Most debates about workplace and institutional investigations focus on findings: Were the facts proven? Did the conduct meet the policy definition? Was the conclusion reasonable? This focus is necessary, but incomplete.

A well designed investigative system requires objectivity, or at least disciplined proximity to it, at three distinct stages:

1. Fact finding
2. Policy determination
3. Outcome decision

A recent public sector case from Florida, involving explicit images found on a government issued device illustrates what happens when objectivity is respected at the first two stages, but abandoned at the third. An independent law firm investigated alleged misconduct and concluded that a county commissioner violated workplace policy, but the Chair of the County Commission later rejected and declared the law firm’s report “null and void,” effectively invalidating the investigator’s findings despite no dispute over the underlying facts.

A. Stage One: Objectivity in Fact Finding

Fact finding is where objectivity is most achievable, and therefore most demanded. In the case at hand, the investigator’s approach reflected classic investigative discipline:

• Evidence was recovered using forensic software.
• Digital artifacts were tied to a specific government asset and user profile.
• The witness was interviewed under oath.
• Findings were grounded in what could be seen, retrieved, attributed, and verified.

No moral judgment was required to establish these facts. No inference about motivation or intent was necessary. The question was simply: What was present, where was it present, and how did it get there?

This is objectivity in its most recognizable form: controlled methods, documented sources, and replicable conclusions.

Importantly, the investigator did not enhance the facts to meet a policy threshold. The facts stood on their own.

B. Stage Two: Objectivity in Policy Determination

Policy application is often described as a “reasonable person” exercise, but that framing can be misleading. Proper policy determination is not a mental gymnastics exercise about how any reasonable person might feel, it is primarily about faithful application of the written standard the organization has chosen.

In this case, the governing policy explicitly defined “offensive behavior” to include: Visual material, including photographs, based on sex or other protected, characteristics, that is inappropriate in the workplace, even where the conduct does not rise to unlawful harassment.

The policy did not require:

• a complainant’s declaration of personal offense,
• proof of a hostile environment,
• evidence of intent, or
• actual exposure beyond the workplace context.

The investigator applied the policy textually and preventively, exactly as written. The conduct was assessed against the definition, not against a post hoc sense of whether someone should have been offended. That is near objectivity in policy determination:

• The standard comes from the document, not the decision maker.
• The analysis asks whether the criteria are met, not whether the outcome feels comfortable.

Perfect objectivity is impossible at this stage. Disciplined constraint is possible and encouraged.

C. Stage Three: Objectivity in Outcome Decisions (Where the System Failed)

The final stage, the outcome decision, is where objectivity is most fragile, and where institutional damage most often occurs. In the case study, the designated authority rejected the investigator’s conclusions outright, declaring "all findings in the report are null and void.” This did not occur because, the facts were incorrect, the evidence was unreliable, or the investigator misquoted the policy.

Instead, the rejection rested on new requirements introduced by one individual () after the investigation:

• That a witness must affirm subjective offense;
• That “inappropriate” conduct is distinct from “offensive” conduct;
• That visual sexual content is not necessarily sex based unless tied to individualized harm.

These threshold conditions do not appear in the policy.

This is the critical error. Objectivity at the outcome stage does not mean blind acceptance of an investigator’s recommendation. Decision makers are entitled, often required, to exercise discretion. But discretion must operate within the same policy frame that governed the investigation. When an authority figure narrows definitions after the fact, imports unstated criteria, or substitutes personal interpretive standards, the decision ceases to be objective and becomes an authoritative override.

That shift is not neutral. It introduces bias, not necessarily personal animus, but structural bias, because the rules effectively change depending on who is being evaluated.

D. Why Overruling Here Was the Wrong Tool

If leadership genuinely believed the outcome was excessive, there was a sound alternative. Basically, to assess a proportional and objective outcome with the report received instead of nullifying the findings. Leadership could have:

• Accepted the policy breach as established;
• Acknowledged the preventive, not punitive, nature of the policy;
• Imposed a measured, proportionate response (e.g., corrective guidance, training, or formal caution);
• Clearly articulated why escalation was unnecessary, without denying the violation itself.

This approach woukd have preserved the integrity of fact finding, the credibility of policy enforcement, and the legitimacy of managerial discretion.

Overruling, by contrast, sends a corrosive message: objective application of policy is conditional on rank. This message is far more damaging to organizational trust than any single disciplinary outcome.

E. The Broader Lesson

Workplace and institutional investigation systems may fail because decision makers abandon objectivity and feed subjective opinions into it when consequences feel inconvenient. True fairness requires continuity: the same standards applied at intake, the same definitions used in analysis, the same policy meaning respected at decision time. When leaders cannot live with an objective or near objective determination, the answer is not to erase it, but to respond proportionately, transparently, and within the rules they themselves adopted.

Anything else is not discretion. It is distortion.