In the interest of full disclosure, I served as the Honor Committee’s vice chair for trials during the 2005-06 academic year. I write in response to several recently published letters to the editor that deride the honor system as secretive, biased and unfair.
In terms of the Honor Committee’s supposed “proclivity for secrecy,” the Honor Committee is bound by federal law — to be specific, the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act — not to disclose the names or any identifying information of accused or dismissed students. The Honor Committee strives to make the honor system as open and accessible as possible given this limitation, but obviously some details, like the happenings in a specific trial, must be kept confidential according to FERPA. Several recent open honor trials provided the University community a glimpse of the Committee’s trial proceedings, and most people came away impressed with the professionalism and care that Honor Committee members, support officers and jurors gave to the proceedings. In this specific case, there may have been a lapse in this regard, but such a one-time occurrence is by no means an objective measure of the Committee’s normal procedures as they relate to both the trial and post-trial processes.
In terms of reviewing these procedures as they relate to this case, the Honor Committee has adopted appeal procedures that allow a convicted student to appeal a conviction on grounds of new evidence or fundamental fairness. Members of the Honor Committee who have no prior involvement with the case then hear and rule on the appeal.
This system resembles the appeals process in every state of the United States and in the federal courts system. Appeals from a judicial decision are heard not by the legislature or some outside body, but rather by another panel of impartial judges. The Honor Committee goes a step further by vetting all appeals with independent legal counsel to ensure a convicted student’s rights were not violated.
Of course, much of this debate stems from an asymmetry of information. The only information about the plagiarism and alleged unfairness comes from the convicted student, her mother and one of the convicted student’s friends who witnessed the trial. Perhaps The Cavalier Daily should consider publishing the plagiarized paper in full — redacting any identifying information — and allow the University community as a whole to judge the seriousness of the alleged plagiarism. The honor system is by no means perfect, and scrutiny and review will ultimately make the system stronger and more vibrant; yet, as a community, we must evaluate the available information objectively and carefully before advocating changes that would weaken student self-governance and the culture of honesty, fairness and respect that the honor system fosters within our community.
Stewart Ackerly
Law I
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