University of Virginia Library

STATEMENT OF THE RECTOR AND VISITORS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA

As the University community knows, controversy has surrounded the procedures and particular proceedings of the Honor Committee for the past year or so. The Board of Visitors has previously expressed concern about aspects of the operation of the System. Today the Executive Committee of the Board, acting at the behest of the full Board, has adopted a resolution to clarify the nature and extent of the authority delegated to the Honor Committee, to guide the exercise of that authority, and to cooperate with the Honor Committee in initiating review of its processes designed to improve their operation in the future.

The Board supports the Honor System fully and believes that student self-governance adds essential value to education in the University. This principle and the System have served the University well for generations. Most members of the Board are graduates of the University who retain reverence for the Honor System's mission and faith in its basic student-operated structure. Periodically, however, the administration of the System has required scrutiny, and the Board has from time to time exercised oversight and provided guidance to the Honor Committee. The current moment is not unique.

The nature of the Honor Committee's authority may not be well understood. In Thomas Jefferson's time the General Assembly enacted a statute creating the University and granting to the Rector and Visitors both the authority and the responsibility to operate the University in the interest of the people of Virginia. Although it has been amended over time, this 1819 statute remains in effect today. Among other things, it charges the Rector and Board with responsibility for "the government and discipline of the students." The Board is accountable in the exercise of its responsibility for student disciplinary systems both to the General Assembly, the sole source of its authority, and to the courts, which may impose liability on the Rector and Board for violations of state or federal law in the operation of those systems.

Many years ago the Board delegated to the Honor Committee the authority and responsibility to discipline students for offenses involving dishonorable conduct. The Honor Committee's actions in particular cases are those of the University and, indeed, of the Commonwealth of Virginia. The Committee is accountable for its actions to the Board, just as the Board is accountable to the General Assembly. Moreover, like the Board, the Committee may be called to account either by the source of its authority or by the courts if the legal rights of individuals are violated. In the latter event, it is the Rector and Visitors who are subject to the judgment of the court.

The Honor System has changed a great deal in the last quarter century. The great growth in numbers and complexity of the University community, what appears to be a decline in the willingness of students to confront and accuse their fellows, and perhaps other factors have led to continual tinkering with the mechanisms of the System. The System in place today is largely unrecognizable to all but the most recent alumni. These procedural changes have constituted a good faith effort to perpetuate the System's virtues while

addressing its potential flaws, but they contribute directly to the Honor System's current dilemma.

The Board and the Honor Committee share the view that the System's bylaws and procedures are too complicated, too laden with ambiguities, too much subject to delay in resolving cases--there are too many opportunities for things to go wrong. Accordingly, the Board and the Committee are committed to reviewing and revitalizing the System, and President Casteen has pledged the assistance and resources of the administration to this effort. This review begins now, with the hope that it can be completed this academic year. The Board and the Committee recognize, however, that results are more important than speed.

The Board's concerns have arisen in the context of the extended controversy surrounding the case of Christopher Leggett and the intense and disruptive aftermath of that case, though the concerns are not limited to what has transpired in that context. Among other things, it has come to the Board's attention that three members of the 1993-94 Executive Committee, whose actions in the Leggett case were under scrutiny and who were outspoken in their opposition to granting Mr. Leggett a new trial, have brought honor charges against their successors in office While these charges have not been reduced to writing or specified with particularity, their essence seems to be that the members of the 1994-95 Executive Committee, who made the decision last summer to grant Mr. Leggett a new trial, lied to the press when they said they had not been pressured by the Board into making that decision.

Several aspects of the current situation persuade the Board that it must act now. The charges were first made last August, just after the second Leggett trial, where Mr. Leggett was accused of cheating on an examination and found not guilty by a jury of students. In the intervening six months the case against the Executive Committee members has not proceeded to the Investigative Panel stage, while the three students charged have been forced both to defend their actions in public and to live throughout an entire semester with the cloud of honor charges over their heads. The current posture of the case makes it highly likely that a second entire semester will be consumed by the Committee's proceedings before a resolution could be reached. Confidentiality of the proceedings has repeatedly been compromised by leaks of information to the press. Last fall the Honor Committee voted to alter its procedures to grant previously non-existent rights to the initiators of these charges. The initiators have contributed to the extraordinary delays by asserting that they were unavailable to participate in the proceedings except at certain restricted times. The initiators of the charges, none currently enrolled in the University, are not, and have refused to make themselves, subject to the jurisdiction of the Honor System in connection with their actions or testimony in the case. Thus they face no risk with regard to this misuse of the Honor System.

These procedural questions, together with the unusual nature of the charges themselves, have convinced the Board that the charges are a personally motivated attempt to punish the members of the 1994-95 Executive Committee for their decision to grant Mr. Leggett a new trial. That conviction is reinforced by the Board members' knowledge that

that decision was in fact left to the members of the Honor Committee. The concerns of the Board that Mr. Leggett's due process rights had been violated and that a court battle was likely to be lost were indeed expressed, but it was at all times clear that the decision rested with the Honor Committee. Indeed, the Executive Committee of the Honor Committee did not reach its decision until two months after discussions between the Committee leadership and Board members.

The Board will not permit the process of the Honor System to be abused in this fashion. Equally important, the Board believes that procedural reform is necessary now and that it cannot be achieved in the current atmosphere of recrimination and obsession with Mr. Leggett's case. We believe that it is not appropriate for Honor Committee members, acting as the University's agents, to be put at personal jeopardy for actions taken in good faith in performing their duties under the System.

As today's resolution makes clear, the Honor Committee's authority does not permit entertaining honor charges against any past, present or future members of the Committee for actions taken in their official capacities after consultation with the President or General Counsel of the University. It makes it explicit that the members of the Honor Committee, when acting on official Committee business, have immunity from reprisal within the System for their actions, similar to and commensurate with the immunity held by the Board members and other agents of the Commonwealth for the performance of their official duties.

We are aware that some persons have argued that the Board's involvement constitutes special treatment of certain individuals and that it amounts to hearing an "appeal". Neither concern is well founded. The Board has adopted a general, principled rule to protect its agents in the performance of their duties from retaliatory and vindictive accusations. Members of the Honor Committee's Executive Committee did not ask the Board or the administration to intervene for them, and the Board learned of the pending charges when a student investigator approached a member of the Board and administration officials to give evidence. Nor has there been an "appeal" from any action of the Honor Committee, since the Honor Committee has not acted on the charges, and the Board acted on its own motion and not at the behest of the charged individuals.

In all its actions regarding both the Leggett case and the present situation, the Board's principal motivation has been to preserve the student-run Honor System, both from outside attack and from the fallout of internal dissension.

The Board and the Committee both hope that a sad and divisive incident in the history of the Honor System can be put behind us, that it can become a source of learning and not reprisal, and that the entire University community can now focus its collective attention on making improvements in the System that will restore confidence in its functioning and justify our faith in its future.

On motion, the meeting adjourned at 2:45 p.m.