, with their avowed purpose to serve the public and their provisions,
recognize clearly that, in order to make their maximum contribution, it is necessary for
professional employees and employers to establish a climate conducive to the proper discharge of
their mutual responsibilities and obligations. The prerequisites for establishing such a climate
include:

1. A sound relationship between the professional employee and the employer, based on
mutual loyalty, cooperation, fair treatment, ethical practices, and respect.
2. Recognition of the responsibility to safeguard the public health, safety, and welfare.
3. Employee loyalty and creativity in support of the employer’s objectives.
4. Opportunity for professional growth of the employee, based on employee’s initiation and
the employer’s support.
5. Recognition that discrimination due to age, race, religion, political affiliation, or sex
should not enter into the professional employee-employer relationship. There should be
joint acceptance of the concepts which are reflected in the Equal Employment Opportunity
regulations.
6. Recognition that local conditions may result in honest differences in interpretation of and
deviations from the details of these Guidelines. Such differences should be resolved by
discussions leading to an understanding which meets the spirit of the Guidelines.
I. Recruitment
Hiring should be based on professional competence and ability to meet the job requirements.
Employee qualifications and employment opportunities should be represented in a factual and
forthright manner. The employer’s offer of employment and the employee’s acceptance should be
in writing.

Professional Employee
1. The professional employee (applicant) should attend interviews and accept reimbursement
only for those job opportunities in which there is a sincere interest. The applicant should
prorate costs for multiple interviews during a given trip on a rational basis. The guiding
principle should be that the applicant receives neither more nor less than the cost of the
total trip.
2. The applicant should carefully evaluate past, present, and future confidentiality
obligations in regard to trade secrets and proprietary information connected with the
potential employment. The applicant should not seek or accept employment on the basis
of using or divulging any trade secrets or proprietary information.
 3. Having accepted an offer of employment, the applicant is morally obligated to honor the
commitment unless formally released after giving adequate notice of intent.
4. The applicant should not use the funds or time of a current employer for the purpose of
seeking new employment unless approved by the current employer.
Employer
1. The policy of the employer regarding payment of expenses incurred by the applicant in
attending the interview must be made clear prior to the arranged interview.
2. The applicant should have an interview with the prospective employer and, if possible,
with the prospective supervisor, in order to understand clearly the technical and business
nature of the job opportunity. The prospective employer should be ethically responsible
for all representations regarding the conditions of employment.
3. Applications for positions should be confidential. The expressed consent of the applicant
should be obtained prior to communicating with a current employer.
4. Employers should minimize hiring during periods of major curtailment of personnel.
5. Hiring of professional employees should be planned at all times to provide satisfying
careers.
6. Agreements among employers or between employer and professional employee which
limit the opportunity of professional employees to seek other employment or establish
independent enterprise are contrary to the spirit of these Guidelines.
7. The employer’s written offer of employment should state all relevant terms, such as salary,
understandings relating to relocation assistance, expected duration of employment
(permanent or temporary), and patent obligations. The prospective employee should be
informed of any papers requiring a signature.
8. Having accepted an applicant, an employer who finds it necessary to rescind offer of
employment should make adequate reparation for any injury suffered.
II. Employment
Terms of employment should be in accordance with the applicable laws and consistent with
generally accepted ethical and professional practices.

