MSU is considering upgrading criminal background checks before offering employment to new faculty members. The gray area between fulfilling your debt to society by serving your punishment and your responsibility of informing people of past instances is once again at the forefront.

The more an employer knows about an applicant, the more informed a decision regarding employment can be made, but the floodgates for discrimination against those who have supposedly righted their wrongs are wide open.

Decisions to hire or not hire someone based on his or her past are incredibly circumstantial and often left to the employers' discretion. Whether or not this is a bad thing depends on which side of the fence the employer is on.

Like most issues that have large gray areas, criminal background checks can fall on either side of the proverbial moral right or wrong scale. Depending on who actually sits down and draws the line in the sand, criminals can continue to be punished for what society says they have already paid for, or employers can feel confident there isn't a sexual predator in their midst.

The Michigan Legislature will never dictate who universities can hire because of autonomy, but what decisions the universities will make in regards to hiring those with criminal pasts remain to be seen.

The knowledge of someone's criminal record should not automatically trump his or her qualifications. The individual circumstances of the applicant's criminal background should be evaluated and taken into account.

There shouldn't be any definitive predetermination made in regards to who gets hired and who gets left by the wayside. Criminal background checks can be a great tool for employers, but temptations to discriminate because of those background checks make the issue as hazy as it is.