WHATEVER else may have come from last Sunday's open honor trial, the debateresulting from the verdict is an exciting development. The questionable nature of the verdict has once again insinuated that the idea of a single sanction is inappropriate. As if in response, the Honor Committee released a report the same day on the effect of the single sanction. While they claim that the data in the report may support the single sanction, it actually casts doubt on its necessity and usefulness. The Honor Committee needs to consider seriously a multi-sanction system instead of finding false justifications for the single sanction.
The report was issued by the ad hoc Committee for the Investigation of the Single Sanction, created in response to last year's student referendum asking Honor to consider alternatives to the single sanction. They conducted surveys with the help of Rutgers professor Don McCabe, an expert on educational integrity. The committee presented their findings to the Honor Committee as a whole, which immediately began to interpret the data incorrectly in an effort to promote the single sanction.
The data presented by the ad hoc committee showed a decline in guilty verdicts over the last five years, which was interpreted as being a result of the single sanction's deterring effect. One wonders why the 150-year-old institution has only started to have an effect in the last five. What this suggests is exactly the opposite of what Honor claims. A decline in guilty verdicts could be attributed to better counsel, improved education about the Honor system, increased patriotism in the years after 9/11, or the Red Sox winning the World Series -- it cannot be attributed to the single sanction, which has not changed over that time period.
The report also shows a decline thenumber of jurors who have voted "not guilty" in a trial with a "not guilty" verdict who would have changed their votes if a lesser sanction were available. The decline in such "regretters" is not as substantial as the fact that they are quite common. According to the report, 27 percent of "not guilty" voters in "not guilty" trials would have voted differently if there were a lesser sanction. While the decline in this figure could mean that more guilty students are being found guity, the fact that it is still a large number means that many cheaters are getting away with their actions.
That figure only applies to cases actually brought to Honor. Don McCabe's study of reporting rates paints an even bleaker picture. Twenty-five percent of students said they would be unlikely to report an honor violation, two percent said they definitely would not and 34 percent were not sure. This data does not in itself show why students are loathe to report, merely that many students probably would not. McCabe also asked students which factors would deter them from reporting. While other factors are certainly important, such as a personal relationship with the student and the inconvenience of the case process, 67 percent of students said they would likely or definitely be deterred from reporting a case due to "uneasiness about causing dismissal." This data suggests that many honor violations may be going unreported due to fears related to the single sanction.
The question, then, is what positive effects the single sanction has. Its defendants argue that it creates a stronger deterrent to cheating than a multi-sanction system. This conclusion is also not supported by the report. McCabe's study found that while the University has lower rates of cheating than universities without honor codes, it has rates similar to other universities with honor codes, including ones with multi-sanction systems. Honor Chair Alison Tramba pointed out that the report supported "the idea of an honor system in general," rather than the single sanction itself. The data makes it easy to conclude that a single sanction system has the same effect as a multi-sanction system.
With all this data pointing towards the creation of a multi-sanction system, the Honor Committee still claims to be unsure about what the data means. According to Tramba, Honor is "still talking about where [they] want to go with this report." The answer is obvious. Last year, almost 60 percent of voting students voted for the Committee to pursue alternatives to the single sanction. It is time for them to take that mandate seriously, and begin planning a multi-sanction system.
Daniel Colbert's column usually appears Fridays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at dcolbert@cavalierdaily.com.
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