With the debate over the honor system's single sanction revived, talk about the possible implementation of a non-toleration clause has surfaced as well. The goal of a non-toleration clause is to encourage student participation in initiating cases by making it an honor or UJC offense in itself if someone witnesses lying, cheating or stealing and fails to report it. While those in favor of a non-toleration clause argue that it's just what the honor system needs right now, such a proposal would not fix the large flaws of the system as a whole. The non-toleration clause is a ridiculous way to circumvent the real problem that, because of the single sanction, people don't have faith in an overly harsh and inflexible honor system at the University.
The honor code formerly employed a non-toleration clause, a requisite that met its end during the 1970s, and to resurrect it as a means of reinvigorating the system horribly misses the point. Ironically, traditionalists like members of "Students for the Preservation of Honor" who support a non-toleration clause are only exacerbating the problems that contribute to the low number of student initations in the first place. Rather than acting as a panacea to heal honor, a non-toleration clause would only rub salt into its perpetually vulnerable wound: the single sanction.
In an ideal world, the non-toleration clause wouldn't even need to be under consideration. Reality and statistics, though, tell us that students initiate a frighteningly low proportion of honor cases. And instead of attacking the root of the problem, some believe it more prudent to further alienate the student body by threatening additional punishment. The fact that students are overwhelmingly disinclined to participate in the honor system doesn't automatically imply they are dishonorable. It's more reasonable to assume they are unsatisfied and uncomfortable with expulsion as the only possible sanction. Using the non-toleration clause to discourage that skepticism is like trying to plug a dam with a wad of gum -- no matter what, the thing's going to burst.
As if the idea of compelling students to cooperate in an overly punitive system isn't bad enough, the non-toleration clause in conjunction with the single sanction would add insult to injury, forcing them to endorse a punishment they may be morally opposed to or risk being subject to it themselves. When applying to the University, students promise not to lie, cheat or steal, but punishing them for not dealing with another person's breach of the system violates every notion of individualism with regard to being free of the bureaucratic thought police.
Equally inane about the suggestion of a non-toleration clause is in its singling out of students. Though faculty initiate close to 80 percent of all honor cases, a good number of them, because of doubts about the single sanction, opt out of pressing charges, instead choosing to handle incidents of cheating in their own way. A non-toleration clause could never be applied to professors, yet placing its burden solely on students, again, would be an extreme displacement of the need to fix other defects in the system.
Making the initiation of an honor case compulsory is the counterproductive approach for improving a system so few are willing to participate in to begin with. We're excited by the buzz surrounding single sanction reform discussions, but proposing that a non-toleration clause can do the job just as well or better would represent a change for the worse and an utter misunderstanding of what students really find so troubling about the system.
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