LETTER: Misunderstanding the Honor Committee’s mental health procedures
Feb. 18, The Cavalier Daily published an opinion article arguing that the Honor Committee ought to focus more on the mental health of accused students. As members of the Committee, we commend this article’s intention. However, the article is based on a faulty understanding of the Committee’s existing procedures. The Contributory Health Impairment, to which the column refers, is not litigated at an Honor hearing, so making mental health assessments opt-out as a part of the hearing procedure is fundamentally unfeasible and will needlessly add months to the already-long case processing timeline. Therefore, we strongly disagree with the solution proposed in the column and believe that mental health evaluations should not be made opt-out.