Questionable Dismissal

Dr. Keith Bernard has earned a reputation as a professor with strong convictions and warm rapport with students, rarely has reason to recall that he was once considered a human resources "hit man." But to those who observed him from a safe distance in his previous career in personnel management, it often appeared that he was someone who was capable of firing people without any visible displays of emotion. One afternoon, Bernard is summoned to the law offices of Harper and Fowler to be deposed in a questionable dismissal wrongful case of one of the district's former employees. Bernard testifies and, somewhat reluctantly, teaches about the very real ethical dimensions of personnel management. Through a story-telling style that often confounds the lawyers asking scripted questions, Bernard reveals for us the unvarnished truth and subtle complexities inherent in educational leadership by responding to the question that is at once both ethical and dramatic, that is: How shall I act?