University of Virginia Library

Not Moral

The Honor System does not
exist to make life on the Grounds
morally acceptable to God, Billy
Graham, or Margaret Mitchell or to
make sure that Alumni
contributions continue to bolster
the University's endowment. It
exists because the absence of
cheating, stealing, and lying from
the University community makes
this institution a better place in
which to pursue an education, an
education in which one learns from
his contemporaries as well as from
lectures and textbooks. And a
prerequisite for any meaningful
exchange of knowledge is the
assumption of mutual integrity of
word and deed among all parties
concerned. Otherwise, the term
education is but a cynical facade
for the student whose motivation is
opportunism rather than truth.

It is a common misconception, I
believe, that the Honor System was
established body and soul in the
distant past when Southern
idealism and Victorian morality
pervaded the Grounds of the
once-aristocratic University, and
that since those days the System
has experienced a steady decline. In
fact, however, the Honor System
was constituted in 1842 to apply
only to written classroom
examinations, primarily as a means
of easing hostility between faculty
and students which had already
resulted in the murder of a
professor on the Lawn. An official
and permanent Honor Committee
did not appear until the early
1900's. And the Honor System was
not given unlimited geographic
jurisdiction, and not made
applicable to the purchase of
liquor, until 1956, during the era of
crew cuts and Joe McCarthy.

Each of us has his own concept
of honor, or personal integrity -
some more inclusive and more
stringent than others. But a
community honor system can not
function without some sort of
consensus among the persons
involved as to what constitutes a
dishonorable act. The Honor
Committee, as democratically
elected representatives of the
contemporary student population,
interpret that consensus of honor
and apply it in trials held before the
Committee. Perhaps the Honor
System's greatest single strength has
been the students' willingness and
ability to adjust the System's
jurisdiction to changing student
norms of conduct, to define and
redefine a concept of community
honor according to evolving student
standards.