Raising our standards

Last Thursday, DSG rejected a resolution calling for administrative action in response to Executive Vice President Tallman Trask’s hit-and-run incident. The resolution noted that Trask’s behavior had violated the Duke Community Standard—an observation that evidently carried little weight with DSG as the discussion turned to unfavorable political impacts and hesitation because DSG is holding elections next week. It is time to revisit the standard and increase its presence and weight on campus.

The Community Standard means much less than it should to students across campus, mostly staying out of sight and out of mind. Every student of course recognizes it and signs it frequently, but most begin to view its affirmations as nothing more than a meaningless page on the front of final exams and select assignments. Sexual assault allegations, common knowledge of Greek hazing practices and recent memories of cheating that verges on rampant leave too sour a taste in our mouths to believe that our community standard is doing enough.

Several universities have robust honor systems that are made widely public and are impressed upon students as an end-all be-all of conduct and expectations. When students at the University of Virginia witness a violation of the honor code by any community member, they fill out a simple form documenting the incident and punishments are not kind to any found guilty. The result is a campus that highly values honorable behavior among its students, faculty and administrators. The first step Duke ought to take to revive its community standard would be to follow UVA’s strict and community-based approach that promotes a healthy honor culture.

Further, we feel not only students but all faculty, staff and administrators ought to be expressly part of the standard’s commitments. Dishonorable conduct can occur at any echelon of Duke and the ethical expectations should be the same regardless of a person’s status. A well-designed system would allow any Duke citizen to safely and surely challenge another under the standard and within the University’s conduct system. Power differentials and intimidation are real barriers to realizing an honest community but are fully possible with any faculty member violating Title IX, widely shared test banks in “elite” Greek organizations or a staff member harassing a student.

In our vision, a renewed community standard would not promote vigilantism, but would instead be a moral framework lived and breathed by students to promote a better academic and social culture. When academic lying and cheating occur, the whole of Duke suffers from the degradation of its academic environment. When sexual assaults are swept under the rug, cultures of misogyny, misandry and indecency fester on campus. By its very nature, a community standard that is a force to be reckoned with as it is at UVA is one that takes a step to resolve those issues. Weight coupled with buy-in is essential. Any failure to “act if the Standard is compromised” is shameful as current trends of cheating and indecent behavior continue relatively unchecked. There is no tolerable level of dishonorable conduct, and under a more robust community standard, Duke, its culture and its reputation stand to change for the better.

The spirit of the community standard is far too important for students to let it languish in the forgotten pages of their long-lost Blue Books. The standard is Duke’s shorthand for being a decent, responsible, value-driven person and University community member. A revitalization of the standard would not only create a culture which espoused those values, but could rebrand our university for the better.