University of Virginia Library

After reading the recent statement by
the Honor Committee, announcing a change
in policy whereby students lying about their
age to obtain liquor are no longer subject to
the Honor System, and the CD editorial of
May 14 justifying the change in standards, I
feel that it is an appropriate time to review a
few aspects of the Honor System here at
the University.

My concern is not a reactionary stand
against the inevitable need for the system to
change with the times, but that this change
has been recently enacted because adhering
to the previous standard was regarded as an
apparent inconvenience to a majority of the
students polled in a recent survey, and
therefore not a legitimate concern of the
Honor System.

The issue is obviously not whether a
person younger than twenty-one should be
allowed to drink, but whether he should
come under the jurisdiction of the Honor
System when he lies about his age to obtain
liquor. Most students are able to obtain
liquor from the local ABC stores or local
grocers without showing proper identification
because they appear to be University
students.

As such they represent an Honor System
of impeccable integrity, and their word is
accepted at face value. The possibilities of
abuse of this situation are obvious, and it
isn't too difficult to see that the Honor
System might become taxed by infractions
of this situation. This I suppose also had
some bearing on the Honor Committee's
revision of previous policy.

I realize that a legitimate concern of
the Honor Committee in presenting this
change of interpretation was its fear of
overburdening the system by making it
apply too rigorously to all aspects of
University students' lives at any time or any
place.

The point that I would like to make both
as an alumnus of the College and as a
present member of the student community is
that one of the intangible values of the
Honor System was that a student of the
University, broke or otherwise in a disadvantageous
situation, could fall back on his
word of honor as a student of the
University, and have his word accepted
without question.

The recent ruling of the Honor Committee
has effectively destroyed this. Any,
student not able to use his University ID to
obtain liquor by misrepresenting his age,
could just as easily rationalize lying to any
other merchant in this community for any
purpose that he wishes.

The CD editorial stated that the "Honor
System, apart from any personal standards
of honor, belongs to all the students." If
some students use the recently enacted
change of interpretation to lie to various
merchants of this community, haven't they
harmed all of the other students who find
their word of honor doubted?

If ultimately each person must rely on
his own integrity, one is forced to admit
that the honor system has lost its value as an
objective correlative for the integrity of
each of the students living under its
jurisdiction. It seems to me that the recent
policy change is an obvious first step in a
process that will alter the system every time
a majority of students feel that some aspect
of the system is too inconvenient to uphold.

Finally, it also seems to me that
somewhere along this trail, the line must be
drawn if the Honor System is "to retain its
credibility as an effective force in our
society." The system before the policy
change assumed that there were, in fact,
some absolutes, and that a lie was a breech
of any person's standard of honor. An
honor system, which tacitly allows a person
to take advantage of the trust it engendered
in the community, is losing its meaning. I
therefore feel that the old interpretation
should be reinstated.