Thou Shalt Not Cheat

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY has received more than its fair share of publicity ever since model Brooke Shields' arrival on the campus. Yet in recent months. Princeton has received press coverage that examines more than a certain undergraduate's wardrobe. Last year, Gabrielle Napolitano challenged the university's decision to withold her diploma after a professor accused her of plagiarism.

And this month, a former Princeton student filed a suit in a New Jersey federal court that focuses attention on Princeton's 90-year-old honor system. William Brennan III, the university's lawyer in the case, says that "the honor system is to Princeton what the Holy Trinity is to the Catholic Church." That may be true, but the issues raised by the student's suit suggest that Princeton's piety is misplaced.

In 1979, Princeton's Honor Committee concluded that Robert Clayton, then a sophomore, had cheated on a make-up exam. Clayton, who graduated in 1982, now attends medical school at the University of Maryland and hopes to clear his past academic record.

Clayton's troubles are rooted in the fact that no one supervises examinations at Princeton. Instead, each student adds the following, sentence to his blue book: "I pledge my honor that I have not violated the honor code during this exam."

The school's catalogue provides a detailed description of the honor system. "Each student acknowledges the obligation to report any violation of the honor code he or she has observed," it says. "Each person's obligation to the undergraduate student body as a whole transcends any reluctance to report another student." The catalogue addresses a student's "two-fold" responsibility, not only to himself but also to the academic community at large.

The catalogue's commandment-like tone notwithstanding, the honor code sounds reasonable: after all, if sums up the foundation on which academic institutions are based. Yet the realities of Princeton's system undermine the code's ideals.

Princeton's Honor Committee judges just one of the many types of cases reviewed by Harvard's Administrative Board. But instead of 25 seasoned college administrators and faculty members. Princeton's committee consists just of undergraduates. Of course Harvard's system has critics who question some of the hows and whys of the Ad Board's closed-door proceedings. Yet Princeton's system makes Harvard's seem more than tolerable. Harvard has no explicit honor code, though it of course encourages academic honesty and deals swift punishment to discovered plagiarists and cheats. But its methods lack the problems inherent in Princeton's student-run system.

At Princeton when a charge is made, the accused student has the right to seek defense counsel, question his accusors and review all relevant evidence against him. If after review the committee convicts the student, it recommends an appropriate penalty to the University's president. William G. Bowen. The committee can advise academic probation or a one-to-two year suspension for a first offense, and expulsion for a second offense. According to university officials, a president has never overturned the committee's findings.

But such presidential support seems misplaced. The weakness in Princeton's system centers on the student committee itself, a collection of three not so holy trinities, to borrow Brennan's metaphor. The committee consists of three current class presidents, three past class presidents, and three students selected from the student body at large. One need not dismiss young government enthusiasts entirely to question a class president's qualifications to make a decision that will affect a student's academic and professional future. A successful class campaign probably results more from candidate's popularity or familiarity with of students than it does from a debate over which moral issue "transcends" another "I Finished On Three Kids In My Calculus Section" hardly makes a convincing campaign slogan.

And one may find a freshman or two among the committee members. It seems safe to assume that a freshman, perhaps even a sophomore, lacks the necessary experience in university matters and academic charges to place individual cases in perspective. Moreover, Princeton is a relatively small and closed community where current undergraduates might not possess the objectivity needed to decide a variety of cases.

The argument for student committee members is their supposed familiarity with undergraduate courses and undergraduates themselves will lead to a fair decision: a student judged by his peers. But the fact remains that, more likely than not, committee members consciously or unconsciously possess certain prejudices that detached officials would not have.

Perhaps one class president took the exam on which a student before the committee allegedly cheated. Maybe a committee member took that same class a year or two ago and can't understand how anyone could find it necessary to cheat in such an easy course. Worse yet, the committee membership rotates. No sooner does a member familiarize himself with procedures, rules and case histories than he finds himself back on the prowl in the exam room.

Finally, a student should not have to worry about watching other students during a test, or just wonder whether someone, somewhere is using crib notes. Let uninvolved, paid proctors assume those responsibilities, as they do at Harvard. This is not to say that students necessarily should overlook clear violations. But they should not be bound by rules like Princeton's that would punish them if they were to remain silent.

DESPITE THE HONOR CODE, a number of Princeton students apparently think cheating isn't that bad after all, or is at least a risk worth taking. A 1978 Honor Poll revealed that 17.1 percent of students questioned said they had cheated on an exam. Clayton believes that, after the poll, the Honor Committee felt pressure from the university's faculty to convict a greater number of students.

One year after the poll was conducted. Clayton took a make-up exam with two other students. The committee concluded that, after he had handed in his test. Clayton talked to one of the other students, looked in a book and changed an answer on his exam. Clayton insists that he only wanted to make sure he had written down the right answer.

The presiding judge will not rule on Clayton's guilt or innocence but rather will determine whether or not Princeton treated Clayton fairly. Actually, Clayton's individual situation only confuses and perhaps hurts the case one might make to modify Princeton's honor system. At best, Clayton is guilty of an ill-advised and suspicious move. At worst, of course, he's just guilty. But if Princeton insists on an eleventh commandment--"thou shall state that thou hast not cheated"--then it owes its students the opportunity to deal with people more experienced in university matters and less likely to be swayed by faculty pressures than an average sophomore, who--unknown to all--just may have cheated on an exam himself.