When the managing board wrote a Sept. 12 editorial titled "Taking action" that responded to the discovery of several instances of plagiarism by a former Cavalier Daily writer, its members were purposefully vague in providing details about the student involved in the situation. The editorial made no mention of the individual's name, year, gender or position within the paper's staff, and it did not include the titles of the specific articles that were plagiarized or the sections of the paper in which they appeared.
The managing board omitted this information because it had reported the incidents to the Honor Committee and, in doing so, bound itself to the body's rules of confidentiality. Although some may believe that the paper instead should have published retractions of the writer's articles and included personally identifiable information in the editorial, the managing board did not want to go outside of the University's official, student-run judiciary process for dealing with incidents of lying, cheating and stealing.
In hindsight, that appears to have been the wrong decision. Honor Chair Ann Marie McKenzie promptly filed Standard of Conduct 11 charges against the five members of the managing board for allegedly "breaching confidentiality in an Honor Proceeding." Subsequent discussions pinned down one portion of the editorial, in particular, that drew the honor chair's ire: a single sentence at the end of the third paragraph which read, "Furthermore, the paper reported the incidents to the Honor Committee."
McKenzie's concern about the inclusion of this particular information represents a mistaken interpretation of what her committee's confidentiality requirements are meant to protect, and her swiftness in filing charges precluded an opportunity for meaningful dialogue with the managing board to clarify this issue.
Encouragingly, McKenzie made the first move toward admitting her errors when she dropped charges against four members of the managing board Monday. Yet a Standard 11 charge remains pending against the paper's editor-in-chief. Until that charge is removed, students will continue to grow more skeptical of the Committee's ability to carry out its judicial functions in a responsible manner. The lasting consequence of this will be a loss of faith in the honor system, which only can function if students do not have to fear punishment for honest efforts to participate in this important channel of self-governance.
The most obvious mistake McKenzie made in filing these charges has to do with the way she chose to interpret Article V of the Committee's bylaws, which expressly defines its rules of confidentiality. "An investigated, accused, or dismissed student may waive his or her right to confidentiality at any time... either by signing a written waiver for that purpose or by him- or herself making (or causing to be made) public disclosure of matters that would otherwise be held to be confidential. Only upon the giving of such waiver are other participants in any Honor proceeding released from their responsibility to maintain confidentiality with respect to that student," the provision reads in part.
This makes it clear that confidentiality in an honor trial is meant to protect the identity of the "investigated, accused, or dismissed student" from being revealed. It does not guard the Committee as a whole from having its proceedings disclosed to the public. Therefore, since the managing board's Sept. 12 editorial did not include any information that would allow someone to determine the identity of the individual whose actions had been reported to the Committee, no breach of confidentiality could have occurred.
A rush to judgment without considering these points by any individual - let alone the honor chair - could have a chilling effect upon students' future willingness to report cases to the Committee. After all, few students will be eager to participate in a judicial system that threatens them with sanction if they act according to a plain reading of the text governing the system's operation. If McKenzie hopes to prevent this from happening, she should dismiss the remaining charge against The Cavalier Daily's editor-in-chief immediately and set about clarifying the Committee's stance toward confidentiality. If she does so, it is not too late for this unfortunate situation to turn into a learning experience for the Committee and the student body as a whole.
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