University of Virginia Library

A Good Example

Twenty-five law students have organized
themselves into a sort of ad hoc committee to
study certain procedural matters concerning
the Honor System at the University. Their
specific purpose, in the words of their
chairman, is "to insure that the procedural
safeguards which are essential to the
protection of the individual are incorporated
into the honor code process."

In particular, they have divided themselves
into groups to study the Honor System's
standing in regard to the right to professional
counsel, to the rules of evidence, to the rights
to review and appeal, to adequate advising of
rights at the time of accusation, and to other
such matters. Each group is to research its
respective topic and prepare a report for
publication to the whole committee and to
the rest of the University.

The committee has corresponded with the
Honor Committee, which has expressed its
willingness to cooperate and to assist the
group as it is able and allowed to.

Of the innumerable persons who are
anxious to scrutinize the Honor System -
which no one would deny is in need of
thorough scrutiny - this committee alone
seems to display the constructive attitude so
often lacking in other critics. This is a group
which is willing to devote much time and
energy to a thorough study of the system in
order to evaluate its weaknesses and flaws;
this is a group which wants to ferret out the
factors which threaten the future of the
system and to replace them with acceptable
alternatives to insure its continuing strength
and health; this is a group which is willing to
devote its efforts unselfishly to constructive,
well-founded criticism rather than to the
sporadic, emotional attacks we are so used to.

It is indeed reassuring to know that there
are students to whom the Honor System
means enough to merit the effort and
attention this group plans. The law school
committee is in stark contrast to those who
would merely look at the system, discover its
immediate and obvious difficulties, and
"expose" or attack them just for the sake of
doing so, without regard or concern for how
they might be ameliorated or solved and the
system saved.

We would hope that future critics of the
Honor System will assume the conscientious
attitude of modify-to-preserve which this
committee displays, and that they will, like
this committee, address themselves to the
pressing theoretical and underlying problems
inherent in the system rather than to the
everyday facts which spring from them. It is
apparent that the Honor System will have to
be significantly modified soon if it is to
survive, and that modification can be achieved
only by efforts aimed carefully to preserve it.
Mere attacks profit little, if any, but
conscientious criticism, combined with an
energetic anxiety to see the factors criticized
changed in the proper fashion, can profit
everything.