Professional Employee
1. The professional employee should be loyal to the employer. Professional employees
should accept only those assignments for which they are qualified; should diligently,
competently, and honestly complete assignments; and should contribute creative,
resourceful ideas to the employer while making a positive contribution toward establishing
a stimulating work atmosphere and maintaining a safe working environment.
2. The professional employee should have due regard for the health, safety, and welfare of
the public and fellow employees in all work for which responsibility is assumed. Where
the technical adequacy of process or product is unsatisfactory, the professional employee
should withhold approval of the plans and should state the reasons for such action.
3. The professional employee should sign or seal only plans or specifications prepared by
that employee or others under that employee’s supervision or plans or specifications that
have been personally reviewed and satisfactorily checked.
4. The professional employee is responsible for the full and proper utilization of time in the
employer’s interest and the proper care of the employer’s facilities.
 5. The professional employee should avoid any conflict of interest with an employer and
should immediately disclose any real or potential problem which may develop in this area.
6. The professional employee should cooperate fully with the employer in obtaining patent
protection over any inventions.
7. The professional employee should not divulge proprietary information.
8. The professional employee should not accept any payments, or gifts of significant value,
directly or indirectly, from parties dealing with a client or employer.
Employer
1. The employer should keep professional employees informed of the organization’s
objectives, policies, and programs.
2. The employer should provide the professional employee with compensation (salary and
other benefits) commensurate with the professional’s contribution, taking into account the
employee’s abilities, professional status, responsibilities, education, experience, and the
potential value of the work to be performed.
3. The employer should establish a salary policy taking into account published salary surveys
for professional employees. The salary so established should be commensurate with those
for other employees both professional and nonprofessional within the organization. The
salary structure should be reviewed annually to keep the assigned dollar value adjusted to
the current economy.
4. Each individual position should be properly classified as to its level in the overall salary
structure. The evaluation of each position should consider such factors as the skill required
for acceptable performance, the original thinking required for solving the problems
involved, and the accountability for an action and its consequences.
5. Duties, levels of responsibility, and the relationship of positions within the organizational
hierarchy should be clearly defined and should be accurately reflected in position titles.
6. Employers should restrict the use of titles denoting professional engineering status to those
employees qualified by graduation from a baccalaureate program in engineering or by
professional licensure. Appropriate titles and career patterns not denoting professional
status should be developed for other categories of employees including those holding
associate degrees in engineering technology. Titles denoting professional status in non-
engineering disciplines should be restricted to those qualified by graduation from
appropriate baccalaureate programs.
7. Economic advancement should be based upon a performance evaluation plan. Provision
should be made for accelerated promotion and extra compensation for superior
performance and/or special accomplishments including generation of proprietary
information and patents. All promotions in salary and responsibility should be on an
individual merit basis. Performance and compensation should be evaluated at least
annually.
8. The employer should conduct a performance review with each professional employee at
appropriate intervals and at least annually with new and/or younger employees. The
review should cover how well work has been performed, areas for improvement, and
discussion of career planning including viewpoints of both employer and employee. The
professional employee should be informed if performance is unsatisfactory. The results of
the review should be documented.
 9. The employer should provide an equivalent ladder for compensation and advancement of
professional employees whose aptitudes and interests are technical rather than
supervisory.
10. The employer should have an established method and formula for compensation over and
above salary and fringe benefits for the professional employee who generates inventions,
patents, and other proprietary information for the employer.
11. It is inappropriate for a professional employee to use a time clock to record arrival and
departure.
12. If the work demanded of a professional employee regularly exceeds the normal working
hours for extended periods, the employer should provide extra compensation for this
continuing extra effort according to a clearly stated policy.
13. The employer should include in the compensation other benefits such as pensions, life
insurance, health care, sick leave, vacations, holidays, and savings or profit sharing plans
consistent with current industrial practices. For example, the employer should have a
pension plan which provides for early vesting of rights in safeguarded pension funds.
Vesting should be so scheduled that it does not seriously affect either the employer’s or
the professional employee’s decision as to continued employment. As goals, eligibility for
participation should not exceed one year after employment, maximum full vesting time
should be five years, and the minimum pension upon reaching retirement should be no
less than 50 percent of the average best five years’ salary (based on a 40-year working
career with a single employer). If a pension plan: is not provided or the benefits are less
than outlined above, other compensation should be increased proportionately.
14. The employer should provide office, support staff, and physical facilities which promote
the maximum personal efficiency of the professional employee.
15. The employer should not require the professional employee to accept responsibility for
work not supervised by that employee.
16. The employer should defend any suits or claims against present or former individual
professional employees in connection with their authorized activities on behalf of the
employer.
17. There should be no employer policy which requires a professional employee to join a labor
organization as a condition of continued employment.
18. The employer should clearly identify proprietary information and should release those
inventions and information generated by the employee which are not useful to the
employer.
III. Professional Development

The professional employee and the employer have responsibilities for professional development—
the employee to establish goals and take the initiative to reach them and the employer to provide
a supportive attitude and environment.

Professional Employee
1. The professional employee should maintain technical competence through a program of
continuing education and broadening experience.
2. The professional employee should belong to and participate in the activities of appropriate
societies in order to obtain additional knowledge and experience. Such participation
 should include the preparation of professional and technical papers for publication and
presentation.
3. The professional employee should achieve appropriate registration and/or certification as
soon as eligible.
4. The professional employee should provide public service by participating in civic and
political activities of a technical and non-technical nature. If such participation interferes
with the timely execution of work, it should be with the agreement of the employer.
Employer
1. The employer should cooperate with the employee to maintain technical competence and
broaden experience. Included are appropriate work assignments of a rotational nature, and
support of continuing education by self-improvement, courses in-house and at institutions
of higher learning, and meetings and seminars on appropriate subjects. Also included are
encouragement and support of membership and participation in professional society
activities.
2. The employer should consider compensated leaves of absence for professional study to
improve competence and knowledge.
3. Consistent with employer objectives, employees should be given every opportunity to
publish work promptly and to present findings at technical society meetings.
4. The employer should encourage and assist professional employees to achieve registration
and/or certification in their respective fields.
IV. Termination and Transfer

Adequate notice of termination of employment should be given by the employee or employer as

appropriate.

Professional Employee
1. If the professional employee decides to terminate employment, the employee should assist
the employer in maintaining a continuity of function and should provide at least one
month’s notice. When termination is initiated by the employee, no severance pay is due.
Upon termination, the professional employee should maintain all proprietary information
as confidential.
Employer
1. In a personal interview, the employer should inform the employee of the specific reasons
for his/her termination.
2. Additional notice of termination, or compensation in lieu thereof, should be provided by
the employer in consideration of responsibilities and length of service. Permanent
employees (after initial trial period) should receive notice or equivalent compensation
equal to one month, plus one week per year of service. In the event that the employer elects
notice in place of severance compensation, the employer should allow the employee
reasonable time and facilities to seek new employment.
3. Employers should make every effort to relocate terminated professional employees either
within their own organizations or elsewhere. Consideration should be given to continuing
 major employee protection plans for some period following termination and to their full
reinstatement in the event of subsequent reemployment.
4. If, for the convenience of an employer, a professional employee is terminated through
early retirement, provision should be made by the employer for assuring an adequate
income.
5. Agreement should be reached on the assistance and amount of compensation for the
terminated employee in obtaining patent protections or in patent litigation.
6. In the event of transfer, the employer should allow adequate time for the employee to settle
personal matters before moving. All normal moving costs of the transfer should be paid
by the employer, including moving expenses, realtor fees, travel expenses to the new
location to search for housing, and reasonable living expenses for the family until
permanent housing is found. Unusual moving expense reimbursement should be settled in
a discussion between the employee and employer.
A.7 ETHICS INVESTIGATIONS—WAYS AND MEANS

