The Honor Committee voted Sunday night to pursue adding “inextricably linked” to the Committee’s bylaws related to Informed Retractions. Under this language, a student could file one IR for multiple events if those events are “inextricably linked,” meaning their actions and circumstances are similar enough to constitute one Honor offense.
A majority of the Committee — 18 of the 27 members — voted in favor of moving forward with the language, which the Committee will solidify in coming weeks.
“The Honor Committee was considering various different changes to ‘single nexus of events’ language within our bylaws, which would tackle the issue of expanding the IR from several different perspectives,” said Sarah Wyckoff, a fourth-year College student and Honor Committee vice chair for investigations. “This one is meaning we’re choosing one direction or one perspective that we want to move forward with, so it’s the concept that we agree with as a committee, or a majority of us did tonight.”
Wyckoff gave several examples of acts a single IR would cover with the new language. If a student cheats on a single test by copying from another test-taker and by bringing unauthorized resources into the test, the student could file a single IR.
However, Wyckoff said, if a student cheats on a midterm and a final, a single IR may not be filed because there is not enough similarity between the events.
“They’re distinguishable acts in which there’s no common thread that connects the two of them,” Wyckoff said.
First-year Law student Owen Gallogly, who attended the Honor Committee meeting, was on the Committee when it drafted the Informed Retraction in the 2012-13 academic year. The first version included the “inextricably linked” language and was passed by the student body.
“We didn’t want to approach it from a policy-legalistic standpoint — we wanted to approach it from a philosophical standpoint, which is, what was the philosophical purpose of the IR?” Gallogly said. “From our point of view, it was the recognition that a student could make a mistake or have a lapse in judgment, [and] recommit themselves to Honor.”
The 2013-14 Honor Committee, however, removed the “inextricably linked” language. According to Gallogly, this decision has caused the Committee confusion on how to move forward with “single nexus” language.
“I can’t speak for them, but my understanding was that it was removed because they felt it made the Informed Retraction too broad,” Gallogly said. “But in the end, I think we’ve seen both the practical and the philosophical consequences of that decision, and that’s why the Committee has struggled with the single nexus language over the past four years and is currently planning on moving back to ‘inextricably linked.’”
Before the Honor Committee voted, Wyckoff presented two options for changing the IR language: “inextricably linked” and “substantially similar benefit,” which would allow a student to file a single IR for multiple acts if they were performed as a means of achieving similar objectives. This differed from the “inextricably linked” language in that it refers to acts that may be similar, but not identical. The Committee did not move forward with the “substantially similar benefit” language.
“What I really see this expansion being is moving away from the IR being for one act, and now being seen as one mistake or one judgment call, and expanding it to students who realize that they did something wrong and drawing a line between that and habitual cheating,” Wyckoff said.
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