The Honor Committee convened Sunday for its final fall semester meeting and debated solutions for inefficiencies in case processing — a persistent issue the Committee has grappled with in recent years. Sunday’s meeting introduced two bylaw proposals aimed at streamlining the investigation process, marking a shift from the Committee's usual approach of implementing gradual, smaller-scale changes to improve efficiency. Further discussions and voting on the bylaws are set for the spring semester.
Currently, the average timeline from the initial report to the hearing stage is 79 days, something which Committee leaders said deters faculty from reporting violations. Members of the Committee also said that these inefficiencies create stress for accused students and pose administrative challenges for representatives.
The first proposal to address this inefficiency, authored by Seamus Oliver, vice chair for investigations and third-year College student, and Alex Church, vice chair for hearings and third-year Engineering student, suggests replacing the Investigative panel, a rotating group of three Committee members that decides if evidence merits a hearing for guilt, with a "Report Panel." This panel would submit a formal accusation against a student earlier in the process, allowing hearings to be scheduled alongside investigations.
The second proposal was developed by the co-chairs of the Policies and Procedures Committee — third-year College Reps. Margaret Zirwas and Mary Holland Mason. The proposal aimed to streamline existing processes while maintaining clear distinctions between the investigation and hearing phases through scheduling hearings earlier and having simpler administrative documents.
Laura Howard — chair of the Committee and fourth-year College student — said the length of case processing has been a decades-long consideration, with faculty members raising concerns about the time required for a case to reach the hearing stage. Howard said that a drawn out case process can deter faculty members from reporting and prolong uncertainty for students awaiting case outcomes.
“[Efficiency] has been a concern in our process for a long time, both for members of the faculty and students going through our case process,” Howard said. “I’m sure you can imagine knowing that you’re going to have a hearing in a couple months, but being really freaked out by not knowing what the verdict is going to be.”
Under the current system, investigations start when someone, often a faculty member, files a report. If deemed valid by the Vice Chair for Investigations, a support officer gathers evidence and conducts interviews, compiling findings into an Investigative Log. The Investigative panel reviews the log to decide if the evidence is sufficient to warrant an accusation.
If an accusation is ultimately brought, then the case proceeds to a hearing to determine guilt. Accusal is not a determination of guilt, but rather an administrative designation that allows the case to move forward for further investigation and hearing preparation.
Oliver and Church said that delays in the investigation stage often result from students waiting until the final moments of the seven-day period after an accusation to submit their hearing preferences — a required step where students decide whether to admit guilt or proceed to an Honor hearing with a Panel for Guilt.
Administrative tasks — such as scheduling hearings and assigning Counsel — cannot begin until the hearing preferences are finalized. This delay creates a “bottleneck” period, which stretches the timeline between the investigation’s conclusion and the hearing preparation stage, according to Oliver.
“There’s an average gap of 25 days between the [report and hearing],” Oliver said. “By the time they’re late in the investigation, [the student] doesn’t particularly want to go to a hearing, which is an understandable response … [it] leads to delays in submitting the hearing selection form.”
The proposal from Oliver and Church seeks to eliminate this gap by overlapping administrative processes with ongoing investigations. The proposal eliminates the Investigative panel and introduces a “Report Panel” — comprising three rotating Committee representatives — to immediately review allegations based on the initial report.
The panel would determine whether the conduct, if proven true, constitutes an Honor offense, formally “accusing” students at the start of the investigative process — rather than afterwards.
Once the panel issues an accusation, administrative tasks—like assigning Counsel and scheduling a hearing—would begin immediately, even while the investigation is still ongoing.
The proposed accusal process differs from the current process, where students are not formally accused until after the investigation concludes. At that point, the Investigative panel reviews the compiled evidence to decide if sufficient grounds exist to move forward with an Honor offense.
Because the Investigative panel is eliminated under this proposal, the proposal includes a "motion-to-dismiss" mechanism to maintain the panel’s ability to filter out frivolous or unsubstantiated reports, which allows accused students or the Counsel for the Community to request dismissal of a case during the investigation if the evidence is insufficient.
Oliver said that, under the current system, the Executive Committee often dismisses weak cases before they even reach the Investigative panel — typically due to insufficient evidence or bad-faith reporting — so the panel serves as a secondary filter.
During Sunday’s public comment session, four students and one faculty member raised concerns about Oliver and Church’s proposal — particularly regarding its potential to increase hearings and false accusations.
Economics Assistant Prof. Emma Harrington raised concerns about fairness. Harrington said that with the proposal making accusations earlier on, there is a higher likelihood that weak or poorly substantiated cases would proceed further than they should. This increase in "false positives" — cases where students are formally accused but ultimately found not guilty — could unfairly subject students to case proceedings.
“Making things faster and marginally increasing the likelihood of false positives wouldn’t be good,” Harrington said.
Other public comments echoed Harrington’s concerns — raising issues such as a possible increased workload on support officers who might feel rushed under the new system or overwhelmed by more cases reaching hearing.
With limited time remaining, the Committee shifted to the P&P proposal in the final ten minutes of the meeting. While both proposals were shared agenda items, public comments and Committee discussion primarily focused on Oliver and Church’s plan — leaving less time to discuss the P&P proposal.
The P&P proposal employs a more incremental approach, calling for hearing dates to be scheduled immediately after a student waives the Informed Retraction option — a form that, if filed by a student reported for an Honor offense, allows them to take responsibility for the commission of the offense before trial, agreeing in advance to make amends for their wrongdoings. Additionally, the P&P proposal suggest simplifying Investigation logs by consolidating components like detailed tables of contents, which P&P argues create unnecessary administrative burdens.
Zirwas addressed concerns about scheduling hearings earlier in the process, stating that simply having one scheduled does not presuppose guilt.
“Even now, in our current system, scheduling a hearing does not presuppose guilt,” Zirwas said. “Having a hearing on the calendar [will] give students peace of mind.”
Unlike Oliver and Church’s plan, the P&P proposal retains the Investigative panel’s role in accusations, employing the investigation process to determine if the report constitutes an offense. Will Hancock, vice chair for the undergraduate community and third-year College student, said the P&P Subcommittee unanimously opposed the Oliver-Church proposal due to concerns about increased hearings, staffing burdens and fairness. They argued that Oliver and Church’s proposal — accusing students earlier and lowering the evidentiary bar — could lead to more students being unnecessarily accused or pushed to hearings.
“Having more [accused] students is [concerning],” Hancock said. “This is a proposal that all [of P&P] unanimously opposes … I think it’s worth sending it back through other channels to see what we can pull out of it.”
Zirwas said that potential avenues of criticism for both proposals are comparable, as they involve procedural shifts that redefine terms in the Committee bylaws. Changing the timing of accusations, as in Oliver and Church’s plan, or scheduling hearings earlier — as in the P&P proposal — might not lead to noticeable procedural differences, but can prompt concerns from students about the potential for pre-judgment when the proposals are presented.
“U.Va. students do not read our bylaws before going to bed every night, and they’re not going to know that we’ve changed our definition of accusation,” Zirwas said. “The same criticisms that can be said about scheduling the hearing earlier can also be said about calling a student accused earlier … [the proposals] are criticizable in the same way.”
The Committee ran out of time for further discussion on the P&P proposal. Howard said that both proposals will be addressed again at a future meeting before a vote at some point in the spring semester.
The Committee will reconvene Jan. 19 at 7 p.m. in the Trial Room of Newcomb Hall.
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