Investigating Integrity

Each day during Dead Week, some of the 14 faculty, staff and student members of the Committee on Discipline (COD) assemble in West College around a long oval table. With Dean of Undergraduate Students Kathleen Deignan, the committee chair, seated at the head of the table and an accused student accompanied by a single representative — usually a faculty member or dean — on one side of the table, the committee will hear cases and dole out punishments for infractions of “Rights, Rules, Responsibilities” (RRR).

These infractions often address violations of University standards for academic integrity, ranging from turning in the same paper for two different classes to discussing an assignment with a classmate when the professor has forbidden collaboration.

This sort of collaboration does not, itself, entail a breach of University rules, Deignan noted, explaining that students are charged by the COD for failing to acknowledge these conversations in their citations.

“If students had footnoted that conversation … and this might seem silly to them, but had they footnoted it, it might have been that the faculty member would say, ‘Well, you’re gonna fail the assignment because I told you that you couldn’t talk to anyone else,’ but they did acknowledge it,” Deignan explained. “[So] it might have completely violated the professor’s course rules, but there’s no issue of dishonesty there.”

Distinctions like these are some of the “finer points of academic integrity,” said Associate Dean for Undergraduate Students Hilary Herbold GS ’97, who serves as COD secretary. But for many members of the University community, distinctions and procedures much more central to the University’s disciplinary process are often greatly misunderstood, if not entirely unknown.

Even molecular biology professor Carlos Brody, who serves on the COD, said he had been unfamiliar with the University’s disciplinary procedures before being appointed to the committee.

Cheating on an in-class exam is the only breach of conduct heard by the Honor Committee, a 12-member body composed entirely of students. The COD’s much broader jurisdiction includes all other disciplinary violations, both academic and behavioral.

Professors and preceptors initiate the majority of the academic charges brought before the COD, and professors are typically responsible for investigating violations they report and gathering materials to be presented as evidence, Deignan said.

Herbold, a nonvoting member of the committee, contacts accused students to prepare them for their hearings, helps them find optional faculty advisers and explains the details of their cases and the role of precedent in the committee’s decisions.

“My role is to say … ‘It’s been alleged that you’ve plagiarized. These materials have been given to me; these similarities have been pointed out between [the] work that you’ve submitted and this material. Is there anything that I should know? Is there anything that you would like to submit? Are there witnesses? Is there anything out there that would help you explain what happened?’ ” Herbold explained.

Robert ’10, who was acquitted on charges of plagiarism his freshman year by the COD, called the initial contact “devastating.”

“The first thing that ran through my head was, ‘Oh shit, I’m going to get thrown out of University, the place I’ve been working so hard to get into for my entire life,” he said. “That was pretty much the first time since I was 11 years old that I burst into tears.”

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Robert’s name has been changed to protect his privacy.

After Herbold’s initial contact, students may ask for faculty advisers to act on their behalf throughout the process. Molecular biology lecturer Phil Felton, who advised Shafiq Kashmiri ’10 when Kashmiri was brought before the COD this year on charges of plagiarism, said that the role of an adviser is fairly flexible. “You can … say things in support of a student, you can advise them, you can take a fairly passive role or you can take a fairly active role and interrupt [the hearing],” he explained.

For students brought before the committee, the days leading up to their hearings can be fraught with anxiety.Robert said he could not eat for two days before his hearing.

During a hearing, the committee members speak with the students involved and their faculty advisers, listen to the testimony of the professor and witnesses and examine evidence, COD member Vishal Chanani ’11 said.

“It’s not like a court in the sense that there’s no sort of roles, [like] judge, prosecutor [or] attorney,” he explained. “It’s essentially mostly dialogue. It’s just that we ask most of the questions.”

Kashmiri, however, criticized the committee’s procedure for questioning students. “When I went in, all they asked was how I helped [a classmate],” Kashmiri said. “They never gave me the opportunity to defend the charges against me. I could not hear his testimony or rebut it.”

Felton echoed Kashmiri’s concerns, noting that each student involved in Kashmiri’s case gave individual testimony and they were brought before the committee together only to address the discrepancies between their accounts.

After speaking with the committee, the accused students and their advisers are excused from the room while the committee members deliberate.

