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The recent incident at Rutgers University and former basketball coach Mike Rice has the public questioning the ethical practices of the leadership team in the organization. This blog entry by Keith Lee Rupp highlights the fact that Rutgers University is ironically the home of the prestigious Institute for Ethical Leadership (IEL), which recently received a 2.6 million dollar grant from the Prudential Foundation. This blog post notes that there are three broad levels of ethical behavior: basic compliance of rules, sense of social fairness, and principled response. The fact that students had been complaining about Mike Rice and his abusive coaching approach before the video was leaked suggests that leadership was already aware of his behavior but did not do anything about it. Only after the public caught wind of the incident did Rutgers decide to terminate the coach and take action. They failed to carry out the third level of ethical behavior, which is making the right choice even when nobody is watching or aware. In other words, the organization lacked integrity in their actions.

The IEL's mission statement includes a line that states, "Leaders must be prepared to deal the more complicated and subtle critical care thinking and decision-making processes required to create an organizational culture where ethical practice and behavior become habit". It is clear that the organization did not act according to these standards and the fact that they took the appropriate measures after the incident was highly publicized made their response seem insincere. It also devalues the IEL and the work that they are trying to accomplish. The PR team at Rutgers needs to ensure that the leaders are re-trained on the fundamental ethical decision making processes in order to prevent future instances that can lead to even further damage for the organization.