IT IS AN annual tradition of fall orientation. First years, graduate students, and transfer students all pack in to rooms to learn about the University’s exalted honor system. The Honor Committee sends representatives to this meeting to teach our new students about all the history, tradition and ideology behind the honor system. Certainly, the honor system’s history is riveting, its traditions are a core part of this school, and the ideology is about as lofty and optimistic as an honor system’s ideology can get. Unfortunately, the Honor Committee does not teach our new students the whole story.
The honor system has held its important status at the University not because of the single sanction of automatic expulsion, but because of student control and ownership of the system. There is no administrative oversight of our honor system, and to students escaping the grip of “grown-ups” in high school or other schools, there is nothing cooler than a system with so much power which is completely controlled by them. This is as it should be. The Honor Committee’s tendency, however, to tie the honor system’s success and vaunted status with the single sanction of automatic expulsion needlessly ties our great honor system with the severe problems created by our deeply flawed single sanction.
Students are unwilling to report their fellow students knowing expulsion will be the result. Surveys have shown that well over 2,000 honor offenses may be going unreported every year, and the single sanction is always named as one of the top reasons for non-reporting. The devastating effects of this problem, and others, is being felt all around Grounds.
The Honor Committee tells us the single sanction creates a community of trust, where everyone can trust everyone else in the University. Well, tell that to the law student whose laptop and credit cards were stolen at a time that only students could get into the building. Tell that to the third-year college student who twice had his wallet stolen from a student-only area open locker in the AFC. Tell that to the professor that stopped giving take-home exams after rampant cheating was found year after year. Tell that to the Engineering School second-year who can no longer work in teams for several of his classes because cheating was just too common. If there ever was a true community of trust here, it has been rapidly evaporating.
The Honor Committee tells us the single sanction impresses our future employers, because they know we are honorable if we graduated from the University. Tell that to the student whose job interviewer asked him, “Why does the University distrust its students so much that the only way they think they will prevent dishonesty is to threaten students with expulsion?” Tell that to the student whose employer asked, point blank, “How do I know you are not just one of the students who got away with it, or simply did not get reported?” Tell that to the student who was told at one job interview that, “A ‘single sanction’ is so far from the real world that it is absurd to say that this honor system makes students better qualified for the work force.” If employers ever were impressed by the single sanction, their numbers are fading today.
The Honor Committee tells us the single sanction is a core tradition of our school, and sends a message of how much we care about honorable behavior. This, however, is woefully ignorant of the honor system’s history. The single sanction was initially adopted in the late 1800’s as a concession by students, offered in exchange for faculty acquiescence to student control of the system. Additionally, a system that sacrifices deterrence and prevention of dishonorable behavior in exchange for an antiquated notion of punishment sends no message of respect for honorable behavior, simply a message of rigid adherence to a senseless ideal. No, the true tradition of our honor system is the student run nature that our early predecessors fought hard for, and the true message of respect for honorable behavior is adoption of a plan to actually prevent dishonorable behavior, instead of just “sending a message” while having a cheating rate consistently found to be no lower than that of any other school with an honor code.
The Honor Committee does not tell the whole story of the honor system because they fear that students will begin pushing for change. It is my hope, however, that our new students will look past the hype and recognize the truth. Our system is great, but it needs change. The single sanction needs to come to an end.
Sam Leven is a second year in the Law School. He graduated from the College in 2007, was the founder of Hoos Against Single Sanction, and is a counsel in the honor system.
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