A number of practical questions arise in connection with ethics investigations, and some light
can be shed on these as a result of the extensive experience of AAUP in a related field and the very
limited IEEE experience that is directly relevant.

The Investigation Teams

First there is a question as to who should be on the investigation teams. The procedure
followed by AAUP is to use faculty members from other institutions in the same geographic area
as the university under investigation. The IEEE CSIT investigation group consisted simply of
active members of that committee’s Working Group on Ethics and Employment practices. No
general policy on this matter has as yet been established by the IEEE MCC.
For such a task it is important to select mature, objective people with sound judgment who
can act without having to worry about retaliation from employers or clients. Obvious candidates
are retirees, professors (particularly those with tenure), and those with civil service status
(assuming the case does not involve a government agency). Other possibilities include independent
consultants whose clientele is in a field other than that of the subject organization, and engineers
employed by firms in a field remote from that of the subject organization and known to be tolerant
regarding outside activities of employees. Where technical issues are expected to be a factor, it
would of course be wise to have at least one of the investigators knowledgeable in the area. (The
investigators may in some cases find it useful to call on other society members for technical
opinions and advice.) Geographic proximity both to the locale of the case and to one another would
be convenient, but is not essential.
AAUP nearly always uses two-person teams, only occasionally adding a third member. It is
clearly advisable to have more than one person carrying out the investigation so as to make possible
intra-team discussions, which are invaluable when decisions are necessary about sensitive matters.
If the number on the team exceeds two, the problems of intra-team communications become
unwieldy unless frequent face-to-face meetings of the entire group are convenient. The three-
person teams used by CSIT brought out this problem, even though the members were well
acquainted and quite compatible with one another. Note that if communication is possible only
between pairs of people (as in the case of ordinary phone calls), then the number of connections
that must be established for three people to communicate among themselves is triple the number
required when only two are involved. Telephone conference calls and e-mail can be very helpful
here.

Modes of Contact

An important issue is the type of contact made between investigators and subjects. The
principal possibilities are site visits with face-to-face interviews, telephone conversations, and the
mails. There are various tradeoffs among these modes of operation. Site visits, which generally
must be made on business days, may require the investigators to take several days off work, and
unless they are situated close to the investigation site, there will also be travel expenses. On the
other hand, a great deal of information can be obtained in the course of a day or two of direct
meetings, and impressions based on nonverbal information can be useful.
 Telephone interviews, unless there are a great many, save time and money. In some cases,
however, the difficulty of reaching people by phone may obviate at least the time advantage. This
method does spread the time expenditure over a longer interval, which may be preferable to some
people. Much of the advantage of face-to-face conversation is retained, though some nonverbal
cues are lost, and in most cases only two people will be involved.
Written correspondence is the cheapest and slowest mode. It lacks immediate feedback,
whereby an answer to one question suggests a follow-up question, and so on. On the other hand,
there are distinct advantages, some stemming directly from the drawbacks. Both questions and
answers are likely to be framed carefully and concisely. In emotionally charged situations, it is
generally advantageous to use a medium less conducive to hot-headed responses. Another
advantage is that a precise, written record of what each party said is preserved. This can minimize
misunderstanding, makes it easy for others to review the investigation at a later date, and, to some
extent, simplifies the writing of reports.
An excellent medium, where feasible, is e-mail. This is inexpensive, relatively fast, can
involve multiple parties, and provides a precise record of what everybody has said.
AAUP investigations are all of the site-visit type, supplemented by phone calls and
occasionally letters. The IEEE CSIT investigations were carried out almost entirely in writing,
with a few phone calls that were largely incidental. The elapsed time from the start of the inquiry
to the publication stage in the one IEEE case that went the complete route (the Edgerton case) was
about 18 months, despite certain delays associated with the novelty of the process. It is interesting
that this is not significantly different from the corresponding time for AAUP cases. The Dixon
case, which entailed a substantial revision of the preliminary report, took 14 months to the final
CSIT report, and there was no publication. Apparently, investigation by mail does not necessarily
slow down the overall process to any great extent. It may be more suitable in an industrial
environment that, in any event, is not generally as open to wandering investigators as is a college
campus.
Of course, regardless of the mode used for interviewing, it is important to gather all
documentary evidence relevant to the case. This would include such items as resumes, letters,
patent agreements, patent applications, memorandums, technical data and reports, notes on
conversations, news or technical articles, copies of pertinent laws or regulations, legal opinions,
contracts, advertisements, and brochures. The investigators should, at the outset, set up a file
system in which each document, including those that they generate, is uniquely numbered and
identified, with date, title, origin, and brief description in a compact list. The engineer who is the
subject of the case should be expected to supply as much of this material as possible, to identify
others who are knowledgeable about the situation (names, addresses, and phone members). All
others contacted, including the employer, should also be asked for additional names and
documents. This leads to a growing circle of witnesses and data that, one hopes, eventually leads
to a relatively complete set.
Since the investigators do not have subpoena powers and are seldom in a position to require
statements under oath, it is particularly important to cross-check information on disputed points as
carefully as possible, using all available sources. In most cases, it is not as hard as one might think
to arrive at a sufficiently accurate account of the essential events.

