Local Lawsuit : Students File Suit Against Virginia College - Essay Example

The accusers point out that none of the students had sufficient training in drawing blood to meet certification standards. They point out that they would need between 50 and 100 live blood draws to even be considered for the medical assistant job. Since the school allows them to draw blood only from a dummy during their studies, many of them are not even getting interviews while applying for jobs. The plaintiffs who were the former students of this school, say they’re saddled with student-loan debts, but can’t find jobs in the medical field.

They also accused that the school targets low-income black women with the help of customized advertising (Former students file lawsuit against Virginia College, 2012) What management could have done in terms of risk management to have prevented the events that lead to the lawsuit? Risk is always involved in all types of businesses. It may come from internal as well as external sources. In some cases, risks may arise from the strategies developed by the organization. Internally arising and strategy oriented risks are preventable whereas external risks are difficult to avoid.

Kaplan & Mikes (2012) pointed out that “Strategy risks are those, a company voluntarily assumes in order to generate superior returns from its strategy” (Kaplan & Mikes, 2012, p.48). . It should be noted that blood drawing from a dummy and live person are entirely different. A dummy is an inactive object where as a person is a live entity. The management should have used the dummies only at the beginning stages of the medical assistant educational program and they should have used live people later when they feel confident about the abilities of the students in drawing blood.

Ethical considerations reflected in the laws applicable to this case “Defendants are engaged in a scheme of specifically targeting African-Americans by creating advertisements that primarily use African-Americans as models, purchasing advertising time during daytime programming and late night programming, employing mostly African-Americans as admission officers and advertising mostly in African-American neighbourhoods,” the lawsuit said (Former students file lawsuit against Virginia College, 2012) The management should have avoided targeted advertisements to canvass low income black students.

It should be noted that racial discrimination is still prevalent in America in different forms even though it is abolished by law. However, the management tried to exploit the weaknesses of black community for generating business profits. The management stayed away from canvassing the teenagers from white community since they know very well that exploitation of white community may cause serious problems to them. In other words, the management knows very well that they were engaged in an illegal act.

If they were unaware of the consequences of their action, they would have targeted all teenagers irrespective of their income or race. In short, the management was seeking