The Honor Committee continued to discuss potential Informed Retraction bylaw language changes, which build on the “single nexus of events” language, at their meeting Sunday night. With the new language, related acts of lying, cheating or stealing fall would under one IR.
“Tonight we discussed an updated language proposal that I had developed to limit the discretion that had previously existed in the proposed language that the Committee was considering,” said Matt West, a fourth-year College student and Committee chair. “The Committee then had what I thought was a full and very productive discussion on that.”
Previously, the Committee was considering adding “inextricably linked” to the bylaws, but changed the addition to “proximate conduct” following revisions over the last few weeks.
“What was formerly termed, ‘inextricably linked,’ is now ‘proximate conduct,’” West said. “First and foremost, it’s a change to the term itself, which we believe will … affect the expansion that we’re trying to achieve here.”
“Proximate conduct,” unlike “inextricably linked,” has a temporal aspect, meaning that acts of lying or stealing must have “occurred within a reasonably short interval of time” to fall under the same IR, under the proposed bylaws. Acts of cheating must have occurred simultaneously or “consecutively and closely proximate in time.”
Circumstances must be substantially similar in acts of lying, cheating or stealing to qualify for a single informed retraction.
“During tonight's meeting, we worked to shape the language in the bylaws relating to the expansiveness of the IR,” Jennifer Yeaton, fourth-year Batten student and Honor Committee member, said in a statement to The Cavalier Daily. “We are trying to create bylaw language that is clear and accurately articulates the change we are trying to make.”
The Committee debated whether the revisions should include the temporal aspect in the language, and at the end of the meeting, invited community input.
Second-year College student Soleil Reed, an Honor support officer, was present at the meeting and participated in giving community input.
“I am hoping, first and foremost, and this was definitely echoed by a lot of the Committee members there, that they make it less temporally focused,” Reed said in an interview with The Cavalier Daily. “Any time you have a reasonable standard, what’s reasonable to one person is not reasonable to another — that’s by nature a very subjective kind of definition.”
Reed said the Committee should address the temporal aspect first, then move onto addressing other language concerns.
“As people did, you can come up with so many cases and scenarios where … the philosophy of the IR means that this person should be able to take an IR, but because it doesn’t fit within the reasonable time standard pursued by one Committee, they would not be able to,” Reed said.
The 2016-17 Committee has only two meetings left before transitioning to the 2017-18 Committee on April 3.
“I think it won’t be easy to get to a point where we can have a vote on this language, on this bylaw proposal, but we’re certainly hoping to get there if at all possible,” West said. “We’ll be working hard the next couple weeks to continue updating language in the proposal based on input provided by Committee members, by support officers.”
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