<p>I agree with your statement that lying, cheating, and stealing are not the ONLY examples of honor violations. However, I disagree with your statement that they are NOT honor violations. They certainly are.</p>
<p>In addition, the points in your three hypotheticals are well taken, but you seem a little too dogmatic in your claims that they do not constitute honor violations. Legitimate arguments could me made that they all are honor violations; however, legitimate arguments could be made that they all are not honor violations. Again, the EC, through a fair and open trial held, would make the ultimate judgment.</p>
<p>An Open Trial is never fair-
1) The accused already is labeled as guilty by the EC- the jury and student body knows that.
2) The jury pool is decided by the EC- and therefore not impartial.</p>
<p>Polo - Your reluctance to admit that there are cases where lying, cheating and stealing aren't honor violations is pretty dogmatic on its own. That said, I'm glad you've never made a mistake like that in your life. Best of luck in keeping it up. </p>
<p>As far as the EC holding a "fair and open trial," fair is a very relative term and we both know that EC trials aren't open, so I don't think that's a great word to use to describe them.</p>
<p>1) In regards to the EC selecting a jury with a favorable view toward the Honor System, specifically single sanction, it is akin to a death penalty case. If the death penalty is being sought in a case, any potential juror who does not believe in the death penalty is dismissed. Similarly, any potential juror in an open hearing at Washington and Lee who does not believe in single sanction is dismissed. Those beliefs get in the way of judging somebody based solely on the facts of the case.</p>
<ol>
<li><p>I believe KDBuddy suggested eliminating the "withdrawn" vs "dismissed" qualification. I agree that this would make things a little fairer as there would be no dangers in going to an open hearing. However, this would mean that every guilty verdict in a closed EC hearing would be appealed to the student body - there would be no incentive not to. This would create a situation where there is at least one student body hearing per term, a taxing process for the EC, Honor Advocates, and the student body as a whole, as an open trial requires a lot of work and a lot of human resources.</p></li>
<li><p>The EC selects the jury but it is in consulation with the advocates from both sides, who get three peremtory strikes each.</p></li>
<li><p>It is true that EC hearings are closed, but that is necessary to protect confidentiality of both accuser and accused. Quite simply, I don't see how this could be changed without compromising this confidentiality.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>Dima- but if the EC's job is to find out the truth? I, and I believe the student body, would not mind the appeal rocess if the truth of the matter is what is at stake.</p>
<p>But the members of the EC are still students, they put in a lot of time on a case as it is, if every guilty vedict went to a student body hearing, the EC would be far overworked, especially if they happen near finals. I know that it is their job to find out the truth but that does not require a student body hearing for every single guilty verdict. It essentially makes the EC closed hearing half-useless. Could you imagine if the United States Appeals Court took every case appealed to them? And that is their sole job, they don't have to concentrate on being students as well.</p>
<p>The EC members should be quite aware of that before running in the election. If they can not handle the responsibility- then they should not be on a committee that decides the fate of countless students. One more point, could you imagine if the United States Appeals Court said you could only appeal your case to them if you received a higher sentence or punishment? That would be ridiculous to say the least- but that is what is encoded in our honor system.</p>
<p>I don't think it is possible for anyone to be a student and handle the amount of work and responsibility that would come with frequent student body hearings. The only way you could have that would be to hire an independent group whose job would be to hold hearings, putting the Honor System into the hands of strangers.</p>
<p>Dima- but there have only been two guilty cases in the past two terms. I do not believe it would be impossible for a student to handle that. Also, if one was guilty, the incentive of everyone not knowing the details of the case would definately deter anyone from going to an open hearing.</p>
<p>So Dima, on point 3, are you saying that there should be anti-incentives for going to trial? That is to say, making EC members actually do the job that they were elected for is somehow an undue burden on their social/academic lives? That's a pretty extreme stance. I wonder if you are really aware of the impact that transfering has on someone's life and the money that's lost (when a student is convicted of an HV they get no credit or financial refund for that semester - $15,000k down the drain). Conservative is one thing, but your stance shows a complete lack of empathy.</p>
<p>haha... seriously I wanna know who you are...lol. You are the only other person on this board that knows the facts of this case. </p>
<p>Here we go, PROBLEMS with the EC:</p>
<p>-They are not accountable to ANYONE. The only people who know the facts of the cases are not allowed to discuss them! How are students supposed to decide whether or not to re-elect EC members if they don't know about their decision-making process!??? SERIOUSLY this is ridiculous.
