The Honor Committee met Sunday to review proposed bylaw changes from the Committee’s ad hoc subcommittee on sanctioning, a working group tasked with designing new sanctions and sanctioning procedures. Sunday’s proposals include creating a pre-sanctioning process that gives the Counsel for the Community — the support officer tasked with representing the reporter and the Community of Trust in a Honor trial — the opportunity to prepare a report for the Panel for Sanctions to use when reaching a decision.
The Committee also voted to change their Standards Panel policy, which governs how the Committee handles violations by members of the Honor Committee. The bylaw change removes the Committee’s chair from serving as a voting member on the panel, making the role non-voting to ensure impartiality during proceedings.
Laura Howard, chair of the Committee and fourth-year College student, established the ad hoc sanctioning subcommittee last April to design and evaluate new sanctions for the multi-sanction system. At Sunday’s meeting, subcommittee members Cassidy Dufour, law school Rep. and School of Law student, and Jack Wallace, support officer and second-year College student, presented new proposals for the sanctioning process.
The primary changes surround the role of the Counsel for the Community in sanctioning — who under the proposed changes will present their own sanctioning arguments in a Panel for Sanctions, with the intent of allowing them to better represent the interests of the Community of Trust in the sanctioning process.
The Counsel pool is responsible for investigating reports of alleged Honor offenses and presenting the case during hearings. The Counsel for the Community represents the reporter’s side of a case — typically a University faculty member — while the Counsel for the Accused represents the accused’s side.
Under the current bylaws, the sanctioning process begins after a student is found guilty of an Honor offense. The Panel for Sanctions consists of five randomly selected Committee representatives and meets within seven days following a guilty verdict to deliberate and vote on the final sanctions.
Wallace said that under the current bylaws, the Counsel for the Community’s perspective is not properly prioritized during arguments about sanctioning.
“Reporters are currently overemphasized in determining the direction of sanctions,” Wallace said. “Sanctioning is about the offense, the Community Trust and the student … not solely the opinions of the reporter.”
To address this concern, the subcommittee proposed a “pre-sanctioning process” during which the Counsel for the Community would write a Pre-Sanctioning Report that would document the factual basis for sanctioning arguments. This would allow the Counsel for the Community to outline their arguments for which sanctions should be employed, allowing for additional community input on the sanctioning process, according to Wallace.
“There's [currently] no comprehensive framework for them to present their sanctioning logic to the student,” Wallace said.
In addition to enhancing the Counsel for the Community’s role in rendering sanctions, this pre-sanctioning process aims to give the accused student an opportunity to review potential sanctions before the Panel for Sanctions convenes. Dufour said that this change ensures both parties can present their arguments for sanctions more comprehensively.
“This allows students to understand how Counsel for the Community arrived at their recommendations,” Dufour said. “If they disagree with any of the factors or weight that the Counsel for the Community gave, they can make those arguments before the panelists.”
The proposed sanctioning process also breaks deliberations into three separate phases. First the panel will deliberate over permanent removal as a sanction, then temporary removal and finally general sanctions. During each phase, the Counsel members present their arguments, followed by the panel’s deliberation and vote.
Each proposed phase requires a four-fifths vote for the sanction to be approved. Under the current bylaws, the sanction deliberation process does not pass through multiple phases, meaning that it can be more difficult for the panel to reach consensus.
In total, the new sanctioning process would require 14 days, but the guilty student would be able to waive the pre-sanctioning process and instead proceed directly to the Panel for Sanctions. This would expedite the process, but skip the procedural protections brought by the pre-sanctioning period.
Seamus Oliver, vice chair for investigations and third-year College student, raised concerns about the timeline and complexity of the new sanctioning process. Oliver said that extending the timeline to 14 days could place an unnecessary burden on students or incentivize them to waive the pre-sanctioning process.
“Expanding pre-sanctioning to 14 days … might lead students to waive all the protections we’ve just provided in order to avoid that wait,” Oliver said.
Dufour said that the 14 day timeline was necessary to give both parties sufficient time to prepare arguments and responses and that she did not think waiving was a risk.
“Unfortunately, it does take time to provide all of that notice,” Dufour said. “I don't think it would necessarily cause them to waive the process.”
The Committee tabled the discussion and will vote on the sanctioning proposal Oct. 20.
The Committee also discussed a separate bylaw change concerning the Standards Panel procedure — the process for reviewing Honor code violations or unethical conduct by Committee members or support officers. The Standards Panel is composed of Committee members and support officers that vote to determine whether a member of the Committee has violated the Honor code or engaged in unethical or unprofessional conduct.
If a Standards Panel complaint is submitted, the Chair of the Committee decides whether the matter should be referred to the panel for review. Previously, the Standards Panel consisted of five members — two Senior Support Officers, two Committee representatives and the Chair of the Honor Committee, who served as both the Chair and a voting member.
Sunday’s bylaw changes, drafted by the Policies and Procedures Committee — chaired by second-year College Rep Mary Holland Mason and third-year College Rep Margaret Zirwas — stated that the Chair of the Committee would serve only as a neutral facilitator without a voting role. A fifth voting member would be randomly selected from the Executive Committee. This would ensure impartiality in decisions, according to Mason.
Mason said that this change would align the Standards Panel with the structure of other Honor Committee panels — such as the Panel for Sanctions and the Panel for Guilt — where the chair serves in an oversight capacity.
“If you think back to our procedures for the Panel for Sanctions and Panel for Guilt, there is a more neutral arbitrator policy,” Mason said. “This bylaw change would [align] the standards panel with… what our other bylaws reflect.”
The Committee met quorum and voted in favor of the change.
The Committee will not meet over fall break, and will reconvene Oct. 20 to both discuss and vote on the new sanctioning proposal.
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