THE LONG-STANDING debate over the single sanction has taken a new turn with the decision of the Honor Committee to limit the mandate of the ad hoc Committee for the Investigation of the Single Sanction to investigating the single sanction itself. Cries of protest arose from detractors of the single sanction, who want the committee to be able to investigate alternatives to the single sanction as well, pursuant to a referendum passed in the spring.
Single sanction opponents have raised many objections to the sanction in recent years. They have not, however, succeeded in proving their case that the single sanction is a cause, let alone the root cause, of the problems with the honor system. Many of the objections raised by single sanction opponents still appear speculative. The wisest course on this issue may be to either leave the status quo in place or investigate ways of improving the honor system without getting rid of single sanction.
Opponents point to seemingly low rates of faculty and student initiation of cases as proof that single sanction needs to go. The theory here is that some number of students and faculty who would otherwise initiate honor claims do not do so because of the prospect of a cheating student being expelled. Opponents also point to low rates of students being found guilty, allegedly also because honor jurors refuse to vote to convict.
It seems implausible that the single sanction is the catalyst behind all these effects. Much of the problem here is the burden placed on those who initiate cases, who must attend meetings of the Investigative Panel and give testimony. In addition, the system places an extraordinarily high burden of proof on those initiating cases. It seems more convincing that students and faculty choose not to initiate trials because of these more direct and substantial burdens rather than fear of a cheating student being expelled.
It is important to note that these harms do not flow from the single sanction, but rather from honor's attempt to mimic the type of adversarial process used in common-law justice systems. All of the bad effects that flow from high burdens of proof and juries would disappear if the adversarial process were modified in some way, such as lowering the burden of proof or modifying the process of selecting jurors.
The other empirical argument made by opponents of single sanction is that guilty students are encouraged to lie. The fact is, however, that the potential of any harsh penalty will encourage guilty students to lie. Either students who are found guilty of cheating are automatically expelled, or they are not.
The latter option would create some number of cases where students who are found guilty of cheating are nonetheless allowed to remain at the University, take classes and participate openly in student life. This would, of course, reduce the deterrent impact of honor punishments. These issues at least need to be considered before single sanction is scrapped.
Sam Leven, communications director for Hoos Against Single Sanction and an honor counsel, in addition to expressing concerns about the effects of the single sanction in eroding the rates of initiation and conviction in honor cases, said in an interview that he is opposed to the single sanction because it "takes away any capacity to forgive." This seems to be the issue at the heart of the single sanction debate: whether or not the system will officially sanction forgiveness out of a sense of justice and humanitarianism. It is an open question whose answer depends on one's own sense of justice.
The opposition to single sanction seems to be an essentially moral campaign that has been masked behind a torrent of "objective" claims made about how honor actually works. These claims are open to considerable skepticism.
We need to disentangle the empirical claims made by single sanction opponents from the moral arguments they advance, a process which requires more time and research. Only then will we be able to have a truly honest debate about this issue.
Noah Peters' column appears Mondays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at npeters@cavalierdaily.com.
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