![<p>Ory Streeter, a medical student and Honor Committee Chair, said that the goal of reiterating and commenting on these cases would be to “[bring] the story of Honor to life.”</p>](https://snworksceo.imgix.net/cav/5ac886b1-a6e1-49ed-a165-fbcf88f158c9.sized-1000x1000.jpg?w=1000)
The Honor Committee met Sunday evening to discuss the upcoming Bicentennial report and announced that the Committee has delivered two not guilty verdicts to students in the College of Arts and Sciences. The first was found not guilty on four counts of cheating, while the second was acquitted on two counts.
The Bicentennial report announced in early October is planned for release during the Spring semester of 2019. It will feature the stories of cases which were landmarks in the development of the Honor System and will include an analysis of their impact upon the body and the University. The report — a summary of the committee’s activities since its founding in 1842 — is a component of the 200-year reflective celebration of the University’s establishment.
Notable cases the Committee intends to incorporate in the Bicentennial report include the 1971 “Coke case” concerning a student who was expelled following the theft of two soda cans from a broken vending machine. After the ensuing public outcry at the student’s dismissal, the Honor Committee reconsidered the case and overturned its verdict the following day. The “Coke case” raised questions about the role of the Honor system’s single-sanction policy.
The single-sanction policy is a distinctive feature of the Honor system — any student convicted of an honor offense will be expelled from the University.
“I would like for us to use that case as a way to talk about the changing of understanding of honor at the University,” said Ory Streeter, a medical student and Honor Committee Chair.
In addition to the Coke case, the Honor Committee also plans to include a recounting and analysis of the 1993 Leggett case in the Bicentennial report. After an Honor trial convicted then-first-year student Christopher Leggett of cheating, Leggett’s family hired law firm Williams & Connelly. Facing legal pressures, the administration forced the Honor Committee to grant a retrial — the first ever interference by the administration into the student-run Honor system.
The original verdict on Leggett’s case was repealed and one member of the Honor Committee resigned as a result of the retrial.
The more recent case of Law School alumnus Jonathan Perkins were also mentioned as part of the storytelling portion of the Bicentennial report. In 2011, Perkins, then a Law School student, claimed to have been harrassed by two University Police officers as an act of racial discrimination. Perkins was questioned as a result of these allegations and recanted his story.
The Committee opened an investigation into Perkins in the summer of 2011 concerning lying. Perkins was eventually acquitted and allowed to graduate. A few years later, he publicly claimed he was pressured by the FBI to recant his story.
The Honor Committee also intends to include cases involving the development of sexual assault, coeducation and the emergence of algorithms for checking student papers in the early 2000s.
Streeter said that the goal of reiterating and commenting on these cases would be to “[bring] the story of Honor to life.”
In addition to discussing the Bicentennial report, the Committee reported that the changes to the bylaws and procedures for reforming the Contributory Health Impairment policy have been received by the University Counsel’s Office and approval is expected this week. At the Committee’s Oct. 28 meeting, the changes to the policy went into effect, although they had yet to be formally approved by the University Counsel’s Office at the time.
A CHI is the process where accused students can request a medical evaluation prior to moving through Honor proceedings to determine if a mental health condition contributed to the commission of the offense. This is typically overseen by the Office of the Dean of Students and conducted by Student Health or the University’s Counseling and Psychological Services.
A variety of reforms have been made to the CHI policy within the past couple of months — including changing the name of the policy from the Contributory Mental Disorder process into the Contributory Health Impairment process to make it more inclusive by acknowledging that the current policy also allows for conditions that are not explicitly mental, such as a brain tumor according to Streeter, but could still contribute to committing Honor offenses.
The Committee has approved a new timeline in which students in the process will have to adhere to if their CHI claim is to be considered in an Honor trial. The Committee has also approved the removal of the “Admission of Act” portion of the policy which will remove the requirement that an accused student admit an Act, or admit guilt to an Honor offense, before being assessed for a CHI.
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