FOR ANYONE with the perseverance to follow the endless single sanction debate, it quickly becomes obvious that discerning the right or wrong answer to the problem is as impossible as getting pro-choice and pro-life advocates to agree on when life begins. My take on the single sanction would amount to nothing more than another drop in the bucket. Instead, it seems much more productive to discuss the "spotlighting" phenomenon. Students so concerned about administering the right punishment sometimes fail to notice trends in who's actually being punished. As we consider the future of Honor, we must make sure that the system is as just as it is tough.
Spotlighting is the term given to the overrepresentation of certain minorities in having honor charges initiated against them. This phenomenon is well-documented and not denied by the Honor Committee. The Faculty Advisory Committee released an analytical report on Honor initiations and convictions from 1998-2003. Overall, international students were found to be five times as likely to have an Honor case initiated against them. An athlete was four times more likely than a non-athlete to have an Honor case brought against him or her. Most disturbing, perhaps, was that for every one white student, three African-Americans had honor cases initiated against them. For a system purporting to preserve the "community of trust," it seems some students are trusted markedly less than others.
Honor Committee members are quick to retort that spotlighting is a problem with bias in the community, not with the system. Although minorities were overrepresented in honor cases initiated, statistically minorities were not any more likely to be convicted. In recent years, however, bias seems to have permeated the Honor courtroom as well. In the 2005-2006 term, out of 23 white students brought to trial, only eight were found guilty. On the other hand, out of six African-American students brought up on charges, five were convicted. This discrepancy is too much to attribute to mere chance.
Spotlighting likely occurs not from conscious prejudice but the inclination of seeing students different from the norm as "the other." After all, around ninety percent of cases are initiated by professors and TAs. These academics certainly are likely to be more tolerant than other segments of the community. Regardless, it is much easier to vilify or, for that matter, notice people different from the average white student.
Some might say that color doesn't really matter. As long as cheaters are caught, justice is served. Justice may not be even-handed, though, if we examine the flip-side of this phenomenon what is often referred to as "dimming." It seems rather bizarre that so few cases are initiated against white students, and even fewer receive guilty verdicts. Unless we want to offer the dubious justification that white people cheat less, professors and TAs need to be more vigilant with white students and not be any less predisposed to bring them up on honor charges.
Regardless of how much spotlighting really occurs, Toby Zhang, chair of the Honor Diversity Advisory Board, wrote in an e-mail that the "most damaging thing about spotlighting (and dimming) is not that it happens for real...the real problem is that many in the minority population 'believe' that it is real and 'believe' racism is the cause of it, and 'believe' honor is out to get them." As long as minority members of the University feel that they do not belong to the community of trust, they will feel outside of the larger University community. As long as they feel that their only role in honor is to fulfill the role of cheaters, they will not feel comfortable using the honor system for its positive benefits, or feel safe to bring charges against other students, especially if they are white.
When we think about honor, we should be as concerned with actual consequences as well as ideology. No matter how many sanctions there are, the ax should not fall any heavier on one subset of the student population than it does the others.
Marta Cook is a Cavalier Daily Associate Editor. She can be reached at mcook@cavalierdaily.com.
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