Here's an interesting moral exercise:

I was perusing a pawn shop today looking for "made in USA" tools, and on a lark decided to buy a 1TB external drive.

I get home, fire up the drive - and discover it has files from a Black, female, retired university professor.
1/

I don't know this professor, even though I am TECHNICALLY on the faculty of the same university (long story, not relevant) and she doesn't know me.

There are copies of her performance reviews, some personal pictures, and some professional correspondence.

What would you do?

a) She retired 2 years ago
b) no, I did not open her performance reviews or any of the documents, because they're not my property and it's disrespectful. I read the filenames and realized what they are.

So complicating the issue slightly is that because she retired 2+ years ago, even though she has a university email address, there is no guarantee she continues to check it.

And I definitely don't think showing up at her doorstep or calling her on the phone would be appropriate.

So now I can be honest about this situation:

I emailed her before I ever wrote this thread. I sent a message to her university email account, using mine and explained the situation (how I got the drive, and offering options to send her the info if she wants it).

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