WHETHER OR not you support the single sanction, I urge you to vote no on the Sanction Reform Amendment. I respect the spirit of Hoos Against Single Sanction’s proposal to change only a small section of the Honor Committee’s constitution and to leave the majority of the current Honor System intact. But in doing so, HASS has failed to create a sensible multi-sanction solution. Instead, if the Honor Committee implements this plan, the glaring oversights within this proposal will introduce major inconsistencies to the governing documents of the Honor System—inconsistencies that have potentially severe and unfair consequences for accused students.
Most students know how important the triviality clause is to the fair operation of the Honor System: it’s what protects students from being expelled for white lies or other minor offenses. This proposal eliminates that protection. The Honor Committee’s by-laws state that an act is trivial if “open toleration of the Act in question would not be inconsistent with the Community of Trust.” So, under our current system, students are only found guilty of an Honor offense if the act is found to be “non-trivial.” If passed, Hoos Against Single Sanction’s proposal would sanction all students found guilty of committing any act of lying, cheating, or stealing with dishonest intent.
HASS President Sam Leven points out that trivial acts will not necessarily be punished with suspension. However, Leven’s proposal removes that decision from the hands of student jurors, and leaves the list of possible sanctions as well as their application in the hands of Honor Committee. True, not all students who commit trivial offenses will face suspension, but some of them certainly will. Either way, Hoos Against Single Sanction’s proposal ensures that every student convicted of an offense — however trivial — will face punishment. Even if that sanction is minor, do you really feel that a student who commits a trivial offense should have that on their record forever? Whether or not you believe that all offenses, no matter how small, deserve punishment, to sanction trivial offenses deeply undermines our current system. The very definition of “triviality” in the Honor Committee by-laws implies that “trivial” offenses are those that we tolerate in our Community of Trust.
Perhaps more importantly, Hoos Against Single Sanction’s proposal deprives students of their right to appeal. Leven argues that the amendment does not prevent students from appealing their sanctions. However, the Honor Committee constitution provides a student found guilty of committing an honor offense to “appeal the panel’s finding on the basis of new evidence affecting that finding or of a denial of a full and fair hearing in accordance with this constitution.” This language explicitly gives students the right to appeal the decision made by the panel, which is clearly defined as the panel of impartial jurors who vote to determine whether a student is guilty of an honor offense. Yet, Hoos Against Single Sanction’s proposal removes the responsibility of sentencing from that panel, instead entrusting a group of three Honor Committee members to administer sanctions.
Although HASS may not have intended to deny students of the right to appeal their sanction, that is exactly what their proposal will do. A student convicted of a trivial offense could face a sanction as serious as suspension at the hands of just three Honor Committee members and there would be no way for that student to appeal that decision.
The Honor System exists to serve the needs of the student body, and as an elected representative of those students, I would welcome a change to our sanction were the student body to pass such a proposal. But that proposal ought to be fair, thorough, and consistent with the Honor System’s constitution and by-laws. I respect that not all students agree on the single sanction. However, I cannot in good conscience support this proposal.
I have spent the last four years working within the Honor System and despite its flaws, I have seen firsthand the extraordinary protections that this system provides to all students. If passed, Hoos Against Single Sanction’s proposal will provide change at the expense of your right to due process. We may not all agree on the single sanction, but certainly we can all agree on this: fair is fair, and this proposal is not only unfair, it is intolerable.
Sophie Staples is the Honor Committee Vice Chair for Trials.
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