Q: A former city councilor in my university town combats the scourge of rowdy student parties by posting photographs of them on the Internet. Because he takes his photographs in public places and does not identify anyone by name, he is not breaking any laws. However, there is much discussion on campus about the ethics of his actions. Thoughts? — Robert G. May, Kingston, Ontario
A: “Scourge” is an oddly chosen word, one often accompanied by “looting and pillaging” or the name of a particularly unpleasant disease. It is not the best description of overly rambunctious student parties, even those that disturb the neighbors.
It is ethically troubling that pictures were arbitrarily posted by a former city councilor, hinting at an official response to excessive revelry. Even if an ordinary citizen posted the pictures, that, too, would be unwise. In our youth, we all did things at parties that we would not want published in the newspaper. (If you didn’t, the parties you attended were too tepid.) An online photo can haunt its subject for years (at job interviews, for instance) — harsh consequences for a minor misdeed. And while these photos are posted without names attached, presumably the roisterers are identifiable or there would be no point in posting at all.
Noise complaints should be taken seriously; loud parties can heighten tensions between town and gown. But the photographer should first explore nonpunitive responses with the school itself. A university can provide venues where student celebrations will not rouse the neighbors.
Q: My friend, an anatomy professor, said that a cadaver his university received for a gross anatomy class had racist tattoos. Some teachers thought the tattoos should be removed (by cutting away the skin); others thought they should remain because medical students must learn that they will sometimes have patients with objectionable beliefs. Who is correct? — John Naylor, Las Vegas
A: The second group nailed it, if that’s not an infelicitous phrase to use in relation to a corpse. A physician should make no judgments about a patient’s politics, religion or racial theories. Physicians are to treat patients on the basis of medical, not moral, criteria. If a patient so disgusts a physician that he or she cannot act professionally, the physician should step aside. Medical ethics allows a physician to decline to treat a patient for nearly any reason in a nonemergency. But a recusal should be a rare occurrence, a lesson these cadavers, this anatomy class, can convey to those medical students.
Update: On its left shoulder, the cadaver had a large swastika and the word “Hitler”; on its right, there was a smaller “KKK.” Concerned for the feelings of the school’s many Jewish students, the staff cut the tattooed skin from the left shoulder and inked over the KKK with a black Sharpie.
Send questions and comments for Randy Cohen to Universal Press Syndicate, 4520 Main St., Kansas City, MO 64111, or ethicist@nytimes.com.
