The Case of Singer and Meister - Lafayette College



The Case of Singer and Meister

Roger Singer is an engineer in a private research laboratory. Dr. Singer designs filtration systems for municipal water treatment plants, and some of his work is supported by federal contracts secured by his mentor, Professor Ellen Meister. In the past, Professor Meister has enjoyed repeated success in obtaining federal contracts, and the research laboratory has flourished as a result. While the current contract will expire in eighteen months, everyone is confident that Professor Meister, currently completing work on a proposal for continued support, will nail down yet another multiyear multi-million dollar contract. Each successive contract has spawned considerable research and development, most all of which acknowledges Professor Meister as the supervising engineer and primary researcher. As a result, she enjoys a national reputation in her field. In recent years, Professor Meister's administrative chores have increased, and she oversees less and less of the research done in the facilities for which she is responsible. However, she still reviews the research and development and provides feedback on the designs of her subordinate engineers.

Professor Meister remains committed to a hypothesis regarding the effectiveness of certain filtration materials used to eliminate certain carcinogens found in ground water. Her own early research demonstrated that by using these materials in filters, a significant reduction of these carcinogens, carcinogens causing bladder cancer in laboratory animals, resulted. Much of the research and design funded by the successive contracts she has obtained follow along the lines of her early research, and the contracts themselves, including the one for which she is now preparing a proposal, have been justified by an appeal to the success of the early research. In fact, it is precisely the work on the filters containing these materials that has occupied Dr. Singer's time. Now Dr. Singer has always found the practice whereby Professor Meister's takes primary credit for the research and development in the laboratory when most all of the work is done by him or his colleagues to be misleading, if not dishonest. But this seems to be a relatively minor wrong and besides, Dr. Singer needs his job and the positive evaluations that come with being regarded as a team player.

During the last year, Dr. Singer has found serious problems with Professor Meister's hypothesis and early research. In fact, Dr. Singer now believes he has ample evidence showing that while the materials Professor Meister favors in her filters may have some effectiveness in eliminating some carcinogens, they do not reduce the levels to a degree earlier believed. In fact, Dr. Singer has good scientific reason for thinking the filters do not reduce the carcinogens anywhere near as well as other materials he has used in his own research. Dr. Singer has repeated his experiments and now has evidence to show that his filters are far more effective, and likely to be far cheaper to produce, than those of Professor Meister. Dr. Singer has submitted the results of his research to Professor Meister, and he has written repeatedly to her explaining his views and requesting a meeting. She has not responded to his communications and she appears to be avoiding him; he fears something is wrong.

Roger Singer's fears are amplified by the suggestions of some of his research colleagues that the results of his findings will not only show Ellen Meister's research to be wrong, but may well imperil any future federal contracts. This could have profoundly negative effects on the company for which they both work. Indeed, the going view is that Ellen avoids Roger because she wants to stall consideration of any work that would either endanger her reputation or derail the proposal for the next contract. Roger could publish his findings independently and quickly, but in so doing he will not only endanger the contract on which his future livelihood depends, he could also be stigmatized by others in his profession. Other than resignation or explosive public disclosures, Roger's alternative is to wait, to delay any effort to publish his work until after the next contract is secured. Initially, this seems relatively harmless, for it does not require Roger to actively falsify data. But it will surely result in the new contract being secured and government money being earmarked for research activities that Roger strongly believes are costly and fruitless. Roger has no reason to think that Professor Meister will be more receptive to him after the contract has been secured. In fact by making his views known to her, his position on the research team may already be in jeopardy.

Roger must decide which action, or inaction, he will choose, and he must do so immediately. He is most troubled in his knowledge that in this case not to act is to act.

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