The Honor Committee heard two opposing proposals on the issue of sanction reform at its meeting Sunday night.
The Sanction Reform Committee, after looking into several alternative sanctioning policies, voted to formally recommend to the Honor Committee a policy that would add a forgiveness clause to the current single sanction system.
SRC Chair Sara Page presented the resolution, which asked the Committee to forward the forgiveness clause proposal to a student-body referendum in the upcoming spring election.
"The heart of this resolution is really the idea of putting a reform policy on the ballot," Page said. "The idea here is that the Honor Committee members are representatives elected by student constituencies ... so this is an opportunity for the Honor Committee to go to the students and get their opinion."
While the details of the policy currently are not set in stone, the main idea of the forgiveness clause is that a student found guilty of an honor offense immediately would be removed from the University community. After two full semesters, a guilty student would be able to request re-enrollment at the University. Re-enrollment would be dependent on a decision made by the Committee, based on the student's commitment to the community of trust. Students convicted of a second honor offense would be expelled permanently from the University.
Page mentioned the benefits of moving the proposal to referendum, including increasing education and awareness of honor issues, responding to faculty concerns about the honor system as well as "actively pursuing the core value of student self-governance."
During the community concerns portion of the meeting when members of the community are given the chance to address the Committee, SRC member Thomas Hall cautioned the Committee about voting to forward the proposal to the student body.
"If the Committee decides to vote in favor of this proposal, whatever your own personal motivations, there is no question it is going to be seen as a tacit endorsement of this proposal," Hall said.
Page emphasized that the purpose of the SRC proposal was not for the Committee to vote on the forgiveness option itself but rather to vote on sending it to the student body.
"The idea here is to move a reform option to the ballot so that students may consider it themselves," Page said. "The idea is not that the Honor Committee or the SRC are the policymakers but are responsible to seek student opinion."
In opposition to the "Advancement of Forgiveness Policy Referendum" presented by Page, David Hobbs, vice-chair for investigations and SRC member, presented the "Balanced Approach to Reform Resolution." The resolution requested that the Committee not accept or submit the SRC proposal to the student body until the SRC conducts a "thorough, documented investigation into the merits and demerits of the single sanction" and until students and faculty "are given much more of an opportunity to provide meaningful input into any policy proposal."
Hobbs said the forgiveness clause is "not fundamentally sound," logistically or practically.
"It's really important that we consider actually how this is going to work," Hobbs said. "If we're going to send this to referendum and the students vote on this, it really is going to go into action. It's going to need to be a working system."
Hobbs also said the SRC moved too quickly into investigating alternative sanctioning policies without sufficiently discussing the current system.
"The SRC still did not devote the needed attention to the consideration of the single sanction as it currently stands," Hobbs said. "It needed to be considered before moving on."
The Honor Committee will hold a special meeting to discuss the two proposals Sunday from 5 to 8 p.m. in Newcomb 481. All members of the University community are invited to attend and address the Committee during the community concerns portion of the meeting.
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