Letter: On the Honor Code

Education is the most powerful and formative force in the growth of an individual. We at Connecticut College are supremely privileged as the classroom education provided to us is of the highest quality; however, the work done in a classroom is a single facet of a complete education. A moral education is of at least equal significance.

Here at Connecticut College, the Hammurabi of southeastern Connecticut, the Honor Code simplifies moral questions into ethical blacks and whites. This moral reductionist thinking is the very poison that holds the Millennials in a state of paralyzed complacency – and yet the dogma pushers persist. The idea of codifying morality is a backwardness dating long before the 1922 establishment of Conn’s version, yet, through the thick skulled determination of a traditionalist administration, the idea that the Honor Code is a force of empowerment has been perpetuated. It is, to any moral thinker, a shameful bastardization of honor, for there is no honor in blind adherence or in maintaining that which is amoral to be moral. Consider how the Honor Code handles substance use. The drinking of alcohol or smoking of a bowl of marijuana can in no tenable way be considered dishonorable acts in themselves; but since the Connecticut College Honor Code clings to the unconsidered and unrealistic standards for substance use, the administration both desperately and draconically equivocates lawfulness with honor, serving only to undermine its claims of rightful moral ascendancy. Perhaps worse than the contents of the code itself is that the Honor Code is falsely perceived as a governing document founded on trust. In actuality, the Honor Code is founded on an inherent mistrust of Conn students as is disallows us from exploring, testing, and discovering our own sense of moral right. While the idea of an established, unquestioned morality is a misinformed one, the institution used to perpetuate this unchanging standard is criminal and the Honor Council is a disgrace to any believer in civil engagement.

So it is with all due irreverence that I say fuck the Honor Code. Being a pragmatist though, I recognize that Conn needs a legislative corpus, so instead of using its pages as toilet tissue, I seek to revise the code so that it encourages a more active brand of morality. The following list enumerates five changes to the Honor Code aimed at making it a document Conn students can be proud of:

1. The abolition of Honor Council, that wretch of oligarchy, and the establishment of a system in which random members of the student body are summoned to adjudicate a single case.

2. The guarantee of the right of the accused party to face an accuser

3. The ability by a two-thirds referendum vote of the student body to amend the Honor Code

4. The removal of all parts of the Honor Code involving the use of illegal substances, though those found to be in violation of another section of the Honor Code while on substances will of course still be held responsible for their actions.

5. The implementation of a policy that mandates that repeat offenders enroll and pass a full semester, four credit course on the nature of ethical thought, so as to reform through learning, not punishment.

We as a student body need to shake ourselves awake from our complacency and be active participants in our own moral education. What worth is knowledge if we can only wield it within the comfortable confines of the “moral” world constructed for us? To be good people, students, and citizens we must erect these boundaries individually so we can actively, independently and ethically live within the shades of gray which dominate the world.

-Ben Smith ’16