IT'S THAT time again at the University. Time for wide-eyed first years to gape in awe at the prospect of altering a pillar of school tradition and time for jaded upperclassmen to roll their eyes. It's time to reevaluate one of the University's most hallowed and controversial institutions -- the single sanction.
This month a group of Honor Committee members, interested students and professors met to begin the process of examining the current state of the single sanction and proposing an alternative system for review by the Committee and ultimately the student body. While this may sound radical given the single sanction's fundamental relation to both the honor system and the University's public image, such proposals are completely routine.
Almost every student in recent history has witnessed a challenge to the single sanction. Amendment referenda, ad hoc committees and public outcry crop up like clockwork every three or four years. Yet despite continual questioning of the single sanction's validity and repeated opportunities for students to mitigate its severity, the penalty for lying, cheating or stealing has remained largely untouched since its inception over 150 years ago.
The simple truth of the matter is that students roundly support the single sanction -- at least on paper. Whether the product of idealistic belief in staunch penalties, a true love of honorable behavior or simply a traditional community's dogged reluctance to veer away from longstanding practice, a strong majority vote routinely crushes attempts to do away with the single sanction or even to instate options other than expulsion for some transgressions.
Unfortunately, what appears to be longstanding, vehement backing of the system does not translate to active participation. It is no secret that today the honor system is weak. As detailed in the lead editorial last Thursday, the core participants in the honor system, students and faculty, are lackluster in their pragmatic support of the system. Students do not frequently turn in their peers for offenses, and professors, the majority of whom openly oppose the single sanction, do not work with the student-run honor system, choosing instead to enforce their own penalties or lack thereof.
Honor Committees of the past have been fully aware of these problems and for years have sought a remedy. But as the single sanction always appears to be the root of dissention, attempts to reinvigorate the system inevitably lead to reconsideration of its central tenet. And with students recalcitrant to suggestions of change, reformers are left with few options. The current Committee's desire to investigate potential avenues of reform shows that its members are as conscious and concerned as their predecessors. Sadly, its prospects could be similarly bleak.
Given the history behind single sanction reform, it seems naive to think current University students will respond to proposed change differently than generations past. Yet considering the precarious position in which the honor system sits, it would be flat-out irresponsible not to pursue amendment. How then should current participants proceed?
In the past, Committee members have attempted to draft plans for a new sanction, focusing on what would make the system more just, functional and palatable. From a system of graduated punishments for various levels of severity to the "informed retraction," which would have allowed accused to students to admit guilt and face lighter penalties, reformers have come up with many interesting ideas and marketed them to the student body as improvements. The fact that the proposed changes would have increased faculty and student participation was always noted as a major advantage, but was never the primary objective of the amendment.
This year the Committee ought to address the most pressing issue
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