Confidential Testimony
 One sticky point has to do with confidentiality. Certain witnesses, usually fellow employees,
may be willing to supply information only if assured that their identities will be kept confidential,
for fear of retaliation by their employer. One can easily imagine situations where an engineer might
have to depend almost exclusively on such testimony to corroborate his arguments. On the other
hand, is it fair to the employer to have to rebut a case dependent on testimony from people with
identities concealed from him? A response might be that we are concerned here with a process that
is neither of the judicial nor of the adversarial type. The investigators are not advocates for either
side, but are attempting to discover as well as they can where the truth lies. Since the concealed
witnesses are known to them, they are in a good position to cross-check their accounts using all
available information. This may be the best that can be done under the circumstances.
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Parker, Donn B. (1978). Ethical Conflicts in Computer Science and Technology,
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Paschkis, Victor (1971). “Moving toward Responsible Technology,” ASME
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Paschkis, Victor (1975). “Ethics in Engineering,” ASME Engineering Applications
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Paschkis, Victor (1976).”Engineering Ethics—New Imperative in Engineering
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Payne, Viron E., Sr. (1975). “Ethics,” IEEE Spectrum 12(3):24, Mar.
Pellegrino, Charles (1988). Her Name, Titanic, McGraw-Hill, New York.
Perrow, Charles (1984). Normal Accidents: Living With High Risk Technologies,
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Perrucci, Robert (1969). The Engineer and the Social System, Wiley, New York.
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Perry, Tekla (1981b). “Knowing How to Blow the Whistle,” IEEE Spectrum 18(9):
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Peters, Charles, and Branch, Taylor (1972). Blowing the Whistle: Dissent in the
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Pollock, J. Grace (1980). Pierce v. Ortho Pharmaceutical, New Jersey Supreme
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Pyko, Kim (1986). “A Whistle-Blower’s Story of the Trouble at the TVA,” IEEE
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Rapoport, Anatol (1974). Fights, Games and Debates, University of Michigan
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Raven-Hansen, Peter (1980). “Do’s and Don’ts for Whistleblowers,” Technology
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Rogers, C. Thomas (1980). “The End-Use Problem in Engineering Ethics,”
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Roy, Rustum and Hawk, Ernest M. (1976). “A Survey of Academic Technology
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Salvadori, Mario G. (1977). “Engineering Ethics and Engineering Education,” in
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Schinzinger, Roland, and Martin, Mike W. (1980). “Engineering as Social
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Shcherbak, Lurii (1989). Chernobyl: A Documentary Story, St. Martin’s Press,
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Silver, Isadore (1978). “The Corporate Ombudsman,” Harvard Business Review,
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Sinclair, George (1980). “Do We Know What ‘Technology’ Means?” Technology
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Singer, Peter (1979). Practical Ethics, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge,
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SPSE Newsletter (1980). By Livermore Laboratories Society of Professional
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ASCE (1975), pp. 97-107; reprinted in Baum (1979), pp. 58-63.
Stephan, Karl (2015), Ethical and Otherwise: Engineering In the Headlines, Kindle
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Stewart, Julie, Devine, Thomas, and Rasor, Dina (1989). Courage Without
Martyrdom: A Survival Guide for Whistleblowers, Government Accountability
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Stone, Christopher D. (1975). Where the Law Ends, Harper & Row, New York.
Stuart, E. B., et al. (1973). “In the Engineers’ Interest . . . Collective Bargaining v.
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Sufrin, Sidney C. (1985). Bhopal, Its Setting, Responsibility, and Challenge,
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Unger, Stephen H. (1972a). “Personal Responsibility of Engineers for Their
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Unger, Stephen H. (1972b). “Engineering Societies and the Responsible
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Unger, Stephen H. (1972c). “The Need for Heroes,” Computer 5(l):22-23, Jan./
Feb.
Unger, Stephen H. (1973a). “The BART Case: Ethics and the Employed
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Unger, Stephen H. (1977). “Privacy, Cryptography and Free Research,”
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Unger, Stephen H. (1982). “The Growing Threat of Government Secrecy,”
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(1980a), pp. 63-67.
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pp. 20-24; reprinted in Baum (1980a), pp. 136-38.
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Winner, Langdon (1979). “Technology and Legislation,” in Burke (1979).
Wisely, William H. (1978). “Public Obligation and the Ethics System,” ASCE
Chicago Convention and Exposition, Oct.; reprinted in Flores (1980a), pp.
13-16.
Wright, J. Patrick (1979). On a Clear Day You Can See General Motors, Avon, New York.
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 INDEX

Note: Because of the dynamic nature of electronic books, this index does not contain page
numbers; it is offered to provide an easy and comprehensive list of names and terms that readers
can use with the search function of e-readers or web browsers.

