THE HONOR committee has examined recent proposals aimed at tampering with the single sanction. The most recent of these attacks came from Darden Rep. Lamont Soverall, with the aim of introducing terms upon which the University could readmit an expelled student. This would create a parole type of option for violations that the University deems very serious.
If readmittance is adopted, the honor system would be cheapened, as would every degree offered by the University.
The solemnity of the honor system lies in its power to preserve a University degree for those who abide by its principles. A convicted student faces grim options, but this is a consequence of a student life enriched by the promise of mutual commitment to the principles outlined in the honor pledge.
New proposals to the honor system as it exists today are apparently a response to feedback of inefficiencies in prosecution and detection of infractions. According to a 2001 student honor survey, 56 percent of students are reluctant to turn in a fellow student because it would cost that student his degree, and 17.8 percent cite their reason as a disagreement with the single sanction.
The central problem with amending honor procedures is in increasing the effectiveness of the system without diminishing its dignity. Terms for readmittance would contribute little to a student's inclination to bring colleagues up on charges compared to the degree of damage it would have on the honor system as a whole.
The terms of readmittance themselves raise another of this proposal's problems. Who is to say that a former student has demonstrated "that they no longer pose a tangible threat to the 'community of trust?'" Will community service be a requirement for the Committee's parole board? If this is the case, how does erecting a house on weekends change behavioral patterns in an academic setting? Even if community service is not the standard, who decides that standard and by what criteria is it chosen? To violate the honor code is to rob the community of a degree of trust, and severe consequences must follow. That those consequences are permanent is a deterrent to lying, cheating or stealing.
An especially telling statistic of the student honor survey is the overwhelming - 74.7 percent - general support in the student body for the single sanction. Aiming efforts to alter the honor system at the single sanction issue is counter to student opinion.
The Committee most likely bases its proposals on the reluctance of students to report honor violations. Only 34.7 percent of students answered yes, without any reservations, as to whether they would "initiate an Honor case if [the student] witnessed a clear Honor violation."
These statistics, combined, represent the student body's acceptance of the single sanction but a reluctance to initiate honor investigations. It is not clear that readmittance would change a student's likelihood of acting upon evidence of an honor infraction.
The reaction to these statistics, however, should not be to weaken the scope of the honor system, but to increase awareness of honor's importance in student life. The Committee has done much in the way of self-promotion by printing cups and frisbees, filming a new video and showing it at first-year orientation and by increasing its profile through Cavalier Daily articles.
A strong honor system will be able to rebound from the "How Things Work" scandal. When the case load returns to normal, student indignation should change attitudes towards honor. My hope is that the student body is not so callous that the recent scandal does not invoke some assault on their pride, especially as students who attend a university that values honor as highly as this one.
Readmittance is not the answer to the most recent shock to the honor system. This would allow for a parole-type system to override the principles of honesty and integrity. To lower the requirements for graduation at the University by allowing dismissed students that privilege is to cheapen that diploma for all others who receive it.
(Matt West's column appears Thursdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at mwest@cavalierdaily.com.)
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