With judicial nominee Neomi Rao walking back comments she made in college about date rape and a continuing conflagration over Virginia Governor Ralph Northam’s pictures in his yearbook of a man in blackface accompanied by someone in a KKK robe, the conversation about how long someone should be held accountable for juvenile actions has roiled again to the surface of both media and personal conversations. We have no problem holding people accountable for actions taken in the here and now. A more troublesome question is when—if ever—people should no longer be held accountable for actions taken in the distant past.
At the core of the question is whether the person has changed enough in the intervening years to no longer be the same person and thus forgiven for prior acts. Andrew Khoury, a philosopher at Arizona State University, offers a three-step inquiry to determine whether or not a person should be held accountable for prior illegal or unethical acts—remorse, acts of restorative justice, and changed behavior.
First, Khoury describes the two schools of thought about forgiveness. One approach states that one can never be absolved from prior behavior because one is the same biological person, having continuity of experience and memory. The second approach holds that absolution is possible, depending on whether one is the same psychological person, either holding the same beliefs and behaviors of the past or demonstrating a pattern of increasing ethical maturity with changed beliefs that also result in changed behavior. Khoury claims that only looking at whether the person inhabits the same body rather than whether their world-view has changed is limiting and gives us no space for forgiveness.
If we are willing to adopt the changed psychological approach to forgiveness, Khoury reminds us that evidence of change is often slow. So, we have to go back in time to determine who the person was at the time of the offending act and then compare that picture with who the person has become. Khoury also is aware of apologies of convenience, where one is sorry for having gotten caught rather than actually sorry for the offending behavior.
To address both concerns, he recommends a three-step process to determine whether a person should still be held accountable for previous misconduct. And, as Lisa Leopold reminds us, not all apologies are equal—often the one apologizing missess some of the essential elements of a thoughtful and heartfelt apology.
Remorse. A staple in judicial sentencings, a person should be able first to describe the behavior that was inappropriate, acknowledge having participated in that behavior, and then affirm that the actions were either unethical or illegal. The essential step after describing the behavior, is expressing remorse for the action with a description of how one should behave or how they actually changed after the event. Part of the difficulty with the dithering of Governor Northam is that we really can’t tell when he decided that blackface and dressing like the KKK was inappropriate. Because the picture only came to light some 30 years after the event, the moment of changed belief is hard to identify.
Acts of Restorative Justice. These actions can be as easy—or difficult—as an apology. An African-American judge tells of his experience of getting sideways with a person driving just outside of the courthouse. The white man went off, angrily spouting racial epithets with additional criminal behavior during his rousing temper tantrum. Stung by the outburst, the judge also took action: he took a picture of the car license, filed a report, and the man was duly charged. As part of the sentencing agreement, the person asked to apologize to the judge. The request was granted: the apology was given in full court with the judge in his robe and all the attorneys and other people waiting their turn for justice in attendance. If that apology leads to an understanding that racial epithets are always inappropriate coupled with work on anger management, then the person meets the third criteria for absolution for his inappropriate and intemperate outburst, changed behavior.
Changed Behavior. Khoury asserts that the most reliable evidence to support the claim that one is not the same person that committed the unethical/illegal act is consistent changed behavior. Brandon Black, the author of Ego Free Leadership: Ending the Unconscious Habits that Hijack Your Business, describes layers of change that happened over many years of noticing undesired behaviors, identifying the core beliefs that led to those behaviors, and then changing both his beliefs and behaviors. And, Black notes that the change is like a ship changing course—the change seems imperceptible but at some point, one notices that the boat is heading a different direction.
Khoury’s three steps to determine accountability match well with the strategies of those of us who work in the world of transformational leadership and coaching for ethical maturity. First, we begin with the assumption that the process of growth doesn’t stop but continues for a lifetime. Personal growth progresses as we first become aware of both what we believe about our self and the others with whom we work and play. From that awareness, as appropriate, we can choose both new beliefs and new behaviors in order to continually grow and become a better version of ourselves.
As we evaluate whether someone is entitled to a more responsible position, whether we should place our trust in their leadership, or even if someone should be let out of prison, we have a record of their beliefs through what they have said as well as their behavior. We, however, must be willing to acknowledge and trust the change and not look only on the prior actions and the injury suffered as a result. For example, as those who work toward paroling people sentenced as teens will attest, one of the greatest barriers to finding someone is ready for parole is dealing with the unhealed wounds of those affected by the teenage behavior.
Whether Northam will continue as governor or Rao will be confirmed as a judge will depend on whether we as citizens actively engage the conversation about whether these two people have actually changed or whether we cling to feeling righteous about past injuries because of the old but newly revealed behavior. Clinging to hurt and feeling righteous may satisfy in the short-run, but in our hearts we all know that we have held beliefs and engaged in behaviors we may not want brought to the light. And those of us who have chosen a path of continued awareness and improvement, know how hard it is to become a better version of ourselves. That humility paves the way for forgiveness and reconciliation. And, perhaps, may be one of the keys to ending the divides tearing our country apart. As one man who was paroled after some 20 years after receiving a life sentence as a teen said, the catalyst for his change was his grandmother’s reminder that that every person is serving a life sentence. What matters is how we choose to use our time.