I have only been at Princeton for five months, but I am already confident that the University and I have fundamentally different notions of the meaning of honor.
Specifically, Article II, Section E of the Constitution of the Honor System reads, “Every student is obligated to report to the Honor Committee any suspected violation of the Honor Code that they have observed.” This is the second, often forgotten component of the Honor Code. The first is to not cheat or plagiarize. This second part requires students to report any violations of the first component.
The requirement can be euphemized in any number of ways. It can be called “maintaining integrity,” or “self-monitoring” or any other nice phrasing — but in the end, it’s a requirement to rat out our friends. We all agreed to this requirement in order to go to Princeton.
In my view, this clause is not at all honorable. Yes, cheating does have to be caught and punished to ensure integrity. Yet almost no justice systems require everyone to report offenses. It is totally legal for me to know my neighbor is cheating on his or her taxes and say nothing.
Students who wish to report violations are free to do so and even encouraged. Without any accountability, the system would collapse. That does not mean, however, that every single student must be compelled under threat of punishment to rat out their friends.
As far as I know, the Honor Committee does not actually go after people who fail to report infractions. That is irrelevant. The existence of the clause makes a statement about the environment that the Honor Committee wants at Princeton. It is the kind of environment where students do not have the choice to decide to turn in their friends, but are forced to report them.
The goal of the Honor Code is to punish students who are not honorable. Students who cheat are punished and I doubt this would stop if the reporting requirement clause were to be removed. Many students would still report violations and the system would continue to function.
A modified Code, however, would send the message that Princeton is a place where people choose to follow their conscience, whatever it may be, and are not forced into a single path of action.
Further, after reading the Code carefully, I believe that if I were to write here that I refuse to follow the reporting requirement, I would be in violation of the Honor Code without ever observing any cheating. Every time I sign the Honor Code, I have to affirm that I will follow the entire Code. Therefore, saying that I refuse to follow one part is a violation. That is why I will not say here that I refuse to follow the reporting requirement.
Perhaps this does not bother anyone else. Maybe all my fellow students do not have a problem with a code that can suspend them for a year simply for behavior that has no impact on their own academic activity.
The Honor Code was implemented to ensure trust between faculty and students. As long as the reporting requirement in place, it ensures that trust at the expense of trust between students. I may have to choose between violating the Honor Code and violating my friend’s trust.
Any code that would make a student face that choice does not seem to me to be at all honorable.
Beni Snow is a freshman from Newton, Mass. He can be reached at bsnow@princeton.edu.
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