WHEN I began researching and brainstorming for this article it was tough to distill a single point why students should not pass the honor referenda. In thinking about why this matters to students, it became obvious - students. At no point in this process has the student voice been heard. Many voices were heard in the creation of these proposals, but they all belong to people already involved with the honor system.
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The Honor System Review Commission has compiled a report that establishes a holistic vision for system reforms. But they have missed their mark. If they were trying to create an honor system for the honor system, by the honor system, then they have succeeded. If they were trying to restore student faith in this ailing ideal and garner support of the whole community, then they have faltered.
The student body was kept out deliberately while the proposals were written. Even as an executive officer of the Honor Committee I was not allowed at the Commission meetings. Several people, including myself, unsuccessfully proposed having several students-at-large sit on the Commission. In their place were to be many forums where students would be able to get an in-progress view of the Commission's efforts and offer suggestions, guidance and direction. This did not happen.
Because of a lack of student input, each proposal outlines a right you are giving up, not gaining - with one exception I will come back to shortly.
Changing the role of counsel: The Honor Committee needs to change "represented" by counsel to "assisted" in order to restructure the whole trial procedure - to create less liability for themselves.
Throwing unpreparered students into a difficult and complicated process to navigate on their own is not the way to solve this. Both the accused student and the initiator deserve to have an advocate. The Committee is trying to short change accused students and give them what is minimally required by civil law, but not what it most needed.
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Making academic cheating per se serious: This proposal is seeminly simple. It removes the right for students to decide on a case-by-case basis whether expulsion is warranted. This determination is needed when the only sanction is so weighty. The right of the student to have this question asked trumps any want the Committee has to make generalizations.
Eliminating random student juries: I have heard of three alternative options: all Committee panels, all student panels and mixed panels. The only reason that I have heard for the removal of random student juries relates to the incompetence of student jurors. I find this an egregious claim that is not only insulting, but also not true. Students are fully capable of deciding act, intent and seriousness. Usually when the Committee is upset over the verdict in case, the blame rests on the Committee for making poor decisions at the pre-trial conference, where all information presented to the students is decided.
The referendum would not just eliminate an option for one type of panel, but it would eliminate the only clear and singular validation and check on the Honor Committee. Random student juries are also, by far, the best educational tool the system has built into it. Having to compete with Honor Committee members to have your voice heard during deliberations would destroy this.
Changing the composition of mixed panels: The Committee and the Commission acknowledge that at their current size, they will not be able to process cases without having members sit on cases more than once, i.e. the member who decides to send your case to trial might also have to sit on your trial panel or appeal. This problem with bias seems obvious.
At this point these reforms are not for the student body, but the Committee. At the same time, and this must never be understated, they are for the Committee to govern students. By voting to pass them, students would delegate an enormous amount of unchecked power to this and future Committees, and set dangerous precedents for trampling accused students' rights. Passing these referenda would give the Committee a wider framework that further removes students from the system. Students would be giving up their right to have an advocate at moments of great stress, to determine whether an act of cheating warrants expulsion, and to be in the trial room without Committee members looming over them. The student body shouldn't give up these things.
(Scott Sottile is a fourth year Architecture student. He served on the Honor Committee from 1998 to 2000.)
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