Latest / I Believe / Equal Access, Equal Obligation?

Transcript

Equal Access, Equal Obligation? · I Believe

• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: I was cooking the other day when I thought about a lieutenant I haven't seen in years.
• 0:41
  SPEAKER_01: I don't know why.
• 0:42
  SPEAKER_01: That happens to me sometimes.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_01: A memory will just show up.
• 0:46
  SPEAKER_01: Nothing in particular brings it to mind.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_01: I'll be driving or walking or standing in the kitchen cutting onions, and suddenly I'm back in some room I haven't thought about in years.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_01: This one has come back to me a couple of times recently.
• 1:00
  SPEAKER_01: It was sometime around 2018 or 2019.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_01: I was a squadron commander in the Air Force, and one of my flight commanders, a captain and a mother, came to see me about one of her lieutenants.
• 1:11
  SPEAKER_01: The lieutenant was a woman who had recently had a baby and had been away from normal operational duty for quite a while.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_01: I don't remember the exact amount of time anymore, and I don't want to pretend that I do.
• 1:23
  SPEAKER_01: The Air Force had become increasingly generous with maternity and caregiver leave, and by the time this lieutenant was due to return, she had already been away for a significant stretch.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_01: Eventually, though, the leave ended.
• 1:36
  SPEAKER_01: She was expected to come back to duty.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_01: In our squadron, duty didn't mean showing up at an office at 8 in the morning and going home at 5.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_01: It meant going out on a weapons system alert, roughly 36 hours away from home.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: The lieutenant told her flight commander that she couldn't go.
• 1:53
  SPEAKER_01: She needed more time.
• 1:54
  SPEAKER_01: She was breastfeeding.
• 1:56
  SPEAKER_01: More specifically, she said she couldn't pump enough breast milk ahead of time to leave her baby for the duration of the alert.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_01: Her husband was also active duty, but he worked a job that allowed him to be home.
• 2:08
  SPEAKER_01: He could care for the baby while she was gone.
• 2:11
  SPEAKER_01: The problem was not that there was no one to take care of the child.
• 2:14
  SPEAKER_01: The problem was feeding the child.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_01: So my flight commander came to me and asked the question commanders eventually get paid to answer.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: What do we do?
• 2:23
  SPEAKER_01: Do we send her back on duty?
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_01: Do we give her more time?
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_01: How much more?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: A month?
• 2:28
  SPEAKER_01: Three months?
• 2:29
  SPEAKER_01: Until the child turns one?
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if nothing changes, then what?
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: Do we simply accept that she cannot perform that portion of the job for as long as she is breastfeeding?
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: I remember the problem because no answer made everybody happy.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_01: And I believed the lieutenant.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: I want to make that clear.
• 2:46
  SPEAKER_01: I did not think she had invented a breastfeeding problem because she didn't want to work.
• 2:51
  SPEAKER_01: I think she had a baby, she was trying to feed that baby, and she was looking at 36 hours away from her child and saying, I don't know how I can do this.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_01: That mattered.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: She had a responsibility for the child.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_01: But something else mattered too.
• 3:07
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody had to go on alert.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_01: The mission didn't disappear because one lieutenant had a difficult family situation.
• 3:14
  SPEAKER_01: If she didn't go, somebody else did.
• 3:16
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody else stayed away from his or her family.
• 3:20
  SPEAKER_01: Somebody else carried the burden.
• 3:22
  SPEAKER_01: And suddenly a question that sounds like a personnel problem becomes a philosophical one.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_01: If we say everyone can do this job, can we also say some people don't always have to do all of it?
• 3:34
  SPEAKER_01: And if we say that, who decides when that is okay?
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_01: That question is bigger than breastfeeding.
• 3:40
  SPEAKER_01: But breastfeeding is what makes the question difficult, because biology is not imaginary.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_01: Pregnancy is real, childbirth is real, recovery is real, breastfeeding is real.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_01: None of those things disappear because an institution adopts a policy of equal opportunity.
• 3:58
  SPEAKER_01: That is where equality gets complicated.
• 4:01
  SPEAKER_01: We often use the word equality as though it answers a question.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes it only starts one.
