UNC Students Face Their Peers in Venerable Honor System
Posted on Oct. 8, 2010Some of the 10 football players still being held out of games as part of the NCAA and University investigation of the football program have entered UNC’s honor system, in which they will face a student-run justice procedure that is older than the modern University.
A personal pledge to uphold the code backed by that system, promising that they have not given or received unauthorized aid, is one of the first orders of business for every Carolina student; every exam blue book includes the pledge and must be signed before it is turned in, and many professors also require an Honor Code signature on essays and other written assignments.
If a student is suspected of violating the standards described in the Honor Code, he or she is supposed to be reported to the Honor Court. The court investigates the case and, if evidence of wrongdoing is found, the student is formally charged with a violation and the case moves to trial. Most accusations are sent to the student attorney general, who investigates and decides whether to pursue the matter. The attorney general appoints students as defense counsel and prosecution, and they gather evidence, prepare statements and call witnesses at the hearing.
In late September about 70 students were waiting for their cases to come up before the Honor Court. Generally speaking they wait in a first-come, first-served queue, but the court makes exceptions in some cases in which a part of a student’s campus life has been put on hold by the charges. Examples, said Winston Crisp ’92 (JD), vice chancellor for student affairs, would be a pending graduation or a study abroad term.
Crisp said the football players might fall into that category. He said “it is not irrelevant” that they are being held out of games. A decision on a change in the queue would be made jointly by the attorney general and the chair of the court, also a student.
In 1875 the student Dialectic and Philanthropic societies took over from the faculty the responsibility for maintaining a high level of propriety in student behavior in and out of the classroom. Students started signing an honor pledge that covered classroom behaviors.
The system is run entirely by students. The attorney general has at most 30 days to decide whether a reported violation should result in a charge.
A student who is charged is advised of his or her rights, and the process, and is given time to plan a defense. Some hearings can take two or three days, but most cases are heard and any sanctions handed out all in the same day. The court, which is advised by a judicial programs officer and that person’s assistant, both of whom are professional staff members, hears five to 10 cases a week.
Honor Court proceedings are closed and confidential unless students who are charged request otherwise.
Crisp said that the normal sanction for academic cheating is a semester’s suspension and a failing grade in either the assignment or the course — the faculty member is consulted for a recommendation on the latter. Typically that is suspension from the rest of the current semester, but if it occurs very late in semester it could include the following one.
Another choice is probation, a status in which if the student commits another violation the consequences could be more serious. And while on probation he or she cannot represent the University as, for example, the head of a campus organization, or a member of the marching band or a sports team. This ban on representation can be waived.
Suspension, Crisp said, “assumes there is a point in time where you resume” study at UNC. It is intended to be “educative,” he said.
A more serious violation could result in permanent suspension. The student could not come back to Carolina, but would be ineligible to enroll at another UNC System school.
The most severe punishment — expulsion — means the student could never again attend any state school. “Obviously this is a rare occurrence,” Crisp said. Expulsion might result from violations related to safety or to violence, or from repetitive occurrences. “It is reserved for the most egregious violations.”
The chancellor must approve permanent suspension or expulsion, though he or she usually delegates this to another top-level administrator.
The first level of appeal of an Honor Court decision is the University Hearings Board made up of students, faculty and staff. This board can consider issues of evidence or severity of sanction.
A second appeal would go to the chancellor, but this could involve only a claim of violation of basic rights — evidence and severity of sanction cannot be considered at this level. The last avenue of appeal is to the trustees, who also can consider only a due-process right.
In response to queries — including from some Board of Trustees members — Chancellor Holden Thorp ’86 said he will not interfere with the normal procedures of the court. Two players have been punished by the NCAA with game suspensions and financial remuneration orders for improper dealings with agents and others outside the University. Some of the players who have not been cleared by UNC and the NCAA are being investigated for similar dealings, and some for their relationships with a tutor employed by UNC — the latter are facing the Honor Court, but their number is not known.
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