Each deliberation consists of two parts: the first to judge a student’s guilt or innocence, and the second to determine the appropriate punishment, Chanani said.

Deignan noted that the COD exercises great care when judging a student’s guilt or innocence. “We can’t just have a hunch that something was copied,” she said. “The evidence has to be clear, and we have to be persuaded that something is a violation.”

Chanani said that most of the debate occurs during the second phase, when students’ punishments are determined. “Usually there’s significant, but relatively less, deliberation as to whether the offense occurred, but there’s more debate … as to what merits probation [versus] suspension,” he explained.

Throughout the deliberations, members noted, the opinions of all members — students and faculty alike — are given equal weight.

“Everyone on the committee is equal. No one’s vote counts for more than anyone else’s,” COD member Joel Alicea ’10 explained, noting that the quorum for COD decisions is three student and two faculty members.

To determine either a student’s guilt or punishment, a simple majority is required.

In the 2007-08 academic year, the COD found 35 students guilty of violations of academic integrity standards, up from 19 students the previous year.

Of the 35 found guilty, the COD suspended or expelled 22 students for academic integrity violations. Ten students were issued penalties below the level of separation from the University: Eight were placed on probation, and two received dean’s warnings. The University withheld the degrees of three second-semester seniors.

All student members of the Honor Committee and COD are chosen through a process administered by current members of the respective committees. Faculty members on COD are chosen by the University’s Committee on Committees, Dean of the Faculty David Dobkin said in an e-mail. That committee solicits nominations and presents a slate of candidates that is voted on during a faculty meeting. Faculty members serve two-year terms on the COD.

The Honor Committee

Though many procedures and punishments are consistent between the COD and the Honor Committee, other aspects of the Honor Committee’s hearing processes are distinct.

Accusations heard by the Honor Committee come from both faculty and students in a roughly even ratio, Honor Committee chair Parker Henritze ’09 said in an interview, adding that when she is notified of a possible violation, she assigns two student investigators — who will not vote on the case if it comes to a hearing — to gather all the pertinent information and present it to the Honor Committee.

The committee hears roughly 15 to 25 cases annually, Henritze said. Three to five students each year are usually found guilty of violating the Honor Code, according to the committee’s website.

Accused students may request a peer representative, who acts in a role similar to that of the COD faculty advisers.

Though students can choose their own peer representative, many choose among the pool of seven officially designated peer representatives, who have “been trained and know exactly how the honor system works,” Henritze added.

Alex Thomas ’09, chair of the pool of peer representatives, explained that when peer representatives are assigned to a case, they “have to drop everything over the next three to four days until the case is resolved in order to really devote all of [their] time to the case.”

Peer representative Ahson Azmat ’10 said substantial preparation is necessary prior to a hearing. “You try to talk to as many witnesses as you can; you talk to the investigators. You try to anticipate the strongest case that can be put forward against the SIQ [student in question],” he said. “In effect, you’re an advocate for the SIQ.”

Peer representatives attend Honor Committee hearings to “make sure the SIQ is represented,” Azmat added.

“If there’s evidence I believe needs to be highlighted or accented, I make sure that the Honor Committee pays attention to it,” he explained.

Both Azmat and Thomas stressed, however, that the peer representative does not work to oppose the Honor Committee.

“It’s never … the SIQ and the peer representative versus the Honor Committee,” Azmat said. “There’s no effort to try to subvert evidence or mislead the Honor Committee. We’re all on the same side.”

Like the COD, the Honor Committee deliberates first about the student’s guilt or innocence, and then about the appropriate punishment. The standard punishment for students found guilty of violating the Honor Code is a year-long suspension, Henritze said. The committee also has the authority to suspend students for two or three years, expel them or place them on probation.

The Honor Committee requires seven members to be present for a quorum, and at least six must vote in favor of finding the student guilty.

“I know that it’s extremely tough for [the accused students], and the committee does not pretend otherwise,” Henritze said. “That’s why we try to go to great lengths to [make the hearing], if anything, biased in their favor in terms of making them comfortable.”

