University of Virginia Library

The Compromise

After seemingly endless rounds of
negotiations, members of the short-lived
Students for Responsible Chance (SRC), the
Honor Committee, and proponents of the
dual sanction referendum agreed last Friday
to a compromise which will directly benefit
both the student body and the Honor System.
Under conditions set down by the agreement,
the Honor Committee will establish
procedures for binding student referenda and
it will conduct, during the upcoming Honor
Committee elections, an "advisory
referendum" concerning the present single
sanction for Honor violations.

Opponents of the original referendum had
urged students not to vote at all. As first
proposed, the issue tested would have been
support for a dual sanction Honor System.
Members of SRC did not think that the
student body should be offered an
all-or-nothing choice between the present
system and one which would have provided
two penalties-suspension or expulsion. The
SRC argued that many other changes could
and should be studied before possible
alternatives are presented to the student
body. Holding the referendum solely on the
dual sanction proposal, they reasoned, would
have foreclosed any opportunity for the
Committee to investigate other alternatives.

By the compromise, this dangerous
situation has been eliminated. Students will
be asked their opinions about the single
sanction itself, not in regards to some other
proposal. We encourage all students to vote in
the "advisory referendum." While the results
will not be binding on the Honor Committee,
the referendum will prove valuable only if a
sizable percentage of the student body make
their feelings known.

A strong vote either for or against the
single sanction will not prevent the
committee from looking at other proposals,
such as a change in scope as suggested by
Gordon Peerman in his Colloquium last week
in The Cavalier Daily, or others which may
arise. However, a strong vote will enable the
Committee to better determine student
sentiment.

The most important aspect of the
compromise reached last week, however,
involves the establishment of procedures for
conducting future referenda. Opponents of
the dual sanction referendum viewed that
vote as potentially dangerous, since no criteria
existed by which the Honor Committee could
evaluate and act on the results of the
referendum. The SRC reasoned that to
conduct even an "advisory referendum"
(without making it clear that the referendum
would not be binding) could have led to a
large portion of the student body charging
that the Committee had ignored them,
especially if major evidence emerges in
support of change.

Thanks to the compromise, procedures for
conducting referenda and for the Committee
to evaluate and act on the results will be
established. As the proponents of the dual
sanction question stressed, an Honor System
can exist at this University only so long as
students who must live under it have the
major role in formulating that system. Before
last week, students could hope to initiate
changes in the Honor System only by electing
candidates who favor those changes. The
student body now has an additional and more
direct channel through which to make
changes in the system.

Yet it has seemed in recent years that
University students have an aversion to voting
in elections and referenda. Only in hotly
contested campaigns and during crisis
situations such as the Student strike two years
ago has more than 50 per cent of the eligible
voters actually cast ballots in any election or
referendum. While we often share this apathy,
we cannot condone it in the instant case.

Students who claim the right to determine
the details of the Honor System under which
they live have the obligation to vote in this
"advisory referendum" and in later ones.
Changes in the system cannot be made on the
basis of a vocal but sizable minority. Vote for
candidates in the Honor Committee elections.
Vote in the referendum.