These are among the two most damning sentences in Rolling Stone’s long exposé on how sexual assault is handled, or mishandled, at the University of Virginia:
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Libby Nelson was Vox’s editorial director, politics and policy, leading coverage of how government action and inaction shape American life. Libby has more than a decade of policy journalism experience, including at Inside Higher Ed and Politico. She joined Vox in 2014.
UVA’s emphasis on honor is so pronounced that since 1998, 183 people have been expelled for honor-code violations such as cheating on exams. And yet paradoxically, not a single student at UVA has ever been expelled for sexual assault.
But on academic issues, the UVA honor code sends a message: academic integrity here is taken very seriously. We will hold you to a higher standard than society as a whole. And you will be punished if you do not live by that standard.
That is the message colleges need to send if they want to prevent rape on campus. Higher education needs an honor code that does not stop at lying, cheating, and stealing, but extends to how students treat one another. And colleges need to enforce that honor code with the same vigilance with which UVA pursued cases of alleged cheating and plagiarism.
How much vigilance? In 2008, UVA kicked two students off a ship during a Semester at Sea summer program after they were found guilty of plagiarism. The ship was docked in Greece. The two students had to make their own way home. One of them had plagiarized just three phrases — not even complete sentences — from Wikipedia for one class assignment.
That punishment seems draconian. Journalists have committed worse plagiarism and kept their jobs. But UVA did the right thing. The expectations were clear, they were high, and the students did not meet them. Don’t like those rules? Too bad; you don’t have to go to college here. Think your punishment is unfair? Too bad; you do not have a constitutional right to an education at the University of Virginia.
If only the university had pursued alleged rape with the same fervor.
An honor code for sexual assault
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An honor code to prevent sexual assault would work the same way: with a high standard, a clear statement of expectations, and punishment for students who don’t meet them.
Clear expectations should define consent in a sexual encounter, and they should define when students can’t consent — when they’re drunk or intoxicated, for one. When California colleges began requiring affirmative consent, or “yes means yes,” there was an outcry from commentators afraid that they were reclassifying ordinary sex as rape.
But “yes means yes” is simply the sexual version of an academic honor code. It’s acknowledgment that attending a college is not a right but a privilege that comes with responsibilities, and that one of those responsibilities is to treat fellow students with respect.
Then those high standards need to be enforced — even when it’s uncomfortable, even in situations where proof isn’t crystal clear. (Some plagiarism cases aren’t entirely clear-cut either.) There is a reason that colleges can use a lower standard of evidence than a criminal court: because being expelled or suspended from college is not the same as being criminally convicted of rape.
Although false accusations of rape are extremely rare, a wrongful criminal conviction for sexual assault is a travesty.
A wrongful expulsion from college after due process for the accused is deeply unfair, but it leaves a less permanent stain. If a student expelled for sexual assault enrolls elsewhere, their transcript doesn’t usually list the reason for the expulsion, and colleges don’t have to disclose the details.
UVA’s fearless enforcement of its honor code in academic cases should set an example here. Colleges should treasure their students’ safety at least as highly as their academic honesty. They should set high expectations, and they should enforce them accordingly.
