DP3

DecisionPoint
http://proethica.org/ontology/cases#DecisionPoint

DP3

Should the Ethics Board interpret Section 3(e)'s exaggeration prohibition broadly to cover any materially misleading selective emphasis of genuine qualifications, or narrowly to apply only to deliberate factual untruths about prior employment, anchoring the interpretation in the provision's employer-protection purpose?

The NSPE Ethics Board must interpret Code Section 3(e)'s prohibition on 'exaggerated statements' of qualifications in the context of Doe's resume reframing. The Board must decide whether the prohibition applies to any favorable selective emphasis of genuine experience, or whether it is limited to deliberate factual fabrications — such as invented job titles or false credentials. No prior precedent directly governs the emphasis-versus-exaggeration boundary, and the Board must choose an interpretive framework.

Interpret Section 3(e) expansively to prohibit any resume structuring that creates a materially false overall impression of the engineer's qualification profile, even where individual statements are technically accurate, finding that deliberate inversion of experience proportions constitutes an exaggerated qualification statement regardless of whether discrete facts are fabricated.

Interpret Section 3(e) by reference to its employer-protection purpose, limiting its scope to deliberate fabrications of facts — invented credentials, false job titles, nonexistent responsibilities — and finding that selective emphasis of genuine, if minor, qualifications falls within the permissible zone of professional self-presentation so long as no factual falsehood is asserted.

Adopt an intermediate interpretive standard that permits selective emphasis only where the engineer genuinely possesses some degree of competence in the emphasized area, treating the genuine-competence prerequisite as the operative ethical threshold — finding no violation where real competence exists but flagging the conduct as approaching the boundary and warranting caution.

NSPE Ethics Board Adjudicator