Is this Legal?
 

To make this somewhat comprehensive, I’m just going to list the series of events that occurred.

-A friend of mine who is a RA at my college went to a party where underage students were drinking.

-Her boss learns about it through hearsay and starts demanding names

-The party’s host admits to it and is told either she gives names/people confess or she will be fired. So basically if the boss got more names, people would just be put on probation, not getting fired.

-To save the host, my friend and a few others confess that they were at the party; under the belief that they would all be put on probation.

-Contrary to what was told, when my friend goes to her trial, they tell her to give more names of residents who attended the party or she will be fired. She told them she didn’t know who they were so they fired her.

Why I think this whole process was entirely unethical, I’m wondering if there was anything illegal about it. The whole situation where they were pushed to incriminate themselves under the false pretense of a lesser sentance which they did not get does not seem right to me.

Moving to Advice Column.

It's unethical on the part of the school, but I highly doubt that you could make a case for it being illegal. Schools have a pretty good setup that allows them to do whatever they want as far as student discipline is concerned, and I'm sure that in the RA's contract there was provisions for firing her if she attended a party with underage drinkers or appeared to be condoning it.

They were going to fire her from the beginning, I'm sure. They just tried to get as many names out of her as possible first. This makes them scum but I'm pretty sure it's within their legal right.

Fifth Amendment rights apply to government judicial proceedings, not meetings with your boss to discuss an infraction.

I imagine that your RA signed an agreement when becoming an RA, and one of the stipulations of the agreement gives the university the full ability to terminate her services if they feel she failed her duties at enforcing a zero-tolerance alcohol policy.

The Bill of rights doesn't apply to the private sector like this.

Neither does a college party with underage attendees getting drunk, but why argue semantics when you can argue irrelevant technicalities.

(REDUNDANCY)

Sounds like you should all just be honest and get fired, learn from the experience, and never repeat said experience again.

We had a problem like that here in our university and when it comes down to it, the University has the final say. It may not be the right things for them to do in terms of ill treating people, but when you have autonomy, there is more power to you. Reminds me of a job I got fired for.... it was totally unethically, and probably illegal. But I had no higher power to complain to, so they got what they wanted.

I am pretty sure that you can't fire someone based on the fact that they would not know who the other people are, but I do not know if it would go as far as being ilegal.

Then again, I think there should be a law that says it's not a college party without underage attendees getting drunk.

The drinking age is bullshit, anyway.

In reality, there really is no legal or illegal with colleges as far as their rules go.

Sure if a guy gets shot or something, then thats legal or illegal. But I don't see how the college could really fire someone if they don't know who the people are at the party. Sure, like people have said, it's horribly unethical on behalf of the college but, in reality, they can do what they want.

If anything your friend would need to research it, if the job is really worth it, then go from there.

In Australia, that shit would be illegal. Your friend would have good grounds to contest it for unfair dismissal.

Private lives and your job are seperate. It's not her fault that the underagers were drinking. It's ridiculous for her job to be under threat because of information (the underage drinkers names) she inadvertantly learnt.

Unless it was a party in the college, in the dorm she was RAing, which is what I'm thinking happened

In my opinion, the whole underage drinking thing should be lowered to 18.
They're old enough to drive and old enough to vote, surely they can drink their problems away...

Perhaps you should ask a lawyer...?

I happen to have the good fortune of being friends with one, and I have to say, the law is not something you can speculate or deduce with any kind of logic. It's an endless supply of irony and surprise and you just have to know it.

So ask a lawyer. Or look it up yourself.

Was this party on campus?
I'm an RA, and if you get caught partying with minors on campus you're basically fucked. I'm pretty sure thats a standard rule for all colleges.

Hear hear. Good thing that my college is very lax on the drinking policy. I'm not 21, but heck, what's it to them if we drink?

I think what's going on with your RA is totally wrong, but I believe that it is not entirely wrong for an RA to attend a party where minors are drinking, just that s/he doesn't provide the alcohol. Is your RA supervising a party (which is laughable)? Like, I go to a friend's house and have a drink, are my friend's parents at fault?

Also, your RA's boss is completely illogical to use pressure tactics and lying to get names. That's entirely unethical on the boss's part.

Additional Spam:
On that thought, have you heard of game theory? That is a tactic to get people to incriminate others to save one's hide.