IN A RECENT editorial entitled "An open honor system," the managing board of The Cavalier Daily urged the Honor Committee to open all Honor trials to the public. The request, offered with the highest degrees of sincerity and candor, and, as I have found, affirmed by numerous students on Grounds, merits a response on a few points.
Students who advocate mandatory open trials are wise in being mindful of the interest of the University student body, which open trials would perhaps serve. The University student body cannot, however, overlook the protection of accused students' privacy, which is the purpose of a closed trial. The managing board correctly points out that the accused student has the option of an open or closed trial, but they disregard the fact that if all trials were open to the community, it is the accused student, rather than the University as a whole, who is abused as a result. Falsely accused students would still have to deal with the stigma of an accusation. There is undoubtedly a tension between individual privacy and accountability to the student body, but it is worth remembering that protection of accused students is protection of the community, since individuals from the community at large are the ones who are inevitably brought to trial.
There is more to this issue, though, beyond the mere theoretical utility of closed trials. Students who allege a lack of faith in honor trials both overrate the existence of this sentiment and misappropriate who has the power to rectify the supposed problem. The incoming Honor Committee, to whom most students implicitly address their concerns, simply has no power granted to it by the Honor Constitution to open trials to the student body. It is my estimate that University students would find a Committee declaration opening all trials -- even one made with the power to do so -- to be a far greater offense toward the impartial rule of law than the current option, held solely by an accused student, to keep a trial private. The claim commonly set forth by students that the Committee should open its procedures to the student body at large rings hollow.
The claim is further weakened since, during any given University election, students have every right to propose and campaign for a referendum hereafter mandating open trials. In the recent set of student elections, the one in which the question "Is Greg delightful?" found its way on the ballot, try as I may have, I could find no referenda demanding open honor trials. The paucity of student concern either undermines all claims of lacking faith, or it confirms computer engineering Prof. Ronald Williams' concern, voiced in the first article of The Cavalier Daily's five-part series on the honor system, regarding general apathy toward honor within the student body. The continual validation of the honor system by students, in the form of voting for Committee members and other referenda, accompanied by the absence of electoral demands for open trials, may contradict the claims of the managing board and students alike that a substantial lack of faith in honor does, in fact, exist.
However, I find much to commend Williams' view regarding student validation. Therefore, if it is student apathy that leaves the closed trial option in place, then the matter of student involvement, rather than that of open trials, is the one primarily at stake here. Students are frequently reminded of the fact that honor is the exemplar of a government in which power is derived from the consent of the governed. In such a system -- often referred to as a democracy -- a vote of apathy is nevertheless a vote. Be it a matter of student apathy or latent student confidence, the matter of mandatory open trials is not a forefront issue at this point. It can only become one, and indeed the efficacy of honor can only be affirmed, insofar as a large student movement develops to do so in the future.
Let me underscore this with one final point. As a transfer student, I can attest to the difference in atmosphere present within universities which lack a structure such as the honor system. As such, I see no reason in hiding my fondness for and recurrent amazement at our system of justice, wholly run by students, which seeks to articulate and uphold academic ethics and morality, and place them in the public square for open discussion. Perhaps it is for lack of experience at other universities, but I fear that most students on Grounds do not share this sentiment -- though I wish that I could make them do so. Honor is, for students of the University, an immense privilege, but only if they can keep it.
Zach Williams is a third year in the College. He is a member of the Honor Counsel.
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