Appeals

Students found guilty of academic integrity violations can appeal their verdicts through two avenues. They may file an appeal with the dean of the college on the grounds that “substantial relevant information … was not presented, and reasonably could have been presented, to [the COD],” or that “the imposed penalty does not fall within the range of penalties for similar misconduct,” according to RRR. Alternatively, students may appeal to the Judicial Committee of the Council of the Princeton University Community — a group of eight faculty and students — on the grounds of “procedural unfairness.”

A student who appeals a COD hearing through both avenues will appeal to the Judicial Committee first, Dean of the College Nancy Malkiel said in an e-mail. “The reason is that if the Judicial Committee finds serious procedural error or harmful bias, it may return the case to the Committee on Discipline,” she said. “That may result in a new penalty. The student retains the right to appeal to the dean, and he or she may do so after the Judicial Committee process is completed.”

Kashmiri appealed unsuccessfully to the Judicial Committee, citing both procedural errors and unfair treatment. He argued that the COD failed to fully consider his professor’s findings — findings that, Kashmiri said, showed that his work displayed no evidence of plagiarism.

Alicea said it was “not likely” that an appeal to the Judicial Committee would be successful “because we’re careful to follow procedures to a ‘T.’ ”

The Judicial Committee usually hears one or two appeals each year, Judicial Committee secretary Ann Halliday said in an e-mail. Of the nine appeals brought before the Judicial Committee over the past decade, one case was returned to the COD for reconsideration.

Felton said he was concerned that Kashmiri’s Judicial Committee appeal did not involve more direct input from parties involved in the case. “Shafiq made a written appeal to [the Judicial Committee], and that was sent to them, and … that’s it,” Felton said. “They had a meeting, I assume, and deliberated and came up with their conclusions, but he was not present at any meeting.”

In evaluating an appeal, the Judicial Committee first meets in a closed session to consider both the original COD documents and the written memorandum submitted by the student explaining the reason for the appeal, Halliday said. The committee may also meet with COD members, refer to recordings of the hearing or request to meet with the relevant student and faculty adviser, she added.

When the Judicial Committee denied Kashmiri’s appeal, he brought his case to Malkiel, who hears all appeals of Honor Committee cases as well as COD appeals that do not involve procedural challenges.

Students’ initial punishments cannot be increased upon appeal, but the dean may recommend a reduced sentence.

To submit an appeal, students write a letter detailing their reasons for the appeal, often providing additional documents and evidence, Malkiel said.

“The purpose of such an appeal is not to initiate a review of substantive issues of fact, or a new determination of whether a violation of rules has occurred,” according to RRR.

In evaluating appeals of Honor Committee decisions, Malkiel said that if she finds evidence of procedural unfairness or a biased trial, she may return the case to the Honor Committee or, “in exceptional circumstances,” recommend a modified penalty without sending the case back to the Honor Committee.

During the last academic year, 12 cases — or 30 percent of those heard by the Honor Committee and the COD that resulted in a suspension, expulsion or withheld degree — were appealed, Malkiel said, adding that this year she has already heard six appeals. Of the 43 appeals she has heard in the past five years, Malkiel said she has recommended reduced penalties in five instances.

Wilson School professor Stanley Katz, who has advised several students tried by the COD, said he was skeptical of the appeals process.

“Frankly, I think appeals are a farce,” he said. “[Of] the students I’ve helped with appeals, I’ve never known a student to prevail. I don’t know why we bother, and it puts the adviser in a terrible position.”

In his 15-page, single-spaced appeal to Malkiel, Kashmiri outlined his family and academic background, the details of the alleged instance of plagiarism and the ways in which he believed his sentence was inconsistent with previous cases heard by the COD. He wrote: “As a member of the intellectual environment of Princeton, committed to the review of academic matters to ensure conformance with University policy and fairness equity for all members of the community, I respectfully request that you accept and hear my appeal.”

Earlier this month, that appeal was denied, and Kashmiri is currently home in Atlanta, serving the first weeks of his two-year suspension.

But the disciplinary process can be difficult for those on the other side, too, Deignan noted.

“Sometimes it is heartbreaking to come to work on this committee,” Deignan said. “One has to be passionate about our standards and dispassionate about the facts.”

This is the second article in a five-part series on the Honor Committee and the Committee on Discipline.Please clickherefor the rest of the "University Justice" series.