The Honor Committee voted unanimously Sunday night to approve changes to its Code of Ethics and Standard Panels.
The changes will alter the language of the Committee's Code of Ethics, which originally was approved by the current Committee at its first meeting last spring.
"Basically it's an effort to redo the Code of Ethics and Standards Panel to make things tighter," Honor Chair David Hobbs said.
The Committee first discussed the proposed changes at its meeting last week.
Under the old language, a significant prior relationship with a student who is the initiator, the accused or a material witness constitutes a conflict of interest for an Honor Committee member, advisor or counsel. Now, anyone whom the Honor Committtee member, advisor or counsel has a significant relationship with would be considered a conflict of interest.
According to Hobbs, the impetus for these alterations comes from a case last year that showed the procedure for conflict of interest was not spelled out.
"This is basically just heightening honor language so that we don't have any more problems," Hobbs said.
The alteration also would create a permanent five-member Standards Panel, elected by the Committee at the same time as the Executive Committee, which would review all alleged violations of the Code of Ethics.
"This way we won't have to choose a Standards Panel every time something comes up," Hobbs said.
The Standards Panel has the power to remove support officers or recommend that a Committee member's school recall its representative.
Vice Chair for Service Trevor McFadden suggested that the Committee change the makeup of the Standards Panel depending on the case.
"If for instance we were investigating a counsel, it could be good to have the vice chair [for] trials," McFadden said.
McFadden also suggested that having a permanent Standards Panel would mean that a few members of the Honor Committee were policing the rest.
Hobbs disagreed that the Standards Panel would be controlling the other Committee members, citing that there are typically only one or two Standards Panels per year.
The Honor Committee already has discussed the issue with representatives of the University Judiciary Committee who have agreed that the Honor Standards Panel has full jurisdiction over any alleged violations of the Honor Code of Ethics, Hobbs said. The Honor Committee discussed the change with the UJC because the 11th Standard of Conduct prohibits the violation of confidentiality in operations of Honor. The UJC members decided the Honor Committee has full jurisdiction over any alleged violations of the code of ethics, Hobbs said.
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