Bobby Petrino who is one of the best football coaches in the US was fired after being in a motorcycle accident with his 25 year old 'assistant'. He is married, 51, and has 4 children. This kind of goes along the why was the pregnant lady fired.... The university of Arkansas released a statement saying, due to the clause in his contract that gave the university sweeping opportunity to terminate the contract if he took part in any conduct that was considered immoral or unethical, they were releasing him from his contract. Now granted he was bought out for 3 million dollars, standard salary for a top level football coach and he will be working again within weeks probably. Unfortunately for the young pregnant teacher this will probably not be the case. But who would argue whether they were right or not. Several wealthy benefactors donated the money to buy out his contract, in fact, one donated several hundred thousand dollars and named the athletic center after the athletic director saying that "He did the right thing standing up to a coach who wasn't living up to the moral standards of the university". What say you?
Petrino hired a woman he was already having a sexual relationship with and then gave her preferential treatment in the workplace, both of which violate the university's rules about conflict of interest. This would have been against the rules and unethical even if the woman in question were his wife. There's not a whole lot to argue about there.
In recent years organizations have been more focsed on protecting their brand as apposed to a focus on what is a reasonable course of action. Sometimes their decisions actually have an adverse affect on their brand for the way they have managed the situation. In Australian rules we have recently seen clubs standby their players, well perhaps excluding Collingwood. In the example you are referring to the university will come out of the situation with brand in tack as the outcome was a win win senario. If on the other hand he was fired with no financial benefit then that would have been a negative impact on the university's brand.