AAAS Committee on Scientific Freedom and Responsibility (CSFR)

AAES (American Association of Engineering Societies)
AAUP (American Association of University Professors)
ABET (formerly ECPD) Ethics Code
see ECPD (ABET) ethics codes Academic freedom
ACEC (American Consulting Engineers Council), ethics code
Ackerman, Adolph
ACM (Association for Computing Machinery), ethics code
ACS (American Chemical Society): employment guidelines
Member Assistance Program
multiple terminations program
Advertising
Age discrimination
Agnew, Spiro, bribery case
AIEE ethics code
Airbags in autos
Air Force, waste in procurement
Airworthiness directive
Alderman, Frank
Aldridge, Arnold, NASA manager
Alger, P. L.
Amicus curiae brief in BART case
Anderson, Robert M.
Anderson, Roy W., CSPE
Anonymity for dissenters
ANSI C compiler
Applegate, Daniel, DC-10 engineer
Applegate memorandum
Appropriate technology
Arizona Public Service Company
ASCE
ethics code, adopted
ABET code
expulsion from
Jakobsen-Payne case
phone service
Ashkinazy, Aaron
ASME
See also Hydrolevel case ethics code
ASME Division on Technology and Society
 ethics code
Association of Professional Engineers, Province of Ontario, Canada,
ethics code
Atomic Energy Commission (AEC)
At-will employee
Automatic Train Control (ATC)
Awards
Baslow
Paschkis
Cavallo: Smith
Timothy Reid
IEEE SSIT
BART engineers
Bams, chairman
Basdekas
Edgerton
Linder
Parks
Backe, Richard
Ballard, Robert D.
Barauck, Alfred
Barringer, Felicity
BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) case
CSPE report engineers
see Blankenzee; Bruder; Hjortsvang
Fremont accident
IEEE amicus curiae brief
Oliver letter
Barus, Carl, IEEE SSIT
Basdekas, Demetrios, electrical engineer
Baslow, Morris, marine biologist
Baum, Robert J.
Beardsley, Charles
Bell, Trudy
Bell System telephone network
Bereano, Philip
Bhopal disaster
cause, proximate
causes, basic
costs, human and economic
financial settlement
gas leaks
inadequate regulation
legal aspects
maintenance
MIC, handling of
 non-profitability of the plant
ownership of plant
previous accidents
transnational aspects
Blankenzee, Max, BART engineer
Boeing-747
Boffey, Philip
Bogard, William
Bogumil, R. Jeffrey, IEEE SSIT
Boiler codes
Boisjoly, Roger, Thiokol engineer
Bok, Sissela,
Bribery
Bridenbaugh, Dale nuclear engineer
Briffa, Edward
British Board of Trade
Brooklyn Bridge
Brooks, Jack
Brown, Air Force Secretary, role in Fitzgerald case
Brown, Martin
Bruder, Robert, BART engineer
Burke, John G.
Business ethics
California Society of Professional Engineers (BART case)
Censorship
Censure:
of employers of engineers
of engineers
penalties
of university administrations
Chalk, Rosemary
Challenger disaster
design changes
explosion
field joints
managerial attitudes
NASA managers
see Aldridge; Hardy; Moore; Mulloy; Reinartz
O-rings, see Field joints Rockwell recommendation
(ice problem)
Rogers commission investigation (SRB)
solid fuel rocket booster
technical issues
teleconference
Thiokol, contractor for SRBs
Chernobyl disaster
 cleanup effort
containment structure
deaths: long term
prompt
early warnings
evacuations
explosions
financial cost
fires
management role
previous accidents
radioactive emissions
sarcophagus
secrecy, role of
technical background
transnational effects
triggering events
Civil engineers
see Kammerer; Matz; Pettis; Salvadori
Civil rights laws, protecting jobs
Civil service workers
Clients
see Employers and clients
Clines, Francis
Codes of ethics
see Ethics codes
Colleagues, co-workers and subordinates
Collective bargaining
see also Unions
Common law
Competence
importance in ethics related disputes
Competition, unfair
Competitive bidding
Computer experts
see Blankenzee; Edgerton
Computers and police cars
Edgerton case
CSIT report
MCC report
Confidentiality
Conflict of interest
designated engineering representatives,
Conflict resolution procedures
criteria
NRC procedures
 ombudsmen
open door policy
use in various organizations
workability
written channels
Conflict situations
advice to individuals
anonymity
collect paper
going outside the organization
open door
use of
resigning
restate opponent’s arguments
support from others
timeliness
Conran, James, nuclear engineer,
Consequences of work
Constance, John
Consulting engineers:
bribery
ethics code for
incurring legal risks
outfall pipe case
Consumers Union
Contras
Convair, DC
subcontractor
Conway, John
Cook, Richard C, NASA auditor,
Cooke, Morris L., mechanical engineer
Corvair case
Credit for work
Criticism:
constructive
malicious
Cryptology
CSIT, see SSIT
CSPE (California Society of Professional Engineers)
Current events
Dakota (DC-3)
Dannen, Fredric
