The Honor System Defended (1963)

[This following is a Ring-tum Phi editorial defending the single sanction of the Honor System and the role it plays in W&L’s culture. For more information, please visit W&L Special Collections.]

(Ring-tum Phi Staff, Landon Butler in the front right| Source: 1963 Calyx)

During the last few days, there has been a great deal of heated discussion over the merits of Lamar Lamb’s proposal that the present penalty for a violation of the Honor System be reduced from absolute expulsion to automatic expulsion for one year, with the convicted student eligible for reinstatement upon review of his case by the Executive Committee. The editors of the Tuesday edition do not consider the Honor System a Sacred Cow, and welcome discussion of Mr. Lamb’s proposal. Nevertheless, we disagree with the proposal and consider it one of the most poorly formulated ideas to be seriously presented before the student body in recent memory. In support of the proposal, Lamb and his followers offer a wide variety of reasons for change, some of which are downright false, and all of which hold little to no water. This editorial will debate the merits of each reason.

THE “SOCIETY” ANALOGY…

1. Lamb, in his mimeographed letter Thursday night, states that we punish a violator here much more than they would be punished elsewhere. From this rather obvious fact, he manages to conclude that students who are convicted of an Honor System violation cannot get into other schools, a conclusion which is false. Students who are convicted here regularly enroll in other institutions, as Dean Atwood can testify. Lamb, an EC member, should know better. As a matter of fact, we defy him to offer as evidence a case in which a convicted student has been unable to enroll in another college. Further, the fact that “society”” does not penalize as we do here does not mean we must conform: society, we might point out, has a big problem with lying, cheating, and stealing.

“SPURIOUS” ASSUMPTIONS...

2. As the second point in his letter, Lamb states that “our punishment assumes that if a person does something dishonorable once, he is forever dishonorable. This assumption is spurious.” We agree, the assumption is spurious. It's so spurious, in fact, that no one makes it. The Honor System does not presume to declare a man forever dishonorable: it only states that a student who has not the willpower to refrain from lying, cheating, or stealing does not belong at Washington and Lee. In the light of innumerable benefits of the Honor System (and we can enumerate them if you like), is that too much to ask?

THE PRINCIPAL OF FORGIVENESS...

3. As his third point, Lamb and his coterie invoke Christianity, declaring that the present expulsion violates the principle of forgiveness. The principle of forgiveness, when improperly used (as it is in this case) is an all-purpose platitude which could be used to out-law everything from speeding tickets on up. We certainly have no quarrel with Christianity, and we agree that forgiveness is admirable. But we are leery of the practical applicability of forgiveness. In case after case, other institutions have found that the introduction of graduated penalties into an Honor System has caused the downfall of the system: student body officers from other schools (notably Wake Forest and Hampden-Sydney) on campus for an ODK convention this weekend have stressed this fact. And there is one other important point: Lamb says we must forgive because we “cannot allow a man’s life to be ruined.” That is a rather broad statement, and adds a note of melodrama to the argument. We certainly do not deny that conviction of an Honor Court violation is a highly disturbing experience, but does it ruin a man’s life? Is a convicted student’s life really made unbearable and worthless? Again, we must ask Mr. Lamb to provide evidence for this argument.

THE CLINCHER...

4. And then Mr. Lamb provides the clincher: he says that absolute expulsion was only instituted thirty years ago. This statement is completely false and is typical of the haphazard nature of the proposal. And we might add that the editors of the Ring-tum Phi which appeared last Saturday reprinted this statement, knowing that it had no foundation in fact. Actually, the present penalty has been in effect since the Honor System first took its present form, somewhere between 1870 and 1890.

SAVING THE INDIVIDUAL...

5. Another argument, set forth by Protest, is that the individual suffers at the hands of a sterile system. This is mere word-play. The proponents of this argument, in their haste to come to the aid of the “individual,” forget the one thousand and fifty other individuals who benefit from the “sterile’” system.

6. Finally, there is the “Great Taboo of Tradition” argument. We are told that we are cowards, “‘cloaked” in this tradition, and that Lamar Lamb has come to lead us out of the darkness and into the light. What, may we ask, is so horrifying about tradition, and why should we do away with a tradition which, over the years, has provided so many very real benefits?

In conclusion, we would like to offer an argument of our own. We firmly believe that the very great majority of students at Washington and Lee subscribe to an abstract code of honesty, that the students here believe that it is wrong to lie, cheat, or steal. This means that a violation of the Honor System is a much greater offense than, for example, failing out of school. If, however, we allow a student who has been convicted of an Honor System violation to return, we are, in effect, saying that lying, cheating, and stealing are really not so bad, and the Honor System, as it has done in so many other schools, will quickly degenerate into a strictly punitive system in which honesty is not a matter of respect, but a matter of what one can get away with. Because of our Honor System, students here may enjoy the self-satisfaction that comes when one knows that he is trusted, and may enjoy the convenience of being able to trust other students. And all we have to do to maintain the system is refrain from lying, cheating, or stealing. When the entire system is at stake, is it too much to ask that those very few students who cannot do so be permanently expelled?

We don’t think it is.