IN THE honor system's 160 year history, no generation of University students has ever said it could no longer meet the high standard set by the single sanction. Even the classes of Vietnam, for whom dismissal from the University meant eligibility for the military draft, did not waver.
But Hoos Against Single Sanction plans to test this generation's resolve in the coming spring. It hopes to push a ballot initiative to eliminate the single sanction and replace it with a UJC-style multi-tiered sanctioning system. Adoption of this proposal would represent a disgraceful and complete surrender of our aspirations to hold ourselves to the highest standards of academic integrity.
In the past, I have fought proposals to end the sanction like the "forgiveness clause" because they were poorly thought out or would distract the honor system from reforming things that needed urgent attention. But in light of what Hoos Against Single Sanction is proposing for this spring's vote, I wish I had not fought to keep the forgiveness clause off the ballot in 2005.
After all, a proposal very similar to the forgiveness clause -- the "informed retraction" -- was defeated by a sizeable majority (roughly 60 percent) of students voting in the spring of 2002. The forgiveness clause, which sought to conditionally allow convicted students to return to the University after a period of suspension, was riddled with problems. It was sure to fail, and failure would mean at least another four years of silence from the anti-sanction crowd. But even if it didn't fail, the forgiveness clause represented nowhere near as dramatic an abdication of the values maintained by our Honor system as is represented by this year's multi-sanction proposal.
Make no mistake, passage of Hoos Against Single Sanction's proposal to mutate our Honor System into a mirror image of the University Judiciary Committee would be total surrender. The Honor System has always been about propagating and enforcing an ideal -- a community where the standards of honesty are much higher than they are for the "outside world." Proposals like the informed retraction and forgiveness clause were attempts to lower that standard by several degrees. But the multi-sanction system completely jettisons any attempt to hold University students to a higher standard. Instead, it simply imports the standards of honesty from the world around us.
Members of Hoos Against Single Sanction will respond by saying the University will still continue to be a community which places an inordinate emphasis on academic integrity because the "tradition of Honor" is so strong on grounds. But how long will that tradition continue to be strong here without the single sanction? As the University population becomes larger and more diverse, what will communicate the message to newcomers that we take seriously our dedication to student honesty? If the University Judiciary Committee, which does important work but goes unnoticed by many, is the model for our new honor system, I am not at all optimistic that Honor will retain its exalted position at the University.
The value of the single sanction is not in its ability to punish large number of students efficiently. Rather, the single sanction is valuable because its simple boldness so effectively communicates the message of high standards to new entrants to the University. As a student who came to the University in 2002 from a public high school which did not take honor very seriously, I can attest to the single sanction's power to inspire.
But even the single sanction struggles to communicate the message of honor to all 20,000 members of our community. I cannot imagine any lesser sanction (a bland multi-sanction system especially) even approaching what the single sanction is still capable of in terms of inspiration.
This isn't to say that the single sanction does not present any challenges to the viability of our honor system. There is no question that it does. But the Honor Committee is finally starting to think big about ways to address those challenges. If we still believe that University students are capable of living up to the standard upheld by so many of our predecessors, then we should not give up just because these problems are tough. We owe it to ourselves and to those who came before us not to surrender.
Josh Hess is a member of Students for the Preservation of Honor. He is a Cavalier Daily Contributor.
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