The Honor Committee heard two proposals for constitutional amendments in a presentation during their meeting Sunday night.
The presentation, given by fourth-year Architecture student Caroline Herre and fourth-year Commerce student Avery Rasmussen, presented two options which the Honor Committee may present to the student body for a vote, pending the approval of the Honor Committee.
The first proposal is a constitutional amendment to the Honor Committee’s sanctioning power, and represents a very clear choice between a multiple sanction and a single sanction, Rasmussen said.
“A lot of what we’ve heard through our discussion last week...is that students — and we — really just want a vote between ‘do we want a single sanction or do we want a multiple sanction system,’” she said.
Option one within the first proposal is a reaffirmation of the single sanction. The option clarifies in the constitution that the Honor Committee’s power to expel students who have been found guilty of committing an honor offense in a hearing.
The second option the first proposal presents would change the language of the constitution to give the Honor Committee the power to have a multiple sanction system. Rasmussen said this is the necessary first step to a multiple sanction system. This change would not automatically implement the multiple sanction system, however.
“We’ll give guidelines for what the committee will then do in response to the second option that include, as well talk about, a survey on what the system will actually look like, giving a reasonable time frame for implementing that,” Rasmussen said.
The first proposal would fulfill the referendum put forward last year by then-Senior Support Officer Ian Robertson and Support Officer Jaeyoon Park, both fourth-year College students.
Robertson and Park’s referendum proposal required the Honor Committee put non-binding referenda to a binding constitutional vote within a year. Both options of the proposal change the Honor Committee’s constitution, therefore fulfilling the requirements of the referenda.
The second proposal presented at Sunday’s meeting is a constitutional amendment which would hold the committee accountable in ways other than the constitution. This proposal is a response to the second referenda put forth by Robertson and Park.
The timeline has created frustration for the committee, Herre said.
“Section two of the student self-governance clause really restricts us in how we can respond to student opinion and what kind of questions we can put on the ballot.” Herre said.
The second proposal would change the constitution so that if a majority of voting students would vote affirmatively on a non-binding question, then the Honor Committee would enact a response, instead of a binding constitutional vote, within a year.
The Honor Committee will vote to place the proposals on the ballot within the next few weeks.
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