Matilda abstract discussion 9/19

Moment of silence.

Ryan: Welcome everyone. I just want to start by saying that you don’t need to have read a lot of abstracts to participate, and there are no silly things to say.

Ryan: the first question is asking whether the gravity of a case should influence whether juries give Martha Denney a recommendation regarding reporting to institutions of higher learning

Meg: I think there’s a big difference between something small and owning up to it vs. doing something big and denying it afterward. There is difference, and it should impact whether or not an incident is reported

Cat: I have a problem with the idea that this incident was minor in the first place, because it was entirely up to the professor how it was seen and what happened, so this seems like a failed case

Ryan: Let’s stick to this question for a while, and come back to that in a minute

Jack: I do think they should be treated differently, but I think differently means allowing the resolutions to match the circumstances, and i have a problem with the idea that this process didn’t have a normal fact-finding, and I don’t think it left Honor Council empowered to set resolutions

Ryan: that’s a good point, and I’m sorry for shutting Cat down before. [Ryan goes over the general Honor Council procedure re: violations] Now let’s open it up to any of the questions

Emily: my question is about the plenary resolution about emergency trials

Ryan: describes the extenuating circumstances clause

Emily: does this fall under that jurisdiction?

Ryan: this is a situation in which those procedures could be used. Do you think Honor Council did the right thing by sending this to a mediation, even if it was a made-up kind of procedure? Should they have gone with normal procedure?

Sergio: I think they did the right thing, I think Matilda had an unfair advantage, and giving her a different grade to rate how she would have done was better than carrying out a trial which would have prevented graduation. In the end she got the grade that reflected how she behaved

Erin: i think it’s interesting that this happened in a class that a second semester senior was in. I think the circumstances seem odd, because why would a second semester senior do something like this?

Kaziah: I think a senior should have known better than this, and I’m not sure how I feel about her behavior going into the trial. She must’ve known that she was doing something wrong, and owning up to it doesn’t seem like enough to excuse not going through the correct steps

Jack: graduation is something that we all earn, and there are lots of places where a diploma is something that you buy, but here there are people who screw up their thesis or something and don’t graduate, and a diploma marks the Haverford stamp of approval, so it holds weight with the Honor Code, and you seem trustworthy. It’s possible that this person didn’t realize that what she’d done was dishonest, but she didn’t self-confront, and I don’t feel comfortable knowing that she graduated without a trial

Ryan: it’s comfortable to me that the professor had trust in her, but it does feel weird.

Jack: I should point out that I’ve never been on Honor Council, so I guess there’s a  lot going on that I don’t know about

Meg: could she have graduated and then done the trial and then maybe have had the graduation rescinded?

Ryan: I think you could do that, potentially, but aside from asking someone to return and jeopardize their diploma, we’d have no jurisdiction

Janela: I also don’t think that someone should be allowed to graduate if there’s a trial pending, even if it were possible

Harris: I think not allowing them to walk would ruin their confidentiality

Janela: not necessarily, seniors don’t walk for other reasons, too

Jack: there was a case sort of recently where confidentiality wasn’t able to be kept at all, and in that case confidentiality was sacrificed for the sake of the trial process

Sergio: isn’t an academic violation more between faculty and student? I think that if the professor was okay with what happened, a trial wasn’t necessary

Kaziah: I think academic dishonesty affects the whole community, and I at least feel like my trust in a community member would be broken, so I don’t think Matilda deserved

Emily: I think professor’s relationship with the Honor Code is always a little peculiar, and maybe this professor didn’t realize the role Council plays, and as a community we have a lot to talk about regarding professor and staff’s relationships with the code

Ryan: agreed; it can be difficult to determine.

Emily: professors don’t have to sign the Code, but there is the faculty handbook, which specifies that they have to follow the Code in the case of a potential violation

Jack: Honor Council also can’t change a grade, so really that suggestion is not the important resolution, but it’s everything else that’s important. The things that are missing.

Harris: If someone is about to leave, is restorative justice even relevant?

Emily: alumni confront themselves sometimes, so I think it is.

Jack: there was a guy who stole a whole bunch of food from the DC, then came around after he graduated, and they just told him to pay it back

Cat: I think this case is big, because it was intentional. They took a paper, they didn’t accidentally forget to cite. And they didn’t self-confront, and the Honor Code says that cases of plagiarism should normally result in separation, and that didn’t happen here, even though it was a serious violation.

Jack: when does Council switch over?

Ryan: chairs in the summer, new Council in the fall

Jack: so this was an old/experienced Council?

Ryan: yeah, five members met to send it along. Probably chairs, secretaries, and one other, although that’s just a guess.

Sergio: what’s happened before with a case like this?

Ryan: Boy Bands. There was a case where someone copied something from a book cover, and someone in the class realized and told the professor. It was complicated, but there was a trial. There was a 0.0 and a letter to the community in the resolutions. That case was much more accidental, so much more geared to the education. Something that could have happened to Matilda if this had gone to a trial is more of a focus on accountability, since restoration with the professor had already taken place. Separation is also an interesting topic. I’ve heard that it can be an accountability resolution, or a restoration geared to restoration.

Kaziah: What has been the general policy regarding graduating seniors, before the extenuating circumstances clause?

Ryan: I don’t know, I’ve only ever been on Council with the clause

Janela: Council has been doing the things allowed by the extenuating circumstances clause since before the clause existed in the Constitution, so I don’t think it would have looked much different.

Ryan: Let’s move on to the second question.

Michael: the issue with having a professor insist that their take on a situation should dictate the resolutions is tricky. I think the professor can determine how major or minor a violation is, as the person who wrote the assignment, but there should be a trial so the community can determine what they want to do about the violation

Jack: I think every academic trial has a social aspect. Maybe unintentional instances less so, but I fully expect every student here not to cheat, and if someone does, it’s a breach of trust with the community, and a trial is the way to repair that The professor can do a lot to help, and they’re important, but it’s the jury who decides what would repair the breach of trust

Sergio: Honor Council should have just held a trial really quickly. In this case, nothing was done, and it’s forever unfinished. A two-day emergency meeting would solve this.

Janela: you’re describing my worst nightmare

Ryan: a speedy trial would have been lovely, if it could have been possible. Let’s end here in case people need to leave, but the rest of you are welcome to stick around and talk more.

Moment of silence, end.