Honor

A report submitted anonymously: This is an anonymous report because, as everybody knows, our society is becoming increasingly litigious. "Litigious" can be defined as people wanting to take you to court -and sue you. Anonymity, and avoiding the use of anybody's name, might keep me from getting sued.

Last term, the College Committee on Standing and Conduct held a hearing. The script might have been taken from Kafka or Scopes. Do you remember Gaston B. Means? The Pig Woman? Chambers and the Pumpkin Papers? If you remember their contributions to American jurisprudence, you will have some idea of what the hearing was like.

The hearing involved the matter of a student allegedly (careful there) taking something that didn't belong to him. In the public mind that student is associated with a local newspaper, the one that every Friday indulges itself in pitiable self-delusion. The student allegedly misappropriated a document from the Dartmouth news service, reproduced it on the Dartmouth news service copy machine, revised it slightly, and sent it to a down-state newspaper, which published it under his by-line. The document discussed cancer research done by a local doctor. When the down-state newspaper published this story, the doctor became angry.

Well, the hearing: The student brought his lawyer, his student friends, and his faculty friend. The lawyer was very tough, and the friends did a lot of mugging and smirking. One friend, a boy, sat in the front row and smirked and waved a tiny American flag.

The hearing lasted a long time, nine hours in fact. Witnesses were called. People debated whether the allegedly misappropriated document had hung from a "hold" hook or a "cleared" hook. Whether it had been covered by a slip of pink paper was deemed highly significant. There were convenient lapses of memory.

The College Committee on Standing and Conduct, which consists of deans, professors, and students, had a tough time dealing with the smirking, the flag-waving, the tough lawyer, and the slip of pink paper. But at 12:30 in the morning, the committee rendered a verdict. Violation of the honor principle: dismissed for lack of evidence. Misappropriation of property: guilty. The penalty, called "college discipline," means that a demerit was temporarily put in the student's file. (Another undergraduate, who allegedly misappropriated a $2 magazine, was recently sentenced to two days in jail by the local civil authorities.)

Of course, the student appealed the committee's verdict and talked loudly of suing ― perhaps for defamation of character. Still, I had the impression that the student and his friends figured they had "won" the hearing. When it comes to boys waving flags, they are clearly Number 1.

The honor code has broken down. Most students admit that they no longer observe it." Fund-raising letter from the Dartmouth Review