Union’s honor council case summaries
May 23, 2019
This is a summary of Honor Council cases that were resolved in the fall of 2018 and winter of 2019. Summaries from previous terms are available on the Honor Code’s Nexus page. We hope to begin publishing these summaries in the Concordiensis twice a year from now on, in order to increase awareness about the function of the Honor Council and help encourage academic integrity from all Union students.
Honor Code Cases Brought to Resolution During Fall Term 2018 and Winter Term 2019:
29 cases total: two hearings in which the student was found not responsible, one hearing in which the student was found responsible and 26 Chair-Dean Reviews (CDR). CDRs are an option for first- time violations when the student accepts responsibility for the violation. Of the 29 cases, 15 involved plagiarism, 14 involved cheating, four involved collusion, three involved facilitation and one involved a dual submission. There are more charges listed than total cases because in eight cases the student was charged with more than one form of academic dishonesty. A more detailed report on the Honor Code cases resolved during Fall Term 2018 and Winter Term 2019 can be found under the Honor Code’s page on Nexus, as well as a copy of the Academic Honor Code.
Union student • Aug 7, 2019 at 12:45 pm
The Honor Council is Broken
Here are three ways to fix it
After years of little to no transparency about the Honor Council, it was surprising to see an article in the Concordy about it this week. Even though it was not a particularly detailed report, it was more than we have seen in years about the council and its work. However, the article failed to take a critical look at the cryptic and often unfair process of the Honor Council. It’s a system that seems to be set up for student failure, with nine out of ten students brought up on honor council charges being found guilty through hearings or Chair Dean Reviews. That’s a conviction rate that is far higher than the rate of convictions in US criminal courts which is closer to six in ten. I recently got a crash course on the Honor Council and saw glaring problems that urgently need to be addressed.
Here is how it happened. A friend of mine got brought up on Honor Council charges. The Council rules say that all accused students have the right to an advisor, but unlike other colleges Union does not connect students with trained advisors to help them through the process. It leaves them on their own to figure it out. This is bad, I mean seriously bad. It stacks the deck against students in a terrible way that can have very serious consequences. My friend couldn’t find a professor who would serve as his advisor so he had me, but I am no expert. So I did my best to read up on the rules and help my friend prepare. But here is the thing: they didn’t follow the rules.
The hearing is supposed to be run by the student chair as a moderator, but at the hearing I attended the Dean ran the show like a prosecutor while the students hardly even paid attention. It seemed like there was a presumption of guilt rather than one of innocence. The Dean rejected evidence from my friend that did not fit with her view that he was guilty. If it didn’t fit her story, she changed the rules to block it. The college also blocked a college administrator from appearing as a witness in my friend’s case, telling her she was not allowed to appear. How is that fair?
The case was pretty simple. Three students took an unproctored exam. Two students had some similar wrong answers. Only one student, my friend, was blamed. All three students in the room said that my friend did not cheat in their presence. The other student with similar answers was a C or D student and actually ADMITTED to cheating off my friend when he was in the restroom – in a sworn statement. The professor was not in the room at anytime, but he suspected that my friend was involved in cheating based on conjecture but no actual proof. There was not even close to enough evidence in the case to prove my friend was the one at fault. But the students of the honor council did as many students would do. Given the power dynamics at play, the students deferred to the Dean and the professor who were not even present at the exam over the sworn statements from the students.
Overall, the hearing seemed like it was just for show. The decision was made by the Dean long before the hearing and the students just seemed to go along with the Dean and the professor. Was there even any real deliberation? To say the hearing was unfair would be an understatement.
Ultimately, my friend won an appeal for a new hearing based on one of the broken rules. Once again, I planned to serve as advisor to my friend – now armed with more knowledge about how the process actually worked in practice, not that I expected a more fair hearing. It’s kind of like casinos – the house always wins.
Honor Council rules say that they have to work around your academic schedule so for the new hearing my friend provided the council with a bunch of dates and times that worked with his classes and exams as well as my own. But the Honor Council went ahead and scheduled his hearing for a time where both of us were in class, my friend in a midterm exam. Only after my friend pushed back did they bump the schedule to avoid direct conflict with his midterm. But the Honor Council refused to schedule it at a time when I, his student advisor, could also attend. To be expected to take notes during testimony while also crafting and asking questions and looking out for inconsistencies, lies and violations of the Honor Council rules is too much for anyone.
In this case, it was even worse because my friend has a learning disability that makes note-taking in real time extremely difficult. So much so that he has qualified for having a scribe or note-taker throughout high school and college. To deny him that in the Honor Council, which is an academic activity, is not only wrong, it is illegal. But we did not know that until my friend’s new class dean told him this a short while after the hearing. If only she had been around earlier, maybe she could have helped.
As it is, my friend’s hearing went as expected given the stacked deck. Rules bent and broken to suit the whims of the Dean and professor. The whole experience makes me scared at how easily each of us could be penalized for a false allegation.
So how can we fix Honor Council? First we need trained advisors. Just as we have a group of students and professors steeped in rules to serve as judges, we should have a group of students and professors steeped in rules to serve as advisors to the accused. Second, we cannot allow this body to operate in darkness. Union needs to be more open about how the process works in practice – especially if it continues to operate so differently than written procedure. Third, we need a student-run process that starts with a presumption of innocence until proven guilty. Right now, the council instead starts with a presumption of guilt. Having a student-run council where the students truly manage the process and propose the penalties is the best way to ensure fairness and promote integrity. The stakes are too high for us to continue to just defer to the conjecture of professors who come with their own biases. It’s time to fix the Honor Council.