So, what exactly is it that we are proposing to do to help fix the Honor System? Well, the text of our proposal is as follows (an explanation is found afterwards), and this is in the form of an amendment to the Honor Constitution:

"To Article II, Clause 3, between the words ‘committed’ and ‘honor violations’ ADD ‘non-trivial’;

In Article V, Section 2, CHANGE ‘an honor violation’ to ‘a non-trivial honor violation’;

To Article V, ADD immediately following section 2:

‘Section 3. A student found guilty of act and intent, but not guilty of non-triviality shall be considered to have committed a trivial honor violation. A sanction lesser than expulsion shall be applied in the following manner:

i) A list of possible lesser sanction, consisting of not less than two sanctions, at least one of which must include suspension from the University for a specified time, shall be determined by the by-laws of the Honor Committee. This list may include a range of possible time frames for a suspension, instead of distinct list items for each possible time frame, but an indefinite suspension is not a permissible lesser sanction.

ii) The Honor Committee may, in its discretion, develop guidelines to aid in determining the lesser sanction to be applied, and may choose to make these guidelines either binding or advisory in determination of the lesser sanction.

iii) Three Honor Committee members who have observed the entire trial shall, in accordance with the Honor by-laws made under the above provisions, determine the lesser sanction to be applied. The composition of the three Committee member panel shall be determined by the by-laws of the Honor Committee, and may include the Trial Chair, Committee Observer, both, or neither.

iv) Whenever the Honor Committee considers a change to the list of sanctions, or guidelines for application of the sanctions, the proposal must be announced to the University’s primary student news publication at least one week prior to a vote on the proposed change, in order to allow student feedback before voting. This provision applies to the first set of by-laws passed under this amendment as well.

Section 4. The Trial Panel hearing a case shall be informed by the Trial Chair prior to verdict deliberations that a verdict of guilty on act and intent but not guilty on triviality shall result in a sanction less than expulsion being applied to the accused student.’

All remaining sections of Article V shall be re-numbered to reflect their accurate order.

This amendment shall apply to all Honor Cases reported on or after September 1, 2009, or two weeks following the Honor Committee’s first enumeration of the list of lesser sanctions, whichever shall come first.”

Ok, so what does all of this mean. I will explain each part. The first line is just necessary to allow the rest of the amendment and does nothing on its own. Same with the second line. It is what is next where the heart of our amendment lies.

The default penalty for non-trivial Honor offesnes will remain expulsion under our system. However, our proposal designed to end the practice whereby a jury must choose to give someone expulsion, or no punishment at all. As a result, very minor offenses that end in expulsion today because a jury does not believe the individual should get off with nothing will no longer result in expulsion, while very minor offenses that end with a finding of triviality will no longer go unpunished.

What our proposal does is create a tiered penalty system for those who commit so-called "trivial" offenses. If an offense is found by the jury to be trivial, a panel of three Committee members will choose a lesser sanction to be applied, based on the by-laws of the Honor Committee. This lesser sanction cannot be expulsion, or an indefinite suspension (which practically turns into expulsion), but can be anything else determined by the Honor Committee and student body to be a proper sanction. Guidelines for the application of these sanctions may also be created to help aid consistency.

Additionally, any change to sanctions or guidelines must be brought before the student body before they may be enacted. Finally, juries must know that a finding of triviality will no longer result in no punishment, otherwise the entire purpose of the change would be defeated.

Finally, we re-number the sections within Article V of the Honor Constitution so they make sense. Then the proposal states that it will not go into effect until there has been sufficient time for the proposal to be set-up.

What makes our proposal strong is that it addresses every concern the single sanction raises, while still maintaining a strict penalty system for Honor violations. With the availability of multiple sanctions, faculty and students have always expressed they will be more willing to report offenses. Additionally, our proposal ensures student input in sanctioning, as close to consistent sanctioning as is reasonably possible within Honor's confidentiality rules, and by changing so little of the Honor System, the proposal also allows that in the unlikely event that it does not work and creates problems instead of solving them, it can easily be undone. While we do not think this likely, the ability to rapidly undo change recognizes that the passage of this proposal will move into unknown territory.

If you have any other questions about the meaning of our proposal, please contact us at savehonor@yahoo.com.