On Nov. 9, a campus organization called The Honor Education Committee sent a mass-Blitz with the subject line "Free Donuts in Novak! [sic]," inviting students to "learn how it has become easier for you to uphold the Honor Principle with its new ANONYMOUS online reporting system!" In addition to being taken aback by the cavalier nature of the e-mail given the grave consequences that accompany Honor Principle violations at Dartmouth, we were left wondering, what, exactly, the Honor Education Committee does, what its "new" anonymous reporting feature entails, and why had we never heard of either.
Sure enough, upon visiting its web site, which indicates that the committee is a "student-run organization, a division of the Judicial Affairs Office," we found a form to quickly and easily report a student for violating the Honor Principle to the Honor Education Committee, which then forwards the message to the offending student's professor, a dean, the Judicial Affairs office or any combination of the three -- all without even asking for the informant's name.
This web site, specifically its reporting feature, presents a number of serious problems. First of all, the web site indicates that if the reported incident were to reach the Committee on Standards, "it would be very helpful if you could speak as a witness." This note seems to suggest that reporting a violation in this way could eventually lead to a COS proceeding and possibly result in suspension. According to HEC Chair Kat Stillman '10 ("Honor Comm. seeks code violation reports," p. 1), however, reports sent using this feature redact the accused student's name and simply notify a particular professor that an academic impropriety may have occurred in his or her class.
We are curious as to why the online form would even ask for the alleged perpetrator's name and what the Honor Education Committee would do with this information, as anonymous testimony is not considered in Judicial Affairs proceedings. This begs the obvious question of, what, then, is the purpose and motivation behind this web site to begin with? The handling of honor code violations and their ramifications are issues too serious not to have complete transparency.
If this is just the brainchild of a bunch of overzealous do-gooders, then we'd ask that they take their antics elsewhere and stop charading as a legitimate division of the Judicial Affairs office while striking fear in the hearts of students everywhere. And if there is a shred of legitimacy behind the site or its anonymous forms, their mere existence is unfortunate, and the method in which they were advertised to campus is disturbing. Spare us your scare tactics, and you can keep your donuts, too.
