TO BE WRONG is fine. To admit it, divine. I want to admit that I was flat wrong about the honor referenda. I have long stood in opposition to them. Thanks to a persuasive friend, whom we shall call J. Haley - or to be less obvious and preserve anonymity, Jim H. - not only will I admit my errors, but I'll explain what I thought and why I was wrong.
The biggest non-issue that we've all ever encountered is the per se seriousness of cheating. Professors, in particular, are up in arms about this because they feel there is no tolerable academic dishonesty, even if it's extremely small. The reason none of this matters is there has never been a case of a defendant who has been found guilty of cheating and whose act was deemed non-serious, according to my "anonymous" source. Approving the per se seriousness of cheating is to codify what we all already seem to agree with. In short, it won't change a thing.
The fact that it's a non-issue means that you can vote for it or against it, and either way, it won't make a wit of difference.
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But, how you vote on it is a statement about yourself. If you think there is a non-serious act of cheating, then you must surely be able to conceive of doing it yourself, without having any qualms about it. In that case, I'm not sure I want you in my community of trust. Everyone should harbor serious doubts about any neighbor who has this attitude. It would put in question the strength of our honor system if this proposal were defeated, because it would mean that many of us would not have a problem with petty cheating. With all hope, therefore, this community will affirm that academic dishonesty is wrong, always. If you plan to vote this down, consider visiting priceline.com - they probably sell one way tickets back to wherever you came from.
I used to think that turning counsel into an advisor would strip defendants of their rights. Many have echoed this belief. But the referenda actually offer the defendant more room to offer evidence in his defense. With counsel, there are strange, unclear and esoteric rules of evidence that must be followed. The referenda eliminate these rules of evidence, allowing the defendant to introduce almost anything that is even remotely relevant. This means that the defendant can offer a more complete defense of his actions than he could when students lawyers were quibbling over evidentiary rules.
In addition to changing the role of the defense counsel, the prosecution is similarly changed. So even if you believe getting rid of counsel as an advocate means getting rid of a zealous defense, it is at least offset by getting rid of an equally zealous prosecution.
Still, the question remains, suppose we were making more of a defense burden, what rights would we be stripping from defendants? Does a defendant have a right to a lawyer, a jury of his peers? Well, no, not really. This isn't federal court; it's an honor courtroom. They're not supposed to be the same thing! Does any person have an obligation to be honest and forthright in their dealings with fellow members of our community? Well, yes, at least if signing that honor roll at convocation is to mean anything. The only right, if it can be called that, that we are stripping a defendant of is the "right" to conceal information and evidence behind student lawyers and silly rules. The last I checked, there is no right to be dishonest, not even at trial when your proverbial derriere is on the line.
Finally, I once thought lowering the bar to two-thirds for a finding of guilt would be harmful to defendants. This no longer bothers me. Yes, it's easier to convict. But, as it stands, there are too few convictions. Jurors nullify verdicts on mere guilt because they don't understand that proof beyond a reasonable doubt does not mean that they must entertain the possibility that space aliens framed them for cheating.
Compare the University to the Virginia Military Institute, which also has a single sanction. VMI convicts and expels twice as many of its students each year, on average, than does the University. VMI's population is about one-fifth that of the University's. This means that students at VMI are either much more dishonest than us - fat chance - or we under-convict. I'll put my money on the latter case any day.
By passing this referendum, you will increase the likelihood that guilty defendants will be found guilty. This is, after all, what we want - that this community be populated by honest people and that we have a hard line on those that are dishonest.
As one of my most memorable professors would say: "There are no right answers, just better opinions." Thank you, J.H. (wink, wink), for proving that statement true.
(Jeffrey Eisenberg is a Cavalier Daily associate editor. He can be reached at jeisenberg@cavalierdaily.com.)
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