• 4:07
  SPEAKER_01: There is equality of access.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_01: Can you enter the profession?
• 4:11
  SPEAKER_01: Can you compete for the position?
• 4:13
  SPEAKER_01: Or can you command?
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_01: Can you serve in the operational role?
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_01: Or can you serve on the combat team?
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_01: And then there is equality of obligation.
• 4:22
  SPEAKER_01: Once you have the position, are the expectations the same?
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_01: That distinction becomes uncomfortable because we like clean moral principles.
• 4:30
  SPEAKER_01: We treat everyone the same.
• 4:32
  SPEAKER_01: Accommodate people according to their circumstances.
• 4:35
  SPEAKER_01: Both sound good until they run into each other.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_01: One way of thinking about this is the difference between equality and equity.
• 4:43
  SPEAKER_01: Equality says that people occupying the same role ought to face the same essential obligations.
• 4:49
  SPEAKER_01: Equity says that relevant differences may justify different treatment.
• 4:54
  SPEAKER_01: The hard part is deciding which differences matter and how much difference in treatment is still compatible with calling it the same job.
• 5:02
  SPEAKER_01: Another way of thinking about it is role morality.
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_01: Certain roles carry obligations that ordinary life does not.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_01: A judge cannot decide a case based on friendship.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_01: A physician cannot simply abandon a patient in the middle of surgery.
• 5:16
  SPEAKER_01: A military officer accepts obligations that most citizens do not.
• 5:21
  SPEAKER_01: That does not mean the officer stops being a mother, father, husband, wife, son, or daughter.
• 5:27
  SPEAKER_01: It means those obligations sometimes collide.
• 5:30
  SPEAKER_01: The philosopher W.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: D.
• 5:32
  SPEAKER_01: Ross wrote about competing duties.
• 5:35
  SPEAKER_01: You can have more than one genuine moral obligation at the same time.
• 5:39
  SPEAKER_01: You can have a duty to your child, a duty to your fellow officers, a duty to the mission, a duty to obey lawful orders, and a duty not to place unreasonable burdens on other people.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_01: The fact that one duty is real does not make the others disappear.
• 5:55
  SPEAKER_01: That is the part that gets lost when we turn difficult problems into slogans.
• 6:00
  SPEAKER_01: Sometimes two good things really are in conflict.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_01: You can even make what you believe is the right decision and still leave something valuable damaged.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe you order the lieutenant back onto alert.
• 6:12
  SPEAKER_01: The squadron is treated fairly, the mission is covered, and a mother believes she has been forced into a situation that makes caring for her infant harder.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_01: Something has been lost.
• 6:22
  SPEAKER_01: Or maybe you excuse her.
• 6:24
  SPEAKER_01: The mother and baby are protected, but another lieutenant goes in her place.
• 6:29
  SPEAKER_01: And another time.
• 6:31
  SPEAKER_01: And another.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_01: Something has been lost there, too.
• 6:34
  SPEAKER_01: There is no administrative form that makes the loss disappear.
• 6:38
  SPEAKER_01: This question also has an interesting history in the American military.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_01: For much of the 20th century, the institutional answer to pregnancy and motherhood was much harsher than it is today.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_01: Women could serve, but pregnancy would effectively end that service.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_01: One of the important cases in that history involved Air Force Captain Susan Strzok, a nurse who became pregnant in 1970 and challenged the policy that would have forced her out of the service.
• 7:05
  SPEAKER_01: Her case became part of the broader movement away from treating pregnancy as automatically incompatible with military service.
• 7:13
  SPEAKER_01: That change was important, but it didn't eliminate the problem.
• 7:17
  SPEAKER_01: It moved the problem.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_01: At first, the institutional answer had essentially been women can serve, but motherhood may end that service.
• 7:26
  SPEAKER_01: Then the answer became, women can serve and become mothers.
• 7:30
  SPEAKER_01: Which immediately creates another question.
• 7:33
  SPEAKER_01: What happens when the obligations of motherhood and the obligations of military service conflict?
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_01: That is not an argument against women serving.
