Honor Commission

In 1969 I knew that I had always gotten good grades because I was intellectually curious and tested well,  not because I cared much about my grades.   The only time I was really tempted to cheat was second year high school Latin and that was because I hated the subject and resented the absurdity of being required to take two years of a language for college admission.  In that case the temptation came from the challenge of thwarting the system.  It was fair to say that given the right motivation I might consider cheating but that doing so was a line that I would think long and hard before crossing and that my motivation would differ from what is typical.

So it seemed quite unreal when I,  one of the least grade conscious freshmen at Gettysburg College,  found myself before the Honor Commission.  The commission was composed of a bunch of apple polishers elected by each class to function as a kind of tribunal to dish out penalties for cheating.   I knew none of them and had never imagined crossing their paths in any capacity.   

I suspect that in the decades of the commission's existence there has never been a proceeding involving a person or an offense this inconsequential.   If for no other reason than the principle of proportionality would have insured that no one be subjected to the humiliating spectacle of a honor commission proceeding for something this de minimis.  

De minimis is a Latin expression meaning "pertaining to minimal things", normally in the terms de minimis non curat praetor ("The praetor does not concern himself with trifles") or de minimis non curat lex ("The law does not concern itself with trifles"), a legal doctrine by which a court refuses to consider trifling matters.[1][2] Queen Christina of Sweden (r. 1633–1654) favoured the similar Latin adage, aquila non capit muscās (the eagle does not catch flies).[3]

The legal history of de minimis dates back to the 15th century.[4]

The general term has come to have a variety of specialised meanings in various contexts as shown below, which indicate that beneath a certain low level a quantity is regarded as trivial, and treated commensurately.

All I knew going in was that I had been accused of cheating on a biology lab and I assumed that someone had mistaken my blank wool gathering hungover stare for surreptitious copying of a deskmate's answers.    I wasn't sure when this event had occurred as rather than follow procedure and confront me at the time,  the lab instructor or another student had simply turned it over to the honor commission,  despite the fact that a lab accounted for less than 2% of the course grade.    

Can you picture what will be?

So limitless and free

Desperately in need

Of some stranger's hand

In a desperate land

Lost in a Roman wilderness of pain

And all the children are insane

All the children are insane

Waiting for the summer rain, yeah

From "The End" by The Doors - in my dorm room.   A bit trippy - of, relating to, or suggestive of a trip on psychedelic drugs or the culture associated with such drugs -  so take a contemplative break in this narrative.   

This incident is the best example in my life of the cascade effect,  with things happening to me way out of proportion to the input that I exercised.  An occasion of being swept along in an "instrument of God" way to create something to challenge other people.   Maybe even a paying forward type of penance.   Looking back the most spiritual thing I have yet experienced,  a lesson about the need to become infinitesimal to touch the infinite.  

I may sound transcendent now but at the time I has totally mortified,   mostly about having my natural shyness challenged at the center of this procedural exposition than by the taint of such an offense.    I had complete trust in Gettysburg College as an institution and instead of trying to get in front of this whole thing I assumed that things would work themselves out in my favor.   Like most people I was not looking for unnecessary confrontations and during the days before the proceeding I allowed wishful thinking and laziness to lull me into complacency.   

Interiority - vulnerablity

I was sequestered in a nearby room as the witness (or maybe the witnesses) gave testimony.  On occasion I was paraded into the hearing room and asked a few questions.  I never was permitted to confront my accuser or to know if there was more than one accuser.  During the final series of questions enough information leaked out for me to at last get a fuzzy grasp of what all the fuss was about although I had no time to process it before I was sent  back into sequestration while the commission continued deliberations.  

What I had just learned was that the accusation was not that I had copied an answer but that I had looked up the answer to one quiz question in the textbook.   During questioning I had denied doing this,   what I should have said was that my answer was based on my having no recollection of ever taking a "quiz" in biology lab.  And that they should note my puzzled expression because making a decision to cheat would have been so memorable that I would have known instantly why the honor commission had contacted me.  

I did recall weekly lab exercises for which I openly used the textbook.   The only explanation was that one or part of one of these had been a quiz.   Although I could not recall the actual circumstances it apparently had not registered with me at the time that this particular lab exercise was different from the others.   And I had openly used the textbook without anyone who might have noticed correcting me.   Most likely someone had reported me to the lab instructor who had found my answer too perfectly phrased when she had examined my paper.   

