W&L Students Polled on Honor System
W&L Students Polled on Honor System
Respondents to a student poll remain mostly favorable on the Honor System, but question the Single Sanction and highlight other issues.
NOTE: Given the lack of identity verification in the poll, those who filled it out are referred to as “respondents” and not as “students.”
Any students who wish to answer additional questions about the Honor System can do so here. Any alumni who wish to respond to an Honor System poll can do so here. Any faculty or staff members who wish to respond to an Honor System poll can do so here.
(Students attending freshman Honor System orientation, background, and the Washington and Lee Seal, foreground. | SOURCE: The Spectator)
The Honor System, its various aspects and debated effects spark differing opinions among members of the Washington and Lee community.
A student-enforced code of conduct with guidelines and enforcement codified in the White Book, the Honor System has been a part of campus culture for nearly two centuries.
In light of recent student and alumni discussions about the institution's health over the last several years, The Spectator conducted a campus-wide poll to gather students' thoughts on various aspects of the Honor System. The results reveal that the Honor System and many of its core tenets are tightly contested on campus, with large percentages of students seeing significant issues with the Single Sanction, its enforcement, and more.
One hundred seventy-five people responded to the poll, with individual questions averaging around 170 responses each. The results illustrate widespread campus disagreements over the status and features of the institution.
When asked whether “an Honor System is important for a university?” respondents answered nearly unanimously in the affirmative, with 95.4% finding such an institution critical.
(Responses to the question: “Do you think an Honor System is important for a university?” | SOURCE: The Spectator)
This unanimity was quickly abandoned when students discussed the current status of the Honor System. Just over three-fifths of respondents hold a favorable opinion of the Honor System “as it currently stands,” with 30.6% being highly favorable, and 31.2% being mildly favorable. A smaller percentage of respondents, 12.1%, are neutral about the status quo.
Just over one-quarter of respondents indicated feeling mildly or extremely negative about the Honor System today. Of those, 22% were mildly unfavorable, and 4% were extremely unfavorable.
(Responses to the question: “What is your view of the Honor System as it currently stands?” | SOURCE: The Spectator)
Views on the Honor System’s Single Sanction policy, where “any action deemed a breach of the community's trust shall be considered an Honor Violation” (HV) and thus “remov[ed] from the University,” were more evenly distributed.
Just over half of the respondents expressed a positive view of the Single Sanction, with 52.1% favorable, 41.1% unfavorable, and 6.9% neutral. Just under a third of total respondents were highly favorable, and roughly one-fifth were mildly favorable, mildly unfavorable or highly unfavorable.
(Responses to the question: “What is your view of the [S]ingle [S]anction policy?” | SOURCE: The Spectator)
Yet, respondents became even more splintered when selecting problems they thought faced the Honor System.
Nearly half of the respondents, 49.1%, believe that there are unclear expectations when attempting to abide by “the community’s trust.”
Regarding the Executive Committee’s (EC) handling of Honor System enforcement, 43.7% of respondents believe there is a lack of transparency.
Student buy-in to the Honor System was also a problem that many flagged. Just under one-third, 32.9%, of respondents answered that insufficient student support hurts the institution, while 35.3% identified student noncompliance as a significant issue.
(Responses, edited for clarity, to the question: “Do you think any of these potential problems face the Honor System?” | SOURCE: The Spectator)
Regarding the enforcement of the Honor System, just over a quarter of respondents believe it is over-enforced. At the same time, slightly less than half, 47.3%, believe it is under-enforced, and 29.3% responded that it is discriminatorily enforced.
Given these results, there appears to be a significant divide among students regarding the proper level of enforcement of the Honor System, and whether it meets that standard today.
(Percentage of respondents who believe that the Honor System is over-enforced, red, under-enforced, green, and who did not see the level of enforcement as an issue, yellow. | SOURCE: The Spectator)
The student body is also divided about how to judge someone who has advanced to an open hearing.
An open hearing, formally known as a Student Body Hearing, is a last-resort proceeding where members of the W&L student body sit in judgment of the accused. This type of hearing can only occur after a student is found guilty of an HV in an Executive Committee Hearing, a decision that otherwise results in the application of the Single Sanction.
Regarding the burden of proof for someone who has reached that adjudicative stage, a plurality of respondents, 47.1%, answered that they were unsure whether the person “is presumptively innocent or guilty.” Meanwhile, 39% responded that the accused would be presumptively guilty, while 14% said they would be presumptively innocent.
(Response to the question: “Do you think that someone who has reached an open hearing is presumptively innocent or guilty?” | SOURCE: The Spectator)
This divide is less prominent over whether “the average W&L student abide[s] by the expectations of the Honor System.” A vast majority, 83.7%, of respondents answered in the affirmative, while 16.3% responded in the negative.
(Response to the question: “Does the average W&L student abide by the expectations of the Honor System?” | SOURCE: The Spectator)
These deep divides over the status and future of the Honor System leave a challenging road ahead.
With the recent announcement of a joint Constitutional Review and White Book Review Committee, which held interviews on October 13 and 14, the newly selected members will face the challenge of meeting the expectations of every member of the Washington and Lee community.
