Choral Ethics: Judging Others

“Whoever degrades another degrades me, and whatever is done or said returns at last to me.”
Walt Whitman

This will be my last blog on uncomfortable subjects for a while. Over the summer, I had many ChoralNetters contact me about “Choral-Conductors-Behaving-Badly” and thought to address those emails first thing this fall. I had plenty of the usual emails in addition to the uncomfortable ones, so look for those beginning in October. You can skip this week’s blog if you wish and we’ll be back to our usual next week!

Something that has always struck me as strange is how people are judged by the way they handle difficult situations in their own lives. Someone is bullied or abused in some way and, when it comes out, THEY are judged for not speaking up when others think they should. “You knew he was a bully, why didn’t you speak up so others wouldn’t suffer?”  “She was abusive to you as well as others but why didn’t YOU report her, don’t you have any courage?” “He was doing something illegal, you knew it, so how could you do nothing?” “You were not thinking of anyone else, how could you be so selfish?”

It’s easy to make those sorts of judgements when YOU are NOT the one being bullied or abused. When your mind is not clouded with emotions or fear, you can make reasonable decisions. But if someone is being bullied or abused, they may feel they have no one to confide in. When you are the victim, it’s difficult to see a way out, and when you are re-victimized by other people’s judgement, it piles on more abuse.

Maggie*, in hindsight, realized she was being groomed by the chair of the music department of the high school where she directed the Frosh-Soph choral groups. It was in subtle ways, nothing overt but definitely creepy. She first thought she was imagining things, but as time went on, her “creep-detector” got stronger. But she’s an adult and she thought adults should just handle these behaviors without any fuss. No need to tell anyone because it “wasn’t that bad.”

Maggie tolerated the inappropriate comments, the brushing up against her for no reason, the lewd gestures for several years. She said nothing to anyone and decided she would move on if it got too much. When she had finally had enough, she found another position closer to her home and left at the end of the school year.

A few weeks into the school year at her new school, Maggie got a call from a colleague at her old school about that department chair. Her former colleague told her the department chair was being encouraged to retire NOW because the district was getting complaints about him. Maggie wasn’t surprised, and told her so, but her former colleague was! And the colleague was VERY, VERY ANGRY Maggie hadn’t said anything.

No matter how Maggie tried to explain, this former colleague insisted she had a DUTY to protect other people. Maggie should have protected everyone else, but who was protecting Maggie?

If YOU have a Choral Ethics dilemma or an idea for a Choral Ethics blog, please contact me at my new email address: and we can figure it out together!

*Name Withheld