Printed on the page opposite this editorial are the Honor Committee's public case summaries for this term, released for the first time at the Committee's meeting Sunday. By releasing the summaries, the Committee fulfills provisions of the "Right to Know" referendum, which was passed during this year's University-wide elections and whose stipulations are now part of the Committee's bylaws. For the amendment to be worthwhile, however, students must take the time to look through the summaries and consider the information being presented.
Alexander Cohen, graduate Arts & Science representative and a former Cavalier Daily opinion columnist, initially proposed the Right to Know amendment last fall to increase transparency and to serve as an educational tool for the University community. Prior to releasing public summaries, the Committee would simply state the verdict of recently tried cases each Sunday at its weekly meeting, Committee Chair Charles Harris said. But these summaries were extremely brief, usually only consisting of the accused student's school and the case verdict. The new summaries, on the other hand, list the accused student's school at the University, the person who reported the honor violation, jury composition, arguments from both sides of the case, the verdict and the jury's decision for each of the three criteria for guilt - act, intent and triviality - if the student was acquitted. To protect identities, the position of the person who reported the honor violation - professor, teaching assistant or lecturer, for example - is disclosed in the summaries, but never his name. The summaries will be publicly available on the Committee's website for four years.
Of course, to be valuable as an educational tool, these summaries must have enough detail to paint a realistic picture of an honor trial while not giving away any information that could reveal an accused student's identity. When the Committee debated the Right to Know amendment, preliminary arguments against the public summaries focused on privacy issues. As a result, the Committee decided to allow the accused student to review the first draft of his summary and to raise any privacy concerns he may have. The Committee chair, accompanied by a legal counsel, is the last person to view the summaries and has the right to refuse publication if it does not meet the specified criteria for confidentiality.
These summaries are beneficial for three main reasons. First, they give students the opportunity to see how the honor code is applied to specific situations. Even though the summaries do not include in-depth information about how a possible offense meets - or does not meet - each of the criteria for guilt, the information provided still allows students to assess general trends. For example, the summaries include information about the composition of each jury - whether it was comprised entirely of randomly selected students, entirely Committee members or a mixed jury of both - which gives students the opportunity to gauge how different jury structures evaluate similar cases, in an aggregate sense. Second, listed verdicts serve as a barometer so students can gauge how often people are convicted and thus gain a clearer perspective on the honor system. Third, it provides a mechanism to open the honor system more to public scrutiny and to serve as a check on the Committee.
On the point of educational value, the summaries could be improved. More detail about the affirmative and negative arguments made regarding act, intent and triviality would give students a better sense of what constitutes a violation of any of those terms. That said, the Committee is correct to respect students' privacy and to be extremely cautious about what information it can release. But allowing the accused student an opportunity to review the summary prior to release ought to give the Committee more flexibility to provide trial details without revealing his identity. Of course, there also are legal issues at play, but generally speaking, more specific information about how act, intent and triviality pertain to specific incidents could go a long way toward clarifying these definitions for students.
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