I recently posed the following discussion question to students in my web-based human resource management course:
>"Your name is Daryl F. Zanuck, co-founder of Twentieth Century Fox. It is the early 1950s. A talented actor, recently graduated from Yale Drama School, asks to meet with you. He says that he wants to be a leading man for Fox. The problem is that the actor is missing an eye. He had lost an eye in a childhood illness. You tell him that although he has acting ability, it is not realistic for someone missing an eye to be a leading man. Appearance is an essential job requirement, a job related requirement or a business necessity, and you cannot consider him for such a role. Only one in a million people gets to be a movie star. Someone missing an eye has to be ruled out. The answer was "no".
(1) Did Zanuck make the right decision?
(2) What are the two or three chief ways to validate staffing decisions and employment tests?
(3) Did Zanuck apply a potentially validated selection criterion?
(4) Does your answer to (3) matter to your answer to (1)?
All students must participate. Do not wait until the last minute as failed postings will not get credit."
Of the twenty-odd responses, only two or three said that it might be possible that the actor should be hired. Most said that he should not. Several students contrasted profit-maximization (not hiring) with altruism (hiring). None suggested that the profit maximizing decision would be to hire the actor if he were competent.
The following response was typical:
>"Depending on how you look at it the decision that was made could have been right or wrong. The two ways of looking at it is the legal way or your own selfish way. Legally the decision Zanuck made (may be) against the law, since it's discrimination to reject some one due to a defect or appearance (if they're the best qualified and reasonable accommodation can be made). But on the other hand if I was looking from my own selfish point of view I made the right decision because the job does require appearance and for this job he was not the right candidate even though he might have been an outstanding actor but sex sells."
(Technically, the above answer is incorrect because if appearance is an essential job requirement, as it is with actors, then the Americans with Disabilities Act does not mandate hiring.)
The question is a trick one, because it is based on the A&E biography account of Peter Falk.
Wikipedia's entry on Peter Falk states:
"Falk's unusual gaze is due to a glass eye that he has had for most of his life. His right eye was surgically removed at the age of three because of a malignant tumor."
According to the Peter Falk official site, Falk has appeared in 38 films, to includ "Murder, Inc.", "It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World", "A Woman under the Influence", the (1979) original "In Laws" in which he co-starred with Alan Arkin, "Wings of Desire" and "The Sunshine Boys". He has been nominated for two Academy Awards. Imdb.com indicates that he has appeared in 130 television shows.
Falk is best remembered for his starring role as Detective or Lieutenant Columbo, one of the best known and most memorable roles in television history.
According to Falk's A&E Biography, Daryl F. Zanuck told him that he could not be a star because of his eye.
In Economics of Discrimination Gary Becker showed that not discriminating, basing hiring decisions on pure performance criteria, is profit maximizing. Thus, economic justice and the maximization of profit coincide. The individual who best fits the job ought to be hired regardless of race, creed or disability.
The idea that a disabled actor might be best qualified is not intuitively obvious. Human resource management ought to serve the end of rationalization; HR ought to overcome psychological and social biases and develop employment methods that are profit maximizing. This is an ethical quest. However, the rationalism of good human resource management is seldom appreciated because it does not acknowledge the egos of senior managers, who may flatter themselves into believing that their judgment is more reliable than methods that are statistically validated over long periods of time. One example might be not doing something stupid like hiring an actor with a glass eye.
In fact, few American firms utilize human resource management policies that could improve financial performance to the extent that they might. One example is in hiring boards of directors. I have not heard of firms using statistically validated selection methods in hiring boards. The idea is almost never suggested. Yet, current governance problems could be swept away if the current "I shoot pool with a guy so let's put him on the board" approach to corporate governance is replaced by identification of the skills needed; development of ability, knowledge or assessment center tests; and application of those tests to the rational selection of corporate boards.
The equation of justice and ethics has Aristotelian roots and has many links to the Judeo-Christian tradition. In an article in Online Athens Ronald Gerson discusses the ideas of Moses Maimonides, the famous Aristotelian Jewish philosopher, about the rungs of charity:
>"While he emphasizes anonymity in the higher rungs, when he reaches the eighth and highest level, this is what he says: 'The highest form of charity is to strengthen the hand of the poor by giving him a loan, or joining him in partnership, or training him out of his poverty, to help him establish himself.'"
That is, the best form of charity is to enable people to help themselves. This is done by empowering them with competence and the ability to succeed on their own. Good human resource management involves uncovering the competencies that can best support firms' performance; finding most competent employees; and finding ways to enable the most competent employees to flourish.
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