-The only way people would get to know what goes on during a trial would be if it went to an open hearing. The last time this happened was 15 years ago. Does anyone here honestly beleive that the EC hasn't made a mistake, that there hasn't been a student worthy of an appeal in fifteen years!?? Of course not. The EC intimidates the accussed until he or she is convinced that they have no chance of being found innocent, and they realize that its best to cut their losses and withdraw instead of risking dismissal.
-Anyone can propose amendments to the White Book, but guess who votes on the changes? The EC. Seriously kids, who is going to approve limits to their own powers? There is no system of "checks and balances" to keeep everything fair and regulated. The EC have unlimited power and don't have to answer to anyone.</p>
<p>And regarding this case in particular. I don't care what anyone's preconcieved notions of the accused are. I know her better than most people do, and she is one of the few people on campus that I would trust unconditionally. She is innocent. I know that for a fact, and I have seen evidence that proves her innocence well beyond reasonable doubt. The reason she couldn't go to an open trial wasn't because she was guilty, it was because the system was dead set against her. She no longer trusted "the system" to expose the truth after it had already failed her in so many ways. </p>
<p>Like I said and like those flyers around campus say: Go to <a href="http://www.thetrident.org%5B/url%5D">www.thetrident.org</a> and do a search for "Honor Trial". If you go to the second page of search results you will find sooo many interesting articles that prove that my friend's case wasn't a "one-time thing". These injustices have been committed time and time again.</p>
<p>Secrecy which eliminates accountability is always very dangerous.</p>
<p>A group is greater than the sum of its parts. A group will sometimes behave together in ways that no individual member would act separately. Add the cloak of secrecy to the mix, and the likelihood of aberrent behavior increases. A certain white-garbed southern entity comes to mind, and at least in the past we know that many a fine and upstanding citizen were counted among the members.</p>
<p>A college which brags about its honor code but which has been ranked number one for the amount of hard liquor consumed and number four for the amount of beer consumed from among all the colleges in the entire country (last year's College Board rankings-- I think W&L is still in the top 4 or 5 this year) is a college which has a credibility problem in my opinion. Drunkenness lowers inhibitions and results in many dishonorable acts, including underage drinking, DWI, rape, violence, and general lewd and crude behavior. I'm highly surprised the number of alleged honor violations is so low. Is everyone too drunk to notice?</p>
<p>The Executive Board of a church I used to attend decided to excommunicate an employee, who was also a member of the congregation, for alleged unrepented sin. The whole affair was riddled with lies, deception, and general evil on the part of the Board and other church leaders. It seems the man had brought to the Board's attention some financial misdeeds on the part of higher-ups, and now had to be discredited to prevent accountability and to protect the guilty. Anyway, every member of that Board was a person whom I and other church members held in high esteem. They were all good and moral people. But as a group, they behaved in an appalling fashion. Afterwards, one Board member admitted that being a member of that inner circle had put them on a power trip and that their pride was their downfall.</p>
<p>So, any defense of a group like the EC which relies on the argument that all the members are good and highly respected people wouldn't hold water with me.</p>
<p>"A college which brags about its honor code but which has been ranked number one for the amount of hard liquor consumed and number four for the amount of beer consumed from among all the colleges in the entire country (last year's College Board rankings-- I think W&L is still in the top 4 or 5 this year) is a college which has a credibility problem in my opinion. Drunkenness lowers inhibitions and results in many dishonorable acts, including underage drinking, DWI, rape, violence, and general lewd and crude behavior. I'm highly surprised the number of alleged honor violations is so low. Is everyone too drunk to notice?"</p>
<p>Thank you, GFG, I've been waiting for someone to bring this up. I wonder what THE Washington & Lee would have to say about this constant honor violation. And, for me, it's the consumption of grain alcohol that's really horrible. This is the main reason D turned down an almost full ride GWHS.</p>