Davie, Michael
Davis, Sam
DC-10 disaster
Applegate memorandum
 avoiding repetition
comparison with Challenger disaster
delayed effect on Rockwell engineer
engineers’ silence
Paris air crash
Turkish Airlines
De Grazia, Alfred
Dembo, David
De Millo, Richard
Democratic process
Designated engineering representatives
FAA
Detjen, Jim
Devine, Tom
GAP
DeVolpi, Alexander
Dewitt, Hugh, physicist
Differing professional opinions
NRC procedures
Discrimination
Disreputable characters
association with
Dissent handling procedures
see Conflict resolution procedures
Dixon case
Douglas DC-10
Drain plug problem at TMI
Duarte, Cornelius
ECPD (now ABET)
ethics code
Eddy, Paul
Edgerton, Virginia, computer expert
Edsal, John
Education for responsible engineering
Elden, Walter
Electrical engineers
see Basdekas; Bruder; Hjortsvang; Murray; Oliver; Payne; Reid; Smith (Jerry);
Ellul, Jacques
Emberson, Richard, IEEE General Manager
Employer honor rolls
Employers and clients, relations with
Employment-at-will doctrine
Employment Guidelines for Engineers and Scientists
Employment protection
See also Tenure
Unions for aiding federal agencies
 British law
civil rights legislation
common law
Geary case
Murray case
Pierce case
public policy
state laws
whistleblower laws
Employment termination
End use problem
Engineering
employment categories
by contract
Engineering license
see Registration of engineers
Engineering responsibility
Engineering societies
requirement to support
Engineering societies
support for ethical engineers
benefits to public and to managers
ethics “hotline”
evaluating procedures
IEEE experience
see IEEE
investigation and publication
Legal Defense Service
objections to
costs
employer reaction
lawsuits
unionism
Engineers’ Forum
Zwiep proposal
Entitlement to engineering advice
Ethics case investigations
Ethics codes:
AAES
ABET (formerly ECPD)
ACEC
ACM
AIChE
AIME
ASCE (see ABET code)
ASME
 basic principles
compact statement,
EMB (IEEE),
enforceable rules
IEEE
living up to them
model code
more general
motivation for
NSPE
obligation to support
Ontario Professional Engineers
scope and form
specialized
Ethics enforcement
ASCE
CSPE
IEEE
related to support
Ethics ratings of employers
Ewing, David
FAA (Federal Aviation Agency)
Fairman, James, IEEE
Fair play
Fairweather, Virginia
Falsifying data: ethics code provisions
Goodrich air brake case
Martin Marietta case
Faulkner, Peter, nuclear engineer
Federal Water Pollution Control Act
Federation of American Scientists (FAS)
Feliu, Alfred,
Feynman, Richard P., physicist
Fielder, John,
Figorito, Cathy
Fitzgerald, A. Ernest, industrial engineer
Fitzgerald, Susan
Flores, Albert
Florman, Samuel C.
Fluegge, Ronald, nuclear engineer
Foy, Nancy
Friedlander, Gordon
Fruchtbaum, Harold
Futility argument
Gale, Robert
GAP (Government Accountability Project)
Gargan, Edward
Geary, George, sales engineer
General Electric Company
General Electric Engineers Association
General Public Utilities (GPU),
owner of TMI nuclear power plant
Gert, Bernard
Gischel, Edwin H., engineer in TMI case
Glazer, Myron P.
Goethals, George
Goldmark, Henry
Goodrich air brake case
Gorgas, Dr. William
Gregory, Edward, auto worker
Grossman, S., FERC judge
Guarrera, John, IEEE president
Guidelines to Professional Employment
for Engineers and Scientists
see Employment Guidelines for Engineers and Scientists
Hammond, David, BART chief engineer
Hardin, T. R. (Hydrolevel case)
Hardy, George B., NASA manager
Harriman, Bruce
Hawk, Ernest
Haworth, Donald, ASME
Haynes, Viktor
Hazarika, Sanjoy
HBR, Harvard Business Review
Heitowit, Ezra
Helix, Daniel, member BART BOD
Heneage, John, nuclear engineer
Hippocratic oath
Hjortsvang, Holger, BART engineer
Hodges, Harry
Hogan & Hartson
Holden, Constance
Honorable enterprises
Hotline, ethics
Houston, Carl, mechanical engineer
Hubbard, Richard, nuclear engineer
Hudson River fish case
Hurt John, Convair executive
Hydrolevel case
Powell dissent
resulting reforms
role of the courts
 role of the press
IBM-family of computers,
IBM dispute resolution procedures,
ICEs, high speed German trains,
Ideals of profession,
IEEE:
Committee on Social Implications of Technology (CSIT)
see SSIT
Engineering in Medicine and Biology Society
(EMB) ethics code,
see Ethics codes
Executive Committee (EXCOM)
Institute (monthly newspaper)
MCC (Member Conduct Committee)
Spectrum (monthly magazine)
SSIT (Society on Social Implications of Technology)
see SSIT support for ethical engineers: investigations
proposals for strengthening
traditional activities
USAB (US Activities Board—or Committee)
Income or compensation for engineers
Incompetence
