The new Honor Committee elected its Executive Board last week. When newly elected Committee Chair David Truetzel and the rest of his board take the reins April 6, it will have a number of decisions to make as it defines its goals for the year. One of the most important decisions will be whether to reinstate the single sanction ad hoc committee.
In the past several years, most Honor Committees have kept the ad hoc committee intact, but a few have opted not to, arguing that the committee accomplishes little of value. Whenever it has existed, however, its role has been essentially the same. As Truetzel described it, the committee’s goal has been to “give the space to debate things and hash things out.” He’s right that the ad hoc committee has accomplished this. It has held forums and taken part in educational campaigns dealing with the pros and cons of sanction reform.
Though I support the creation of a multiple sanction system, I don’t think the new Committee should reestablish the ad hoc committee as it is. Providing a forum for discussion is fine, but that seems to be all the Committee has been willing to do. It is almost patronizing that the Committee supports student discussion about the issue and then vehemently opposes (for the most part) any actual suggestion of reform.
Instead the Committee should create a new committee with a more concrete goal: “the ad hoc committee to propose a multiple sanction system.” The name is negotiable.
The ad hoc committee has existed for several years and has accomplished essentially nothing. Most importantly, it has not fulfilled the Committee’s obligations from the spring 2005 referendum in which 59.4 percent of students voted that the Committee should “seek alternatives to the single sanction.” The ad hoc committee has discussed alternatives, but it has not sought them, and neither has the rest of the Committee.
The only serious suggestions for an alternative system have come from Hoos Against the Single Sanction. Among this group’s proposals was the failed referendum from this spring’s elections that would have created a multiple sanction system, which was defeated by a wide margin. Part of the reason for that defeat was a well-funded and articulate opposition that seemed to find fault with two aspects of the plan. The first was that it would have required punishments for even the most minor offenses, and the second was that it did not allow convicted students to appeal their sanctions. I suspect, however, that these arguments were only excuses to oppose this referendum made by people who oppose any sanction reform at all.
I was at the meeting where HASS president Sam Leven officially revealed his proposal in the fall. He offered an earnest plea for suggestions. It was his goal to propose the best possible system, and if his proposal was not that system, he wanted the Committee and anyone else interested to let him know. That did not happen. Leven said in an e-mail both of these objections were raised to him, the first in passing and the second only after it was too late for the referendum to be changed. “Had it been raised to us, by people who had our language as early as November, that they had a problem with this, we would certainly have changed the proposal to make it more clear,” Leven said.
One of the problems of discussing sanction reform is that only the Committee really understands how the honor system works. Those of us outside the Committee haven’t seen how the system really works and thus are not as capable of determining what reforms are needed.
On the other hand, the members of the Committee often oppose sanction reform. This overwhelming consensus has less to do with what they’ve observed on the job, however, than with the interest in the honor system that led them to join the Committee in the first place. For the most part, students who get involved in the honor system already agree with the single sanction.
Still, whenever a new proposal for a multiple sanction system arises, the Committee seems to say, “Even if you wanted a multiple sanction system, you wouldn’t want this particular system.” This is not only disingenuous, it’s a way for supporters of the single sanction to oppose reform proposals by attacking their details, rather than defending the single sanction — a much harder task.
In order to fulfill its obligations to the students who voted in 2005 (which unfortunately now includes only a handful of undergraduates still at the University), the new ad hoc committee should ask itself this question: “If we had to create a multiple sanction system, what would it look like?” It should write that proposal, put it on the ballot, and then have a real debate about the merits of the single sanction, rather than minor, fixable faults in a referendum.
Truetzel said he wants the Committee to focus on promoting a sense of “little-h” honor at the University. The idea that honor means more than not getting brought up on honor charges is great, but the Committee should set an example by doing what’s right, even if it doesn’t want to. On the issue of the single sanction, that means fulfilling its responsibility to the students who wanted it to seek an alternative.
Daniel Colbert’s column appears Tuesdays in The Cavalier Daily. He can be reached at d.colbert@cavalierdaily.com.
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