<p>The W&L admissions office tells prospective students and their parents who question about this matter that underage drinking is NOT outlawed by the honor code. Apparantly neither is drinking and driving, rape, or fighting. </p>
<p>W&L will give out "strikes" for underage drinking, minor in possesion, getting caught with drugs, driving while drunk, etc. I think is a kind of "three strikes and you're out" deal. Apparantly though, "stealing" a bite of food off of a friend's plate simply CANNOT be tolerated by such lenience. They're kickin you out for that one :)</p>
<p>CFG, CollegeBoard does not do rankings-- you meant Princeton Review-- which, by the way, has no standards to their rankings and are not reliable whatsoever. I do agree with your point, though.</p>
<p>The Greek system is also a problem-- students are committed to TWO honor groups-- their school and their fraternity/sorority, and the latter often takes precedence.</p>
<p>Maysixxmom, it's unfortunate that your D turned down her GWHS because of the alcohol thing. You'll find tons of alcohol at any school you go to, but I wouldn't be surprised if we had a greater percentage of the student body who regularly drinks. W&L keeps trying to recruit people like your daughter and other people who aren't like the current crop of students, but they end up turning away. Like I said before, if they all just somehow got together and decided to enroll it would put a huge dent in some big issues. Obviously it's going to take a long time for that to happen; progress is gradual.</p>
<p>HereWeGo-- I talked to people who were here when the Katz article was written, and that story of the guy taking a piece of food form his GF's plate is urban legend.</p>
<p>'The W&L admissions office tells prospective students and their parents who question about this matter that underage drinking is NOT outlawed by the honor code."</p>
<p>I see this as a HUGE problem. One must live only by the W&L "honor" code, but it's perfectly okay to break a real law that people outside of W&L get busted for everyday.</p>
<p>I realize that most, or maybe all, schools have an alcohol/drinking problem. However, at NO other school did D find this to be the main social activity.</p>
<p>Sorry everyone, Morgan is right that it was a Princeton Review ranking. At the very least it means that in the perception of students interviewed, there is an awful lot of hard drinking going on. </p>
<p>Maysixxmom, my son also turned down the GWHS for the same reasons. </p>
<p>Besides the party scene, another concern was the school's credibility. They view the honor code as a big selling point for them. The idea behind the code is to create a community of trust and respect for each other and for certain values such as honesty and integrity. That is a wonderful thing. But the administration is apparently not too interested in creating a community that respects blacks and their history in this country, or they would not turn a blind eye to the flying of Confederate flags by some students. I'm all for free speech, but in the interest of community and safety, schools everywhere set guidelines which restrict certain types of expression on clothing and in writing when it would be offensive to others or would create a distracting or hostile learning environment.</p>
<p>Lastly, the school he decided to attend outdoes W&L with regard to friendliness and community (there's no official speaking tradition but when he visited more kids there greeted him than at W&L, and you can safely leave your belongings lying around there too even w/o an official Honor Code).</p>
<p>TheGFG - I'm a liberal, and personally, banning confederate flags in a personal residence because they're offensive is just - let's say, "not well thought out." As Warren said, the solution to bad speech is not restriction and censorship - it's more speech. You can't proclaim tolerance as a value and then push for intolerance of certain types of speech. </p>
<p>As for drinking being an honor violation, that's why this is an honor system not honor code. Just because it's breaking the law doesn't mean its a violation of honor. </p>
<p>Finally, about the whole Princeton review thing, if you look at the years after they enacted the strictest alcohol rules, that's when you saw all the #1 and #2 rankings for partying and hard liquor. The notion that W&L is on the same level as any state school is simply ridiculous. Unless things have changed significantly since I've been down there, most students only go out 3-4 times a week. It's a fairly serious academic setting. Finally, if your child didn't go there because of alcohol, you have produced one sheltered kid. That's not a judgement, simply an observation.</p>