University students will vote this week on an amendment to the Honor Committee's constitution that would allow the body to release summaries of cases on the election ballot.
The amendment, which was proposed by Alexander Cohen, Graduate Arts & Sciences representative and a former Cavalier Daily opinion columnist, has been the primary topic of Committee discussion for the past four weeks.
The summaries would include basic information about the case - whether an accused person was convicted, acquitted on terms of act and intent or acquitted for triviality. Additionally, the reports would include the arguments of both the prosecuting and the defending side, which would provide the Committee with an opportunity to educate the community about what is considered an honor offense, Cohen said.
"I believe honor should not be a mystery," he said. "We should understand what the standards are and we should have an active conversation on what they ought to be."
But some Committee members have shown concerns about breaches of confidentiality if these summaries are released.
To mitigate this conflict, Committee Chair David Truetzel said the summaries would omit names and undergo review by the chair, appropriate counselors and the accused before being released. Summaries would not be released if a case is under appeal, and the chair would have the power to disallow a summary to be publicized in cases in which privacy is a concern.
But there still is a chance, Truetzel said, for something to slip by the Committee that could reveal a student's identity.
"The chair isn't all seeing and all knowing," he said. "It could be that someone else reading it with some sort of background knowledge that the chair doesn't have could put two and two together."\nBut Cohen believes the preventative measures will be sufficient to ensure students' privacy.
"A case can be pretty unique and still be unidentifiable to people who were not involved," he said.
University students have expressed similar sentiments as the Committee about the amendment.
"Personal privacy should be a pretty high priority for any report," second-year College student Taylor Maddalene said. "I guess it kind of depends on the person and on the case. Some people are very private."
Second-year Graduate Arts & Sciences student Derek King said this amendment could result in a watchdog effect for the Committee.
"It sounds like it increases the transparency of the process, but on the other hand, may increase the pressure on the Honor Committee," he said, explaining that allowing the community insight into the arguments given during the trials would result in public scrutiny.
Both Truetzel and Cohen agree that openness is the intended goal of this amendment.
"I think students like the idea of increased transparency, especially with the Honor Committee, because historically the Committee hasn't released much info about specific decisions made at trial with specific cases," Truetzel said.
Cohen added that he believes these summaries will help University students to live according to the honor code because they will be able to better make sense of the rules.
"We are entitled to understand the rules by which we live," he said.
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