Special Rules

More About Gifts

Why do these differences exist? 

Without exception, University employees must abide by the University’s conflict of interest and conflict of commitment policies that apply to them.

However, the guidelines for each unit are tailored to the mission and activities of that unit. For example, it’s been shown that when a pharmaceutical company provides pens to health care providers, those providers prescribe more drugs made by that company. In contrast, when an employee in a school or college receives a free pen, it’s unlikely to affect the employee’s or the unit’s decision-making.

It’s also possible that for your friend who gets taken to lunch regularly by outside people, attending the lunches may be an important part of her University responsibilities. Plus, her unit may have procedures in place to ensure that such lunch opportunities don’t constitute a potential conflict of interest.

In other cases that involve a specific employee, that person may have disclosed a potential conflict of interest and be following a plan that was developed to manage it. To protect the employee’s privacy, details of that arrangement would not typically be made public.