• 7:42
  SPEAKER_01: It is simply the next question.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_01: And over time the question became sharper.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_01: The military opened more roles to women, aviation, ships, operational specialties, and eventually direct ground combat positions.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_01: Each time a barrier came down, the debate centered on equal access.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_01: But another question always follows behind it.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_01: Does equal access imply equal obligation?
• 8:06
  SPEAKER_01: Or can equal access coexist with different obligations?
• 8:10
  SPEAKER_01: And if the answer is yes, how different can those obligations become before we are no longer talking about the same job?
• 8:18
  SPEAKER_01: This is where historical fights over equality become more complicated than they first appear.
• 8:23
  SPEAKER_01: A woman like Susan Strzok was effectively saying that pregnancy shouldn't automatically end her military career.
• 8:30
  SPEAKER_01: I think she was right.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: But once an institution accepts that principle, it has to turn an individual claim into a general rule.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_01: Not because every woman necessarily wants exactly what she wanted, not because every future mother will make the same decision.
• 8:46
  SPEAKER_01: Institutions simply cannot operate on individual intent.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_01: They need principles.
• 8:52
  SPEAKER_01: A person fights for the right to remain.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_01: The institution recognizes that right.
• 8:57
  SPEAKER_01: Then, years later, someone else enters under that right and asks for an accommodation the earlier system would never grant.
• 9:05
  SPEAKER_01: That does not mean the original principle was wrong.
• 9:08
  SPEAKER_01: It means principles have consequences.
• 9:11
  SPEAKER_01: Rights create obligations, and access creates expectations.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_01: Equality is not complete until we talk about both.
• 9:19
  SPEAKER_01: There is an old philosophical test that helps here.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_01: Ask what happens if the exception becomes the rule.
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: Not because exceptions are always wrong, they are not, but because a functioning institution has to know where exceptions stop.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_01: Suppose any member with a serious personal obligation could decline an essential operational duty whenever the two conflicted?
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_01: That sounds compassionate.
• 9:44
  SPEAKER_01: It may be compassionate.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_01: But could the unit function?
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_01: If not, then you need a limiting principle.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_01: Under which circumstances justify accommodation?
• 9:53
  SPEAKER_01: For how long?
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_01: Who carries the burden in the meantime?
• 9:57
  SPEAKER_01: At what point does accommodation change the nature of the position itself?
• 10:01
  SPEAKER_01: Those questions apply far beyond pregnancy.
• 10:04
  SPEAKER_01: A father can become a sole parent.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_01: A spouse can become seriously ill.
• 10:09
  SPEAKER_01: A parent can require constant care.
• 10:12
  SPEAKER_01: An officer can be injured.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_01: A family can suffer a tragedy.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_01: Everybody eventually encounters something outside work that matters more to them than work.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: And yet some professions exist precisely because society needs people who will sometimes place the obligation of the role ahead of the obligation of the moment.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_01: That is especially true in the military.
• 10:33
  SPEAKER_01: Which brings me back to that lieutenant.
• 10:36
  SPEAKER_01: She had a baby.
• 10:37
  SPEAKER_01: She wanted to breastfeed.
• 10:39
  SPEAKER_01: She said she could not produce enough milk to leave the child for thirty six hours.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_01: Her husband could care for the baby.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Her authorized time away from duty had reached its end.
• 10:48
  SPEAKER_01: Her flight commander came to me and asked, What do we do?
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_01: I know what I decided.
• 10:54
  SPEAKER_01: I am not sure I want to tell you.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_01: At least not yet.
• 10:57
  SPEAKER_01: Because the more interesting question is what you would have decided.
• 11:01
  SPEAKER_01: Do you order her back on duty?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_01: Do you give her more time?
• 11:05
  SPEAKER_01: If so, how much?
• 11:07
  SPEAKER_01: And what principle are you using to decide?
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_01: Because whatever rule you create for her has to become a rule you could defend for everyone else.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_01: Maybe that is the hardest part of leadership.
• 11:18
  SPEAKER_01: Compassion is personal.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_01: Compassion cannot always be.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_01: So here is the question.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_01: If we say everyone can do the job, can we still say some people do not always have to do all of it?
• 11:31
  SPEAKER_01: And if the answer is yes, who decides when that is okay?