I was recently given a powerful reminder of the importance of honor in the form of a foam cow. Gazing upon its white body with black spots, on which the words "got honor?" had been branded, I was struck by what now seems an obvious truth. The foam cow showed me what a lifetime of my parents' upbringing couldn't: cheating is bad.
Of course, this didn't happen.
I don't really think such a story is what the Honor Council expected when they distributed the cows. More likely, they were just trying to market themselves, to make students more aware of the fact that Duke has an Honor Council, and that from here on out, "honor, integrity, and ethical behavior in university life" will be promoted.
I suppose it's a good thing that there are students on this campus who care deeply enough about cheating to give away foam cows and T-shirts to fight it. There is clearly some value to similar efforts. "gay? fine by me," for example, gave students of all sexual orientations an opportunity to voice their support for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students. Students who oppose cheating, though, are not quite as marginalized as LGBT students.
As someone who opposes cheating, I personally don't feel that we need a support group on campus (if we did, I would hope it wouldn't require filling out a two-page application to join); and I doubt that those who have no problem with cheating will be changed by Honor Council goodies or panel presentations. This may be why I feel the Honor Council is yet another empty resume-building exercise supported by the University for public relations.
It's almost as false as the Duke Community Standard, which the Office of Judicial Affairs describes as "a statement of principles," from which flow the rules and regulations of the University-an analysis that is almost the exact opposite of the current way things work.
When I accepted my offer of a place at Duke, I was shocked to see that to do so I had to pledge to report any other student I saw cheating. It seemed a rather harsh Community Standard and one I had not quite reconciled with my moral code when I arrived at school. I have no qualms about reporting a cheating stranger; however, in my moral code, betraying a friend is a sin far greater than collaborating on a lab report.
I was relieved, then, to find upon arriving here that the words I had signed my name to were completely empty. The community standards at this university are quite different from the Community Standard. I was soon informed (by the Honor Council, no less) of the real community standards enforced by the University: cheaters are punished, but witnesses are left alone.
This year, finally, the Honor Council moved to tweak the Community Standard to reflect actual community standards by removing the obligation to report. Note the order. First come the rules and regulations set by the Office of Judicial Affairs; then come the principles espoused by the alleged "community." We were then urged to exercise our democratic right to choose between two nearly identical alternatives.
I'm not saying the Community Standard doesn't reflect the standards of the Duke community. I'm saying whether it does is completely irrelevant. Duke doesn't ask us to articulate the ethical principles of our community and then derive all its policies from these principles. While this would certainly be admirable, it's not clear how the Office of Judicial Affairs would interpret the Community Standard with regard to its advertising policy, for example.
On the contrary, the Community Standard and Honor Council are tools of the administration to use ethical language to grant legitimacy, ex post facto, to its own policies. For some reason, it's not enough for the administration to say that cheating is wrong, and that, moreover, the University couldn't function if everyone cheated, and that, consequently, cheats will be suspended.
Instead, they need to co-opt students sympathetic to their policies in order to make the process seem like it arises from the standards of the student body. This, then, functions as a method of cutting off ethical inquiry. You have no right to question the Community Standard, or the desirability of Community Standards in general: you already signed up to it in order to come here.
David Rademeyer is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Tuesday.
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