Independence of engineering societies from corporations,
Industrial engineers
see Fitzgerald
(A. Ernest); Melman Informed consent
(B. Inform the public
International Traffic in Arms Regulations
Interview expenses
Ismay, J. Bruce, Chairman of the White Star Line
Jackall, Robert
Jakobsen-Payne case
see ASCE James, John (Hydrolevel case)
Japanese Railway Technical Research Institute (RTRI)
Job offers
Job placement for fired engineers
Jones, William R, CSPE president
Kammerer, Allen, bribery case
Kannry, Jack
Kapitsa, Peter
Kaufman, Joseph S., IEEE CSIT
Kemper, John
Kepone episode
King, Laurence P., engineer in TMI case
Kipnis, Kenneth
Klinefelter, Earl, ACS
Knight, Jonathan, AAUP
Kohn, Philip M.
Kotasek, Frank, IEEE CSIT
Kurland ,J. E.
Kyshtym disaster
Labor Department:
role in Baslow case
role in Heneage case
role in TMI case
Ladd, John
Ladenson, Robert F.
Lapidus, Martin, AAUP
Lapps, Chernobyl victims
Lawler, John
Lawsuits, danger to societies
Layton, Edwin
Leahy, Patrick J.
Legal defense service
Legal ethics
Legal Times,
Lewis, Richard
Liability lawyers
Licensing of engineers
see Registration of engineers
Linder, Benjamin E., mechanical engineer
Lindsay, James F.
Litigation, danger to societies
Livestock feed disaster (Michigan)
Lockhart, T. W.
Lockheed C- A
Lockheed Tri-Star
Lord, Stanley, Californian captain
Lord, Walter
Love Canal disaster
Low-water fuel cut-off,
Loyalty to employers
Lunch, Milton, NSPE General Counsel
Maglev
Malaria
Management:
benefits from regulation
hierarchical approach
short-term thinking
Managerial responsibility
Baum proposal
Managing director of shipyard, Alexander M. Carlisle,
Manhattan Project
Marcus, Geoffrey
Marine biologist Morris Baslow
Marinos, Evangelos, nuclear engineer
Marples, David
Martin Marietta case
Martin, Mike
Mascone, Cynthia F.
Matz, Lester, bribery case
McCloskey, US Representative Pete
McConnell, Malcolm
McCormick, Bryce, DC-10 airline captain
McCracken, Daniel D.
McCullough, David
McDonald, Allen J., Thiokol manager
McDonnell Douglas, DC-10 manufacturer
McGowan, Jackson, president Douglas Division
McQueen, Hugh
Mechanical engineers
see Boisjoly; Cooke; Houston; Linder; Paschkis
Mediation,
Medical ethics
Medvedev, Grigori, nuclear engineer
Medvedev, Zhores
Melman, Seymour, industrial engineer
Metzger, Walter
MIC (methyl isocyanate)
Microform Data Systems console case
Military applications of technology
Miller, Arthur
Minor, George, nuclear engineer
Mitcham, Carl
Mock, Jesse
Model-T Ford
Moore, Jesse, NASA manager
Moore, Lois
Morehouse, Ward
Morgenthau, Robert J., Manhattan District Attorney
Mosquito eradication
Mulloy, Lawrence B., NASA manager
Mumford, Lewis
Murray, Marvin, electrical engineer
Nader, Ralph
NASA (National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
National security
 See also Secrecy
National Security Agency (NSA)
NCEE (National Council of Engineering Examiners)
Nixon, Alan, ACS president
Nixon, Richard, role in Fitzgerald case
NRC (Nuclear Regulatory Commission):
procedures for handling dissent
role in TMI case
NSPE (National Society of Professional Engineers)
Board of Ethical Review
code of ethics
ethics survey
Professional Development Awards program,
unions, position on
Nuclear engineers
see Bridenbaugh; Conran; Faulkner; Fluegge; Gischel; Heneage; Hubbard;
King; Marinos; Medvedev (Grigori); Minor; Parks
Nuclear powered submarine
Nuclear reactor cases
see Chernobyl disaster
Nuclear engineers
Three Mile Island
Oldenquist, Andrew
Oliver, Bernard, electrical engineer
Olson, J., ethics survey of NSPE members
Ombudsmen
Ontario, Canada, Engineering Association
Open door policy
See also Conflict resolution procedures
Openness
Organizational disobedience
Ortho Pharmaceutical case
Otten, James
Outfall pipe case
Overtime
Palo Verde Nuclear Generating Station
Panama Canal
Panelli, Judge Edward A,
Paramountcy of public safety etc.
see Safety, health, and welfare
Parcher, James
Paris air crash
Parker, Donn B.
Parks, Richard, engineer in TMI case
Paschkis, Victor, mechanical engineer
Pasztor, Andy
Patent obligations
Patents
Payne, Viron E., Sr., electrical engineer
PBTB, prime contracting consortium for BART
Pellegrino, Charles
Pensions
Perrow, Charles
Perrucci, Robert
Perry, Tekla
Pesticides
Peters, Charles
Pettis, Charles, civil engineer
Pierce, Grace, physician
Pinto case
Plagiarism
Polar Crane, key element in TMI case
Polaris submarine project
Pollard, Robert, nuclear engineer
Pollock, Justice J.
Post Report on BART system
Powers, Ben, NASA engineer
Preventing harm
Primack, Joel
Privacy
Professional courtesy
Professional development
Professional engineering license
see Registration of engineers
