The Honor System
The Honor System has been run by the student body since 1905 and is derived from Robert E. Lee during his tenure as President of the University. Any student found guilty of an Honor Violation by his or her peers is subject to a single penalty: expulsion. The Honor System is defined and administered solely by students, and there is no higher review. A formal review, occasionally including referenda, is held every three years to refine the tenets of the Honor System. Students continue to support the Honor System and its single penalty overwhelmingly, and alumni regularly point to the Honor System as one of the distinctive marks they carry with them from their W&L experience. W&L Law students enjoy several distinct benefits from the Honor System. These include more freedom in exam taking as well as an informal account system at the Brief Stop cafeteria in Sydney Lewis Hall. These are balanced by the strict penalty of a violation of the Honor System.
Students pledge the following prior to turning in assignments and exams:
"On my honor, I have neither given nor received any unacknowledged aid on this (exam, test, paper, etc.)."
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Famous quotes containing the words honor and/or system:
“It recognizes no morality but a sham morality meant for deceit, no honor even among thieves and of a thievish sort, no force but physical force, no intellectual power but cunning, no disgrace but failure, no crime but stupidity.”
—Woodrow Wilson (1856–1924)
“Fear, coercion, punishment, are the masculine remedies for moral weakness, but statistics show their failure for centuries. Why not change the system and try the education of the moral and intellectual faculties, cheerful surroundings, inspiring influences? Everything in our present system tends to lower the physical vitality, the self-respect, the moral tone, and to harden instead of reforming the criminal.”
—Elizabeth Cady Stanton (1815–1902)