So I am left pacing the small room with the new realization that I had in fact committed the offense  and that in the eyes of everyone on the commission I had compounded that by lying.   I will concede that as I mulled over this new information I could imagine a brief moment of indecision in the lab where I wondered if using the book was permitted and decided to openly use it without seeking clarification,  my rationale being that I was willing to accept the consequences should there be any,  a version of "better to ask forgiveness than permission" concept.    This sort of thing being a standard bit of paranoia in an "open book" exercise or quiz.   I only mention this speculation to illustrate that my default reaction was to seek out any possible way to take responsibility for what had happened.

As  I was only beginning to get my head around the whole thing I was not yet ready to venture a coherent explanation.  

It turns out that an explanation from me was irrelevant because in a kind of Alice In Wonderland "sentence first - verdict later" sequence  I was informed that the meeting was over and I was being kicked out of the class.  And then told that I was being penalized mostly for not admitting my guilt and would have been kicked out of the school for non-cooperation except that the quiz was such a minor part of the course grade.  

Along with the sentence I was told that I could appeal to the college President.  Appealing seemed a better course of action than attempting a rushed on-the-spot post-sentence explanation to the honor commission itself.   And by this point of the evening everything about the honor commission members had begun to strike me as silly and surreal.

I now knew that whatever the outcome I  would be shouldering a degree of culpability for this mess for the rest of my life because ultimately it was my inattention that got me into it and my timidity that caused me to not do more to head it off.   Indeed I had gone into a full-on panic attack that night and entirely lost the critical thinking capability needed to assess the situation and cobble together a reasonable defense.   So I had a role in how things turned out.  Yet I also saw that this was one of my moments of greatest vulnerability and I was being taken advantage of during this moment by persons and an institution I trusted.

As required I immediately stopped going to biology class and began drafting an appeal.  It wasn't an especially nuanced issue and it didn't require a determination of my credibility.  Under the terms of the honor code the violator is if possible to be given an opportunity to self-report their offense.   In this case both the language and the spirit of the honor system meant that as soon as feasible an instructor should bring the alleged offense to my attention for an explanation before anything is formally reported.   Had that happened I would have known just what I was being accused of and the process could have ended with my simply getting zero credit for that one question.   Or the lab instructor with my endorsement could have forwarded the matter to the honor commission noting my acknowledgement of a violation of the honor code and asking them to make a determination if additional punishment was warranted.  This is all stated in the copy of the honor code they gave me at the proceeding.

My appeal acknowledged that I was technically guilty while detailing the multi-week delay before it was brought to my attention,  and the points where the whole process could have been terminated by my admission of guilt had I had clue about the precise nature of my offense.   That I had routinely and openly used my textbook during lab exercises and that I was not challenging the assertion that I had done so during the lab in question, whichever one that might have been.   I ended by noting the staggering amount of the time and energy that had been devoted to the matter,  most of it totally unnecessary and a huge overreaction.

By the time he denied my appeal (without really addressing my assertions) I had missed several weeks of classes so I was spared having to play catch-up in the class.   Although I had seemed confident of a favorable ruling on my appeal,  my neglect of the biology reading assignments likely meant that deep down I suspected that the whole honor commission concept was a trick bag for someone of my relative insignificance.    

Months before any of this my transfer to another college had gotten underway.   When (as icing on the cake) President Hanson followed up the denial of my appeal by terminating my modest financial aid for the fall semester,  I already had my acceptance and had made my decision that I would be leaving.   At the time I blew off the financial aid thing as a joke on him but now I realize what all this would have meant had I been financially unable (or too disgusted) to return in the fall.  For such a person the honor commission's silly dog and pony show would have been a life changing event,  and for a healthy draft eligible male in 1969 it could have even meant a posthumous combat infantryman's badge.  Scary and incredibly irresponsible of the college although I recall something like this being the plot of a movie.    

In fairness there may have been some members of the honor commission who did not foresee the financial aid consequences of their over reaction to this matter,  as it did not reasonably follow.   But early on this farce had been allowed to became a hell bound train and in that sense all of them are complicit.  

Bottom line the apple polishers and the adults in the room were fine with taking a dazed 18 year-old kid who up till then had a spotless record,  was not doing drugs,  and had been otherwise coloring inside the lines;  and throwing him out of their ivory tower to the wolves.  And somehow I can't imagine President Hansen having the character and conscience to later make a gesture of "Atonement" toward me for his actions.  

Interestingly "The Boxer" by Simon & Garfunkel was released in March 1969 -  the same month of my drumhead session before the Honor Commission.  The lyrics pretty much  spot on for my year at Gettysburg College.

When I left my home and my family

I was no more than a boy

In the company of strangers

Running scared

In the clearing stands a boxer

And a fighter by his trade

And he carries the remainders

Of every glove that laid him down

And cut him till he cried out

In his anger and his shame

“I am leaving, I am leaving”

But the fighter still remains