Progressive case
Property rights
Prosthetic aid case
Proxmire, US Senator William
Publication obligation
Public policy exception to the at-will doctrine
Public statements by engineers
Pugliese, Gilbert, steelworker
Punitive damages
Pyko, Kim
Qualifications for assignments
Quint, M. R, attorney
Radiation effects on humans
Rapoport, Anatol
Raven-Hansen, Peter
RBMK type reactor
Registered professional engineers
see Boisjoly; Bruder; Gischel; Heneage
Registration of engineers
in different branches of engineering
employment guidelines
NSPE ethics code
proposals for strengthening
relevance to ethics
requirements for
Regulatory agencies
see also British Board of Trade
FAA
NRC
benefits to managers and others
Bhopal failure
California Division of Industrial Safety
conflicting objectives
dependence on responsible engineers
EPA (Environmental Protection Agency)
FERC (Federal Energy Regulatory Commission)
need for
other agencies
political pressure
problems with complex new technology
reasons for failure
requirements for success
resource for dissenting engineer
Steamboat Inspection Service
Reid, Timothy, electrical engineer
Reinartz, Stanley, NASA manager
Resignations:
because of end use objections
option in conflict situation
Retaliation against ethical professionals:
academia, previous practice in
altering values to avoid
general nature of
involuntary transfers
loss of pension rights
protection against
see Employment protection
Rickover, Admiral Hyman
Risk, duty to inform those exposed to
Robbi, Anthony
Roberts, Justin, Contra Costa Times
Rogers, C. Thomas
Rogers commission
see Challenger disaster
Rossoff, Arthur
Rostron, Arthur, captain of the Carpathia
Roy, Rustum
Rymer, Russel (Hydrolevel case)
Safety, health, and welfare:
paramountcy of
promoted by ethics support
public
in various ethics codes
workplace
Salisbury, Harrison
Salvadori, Mario, civil engineer
Saunders, Bob, IEEE president
Schildhauer, Edward
Schinzinger, Roland
Schulz, R. A.
Schwartz, Arthur, NSPE General Counsel
Secrecy
Chernobyl
regarding French nuclear power
Security classification
Sevin
Shaffer, FAA Director
Shcherbak, Lurii
Sherr, Sava
Shinkansen
Shinohara, Takeshi
Shrivastava, Paul
Silver, Isadore
Sinclair, George
Singer, A. L.
Singer, Peter
Sisyphus effect
Slowter, Edward
Slowter-Oldenquist core
Smith, Edward J., captain of the Titanic
Smith, Jerry, electrical engineer
Smith, L. Robert
Societal issues
Society of Professional Scientists and Engineers
Sogo, Shinji
Sounding boards, alternative to unions
SPSE
SSIT
Standards
See also Hydrolevel case
 advantages
how they are set
Starr, Chauncey
State laws to protect whistleblowers
Steamboat explosions
Steffens, J. H.
Stern, Arthur, IEEE president
Stevens, John
Stewart, Julie
Stokes, B. R., BART general manager
Stone, Christopher
Strikes, participation in
Stuart, E. B.
Subordinates
Sufrin, Sidney
Supreme Court
Suran, Jerry, IEEE president
Suttle, Tom, IEEE
Sweet, William
Taylor, Paul
Team spirit
Technology:
cooperative nature of,
critics of
definition of
end use problem
overview of
regulation of
See also Regulatory agencies
successful projects
transnational effects
see Bhopal; Chernobyl
Technology and Society Magazine
(publication of IEEE SSIT)
Tenure
abroad and in some U.S. firms
academic
for engineers
for union members
TGVs, high speed French trains
Three Mile Island (TMI), cleanup
Timeliness in flagging errors
Titanic
Californian, inaction by
Carpathia, rescue by
casualties and survivors
 designer Thomas Andrews
lifeboats
lookouts
managerial arrogance
out-of-court settlement
ownership
radio operators
radio warnings
rescue of survivors
Tort action
Travel expenses
Truthfulness
Turkish Airlines
see DC-10 disaster
TVA case
Unemployment compensation, loss of
Unger, Stephen H.
Union Carbide Corporation, involvement with Bhopal plant
Union of Concerned Scientists
Unions
history in engineering field
strikes and engineers
support in ethics conflicts
why engineers don’t join
U.S. Steel, Geary case
Verdugo, Gilbert, CSPE
von Hippel, Frank
Vranich, Joseph
Wattenburg, consultant in BART case
Weapons
see Military applications of technology
Weaver, Warren Jr.
Weil, Vivian
Weiner, James, IEEE attorney
Weir, David
West, A. Summer, AIChE president
Westin, Alan F.
Westinghouse, contractor for BART ATC
Whiskey distillery problem
Whistleblowing, discussion of terminology
See also Employment protection
Whitelaw, Robert
Wiener, Norbert
Wilson, Donald E.
Windscale accident in Great Britain
Windsor incident, DC-10
Winner, Langdon
Wisely, William H.
Worthy causes
Wright, J. Patrick
Wrongful discharge
Yellow fever
Young, Leo, IEEE president
Zwiep, Donald, ASME president