rjb
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USAFA to expell 22 cadets
- Thread starter rjb
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Physicsguru
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Likely pending the appeal of the 22 expelled.
JP4
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From the article:
“We realize that everybody doesn’t come from the same background. They don’t have the same focus or view of living honorably, and we have to meet them where they are,” Clark said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that we have to accept where they are. But we have to … help them to get where we need them to be.”
I wonder what exactly the mean by that.
“We realize that everybody doesn’t come from the same background. They don’t have the same focus or view of living honorably, and we have to meet them where they are,” Clark said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that we have to accept where they are. But we have to … help them to get where we need them to be.”
I wonder what exactly the mean by that.
msidea1967
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People come into the military from different backgrounds with different values that may be at odds with what is expected as a cadet and future officer. Part of the indoctrination process in any military initial training (the service academics, ROTC, OCS, basic training, etc) is to establish what the common baseline expectations for behavior and values for those individuals joining the organization. Sometimes it goes smoothly and sometimes it requires more intervention on the part of the Academy or the military to modify individual behavior until they actually inculcate the necessary values to serve honorably and faithfully. Where there’s appropriate room to allow people to grow and not just cut them off for mistakes made, the Academy will take it.
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“We realize that everybody doesn’t come from the same background. They don’t have the same focus or view of living honorably, and we have to meet them where they are,” Clark said. “Now, that doesn’t mean that we have to accept where they are. But we have to … help them to get where we need them to be.”
I wonder what exactly they mean by that."
Taking off ALO hat, Mod Hat, and putting on "old grad" hat...
I think what it means is: "there's no way on God's green earth we're going to disenroll 200+ violators of the honor code. It would be a national scandal, it would REALLY look bad for the academy, and it could be a political minefield."
I mean, there's precedent for NOT enforcing the honor code isn't there? I mean...oh, wait...let's think...
1965 Cheating Scandal at USAFA: 109 cadets disenrolled and given discharges ranging from honorable to other than honorable.
1967 Cheating Scandal at USAFA: 46 cadets disenrolled (I couldn't find discharge types)
1972 Cheating Scandal at USAFA: 39 cadets disenrolled (I couldn't find discharge types)
There are others...
And now this one...245 cadets violated the honor code. And we're trying to "socially understand" that it's not their fault, they didn't really make a conscious decision to cheat, that it was socially engineered by society to be a part of their inner psyche?
BOVINE SCATOLOGY!
(with thanks to the late General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.)
Let's see...I received the same lessons on the honor code during BCT that these people did. I had LOTS of chances to speak with honor reps, to do a "what if..." with them. We had honor boards all year and ALL cadets were required to read the results and initial a document attesting to having done so. Many of us sat on those boards. We saw first-hand how the code was administered. And we didn't have "probation" for a finding of guilty.
There were three possible outcomes of an honor board:
1. Guilty of violating the honor code
2. Guilty of violating the honor code but with a recommendation to the Commandant of Cadets for Discretion
3. A finding of no violation
That was it. The first one saw you leaving the academy within @10 days. The second...your fate was in the hands of the Commandant. The third...you went back to the wing. I both loved and feared the honor code. I loved the fact that I could leave things in my room (we didn't have keys to lock the doors then) and never worry about anything disappearing. I feared the very thought of someone thinking I might have stepped over the line. I think it might have been easy to cheat in my math classes but I was SO afraid of being before an honor board...I could accept academic failure and my family could have to. But to be sent home for honor? I couldn't live with that.
And I saw the pain, the absolute soul-crushing results of an honor violation. A good friend of mine, a classmate, a gent I'd known from the first minutes of BCT...made a mistake during a final exam three weeks before graduation. He ended up before an honor board. He was found in violation (he admitted everything, said he'd made a mistake). The SECAF had to be consulted on his case as it was so close to graduation. The decision was that he would graduate with the class, he would NOT receive his commission, and he would immediately be ordered to active duty in an enlisted status for five years.
(I have a problem with that solution, but that's for another rant)
When I think of him, and others...this "solution" of USAFA is, to me, insulting to their memory and to the graduates that came before.
Okay, old guy rant over...
(Geez, I sound old...)
I wonder what exactly they mean by that."
Taking off ALO hat, Mod Hat, and putting on "old grad" hat...
I think what it means is: "there's no way on God's green earth we're going to disenroll 200+ violators of the honor code. It would be a national scandal, it would REALLY look bad for the academy, and it could be a political minefield."
I mean, there's precedent for NOT enforcing the honor code isn't there? I mean...oh, wait...let's think...
1965 Cheating Scandal at USAFA: 109 cadets disenrolled and given discharges ranging from honorable to other than honorable.
1967 Cheating Scandal at USAFA: 46 cadets disenrolled (I couldn't find discharge types)
1972 Cheating Scandal at USAFA: 39 cadets disenrolled (I couldn't find discharge types)
There are others...
And now this one...245 cadets violated the honor code. And we're trying to "socially understand" that it's not their fault, they didn't really make a conscious decision to cheat, that it was socially engineered by society to be a part of their inner psyche?
BOVINE SCATOLOGY!
(with thanks to the late General H. Norman Schwarzkopf, Jr.)
Let's see...I received the same lessons on the honor code during BCT that these people did. I had LOTS of chances to speak with honor reps, to do a "what if..." with them. We had honor boards all year and ALL cadets were required to read the results and initial a document attesting to having done so. Many of us sat on those boards. We saw first-hand how the code was administered. And we didn't have "probation" for a finding of guilty.
There were three possible outcomes of an honor board:
1. Guilty of violating the honor code
2. Guilty of violating the honor code but with a recommendation to the Commandant of Cadets for Discretion
3. A finding of no violation
That was it. The first one saw you leaving the academy within @10 days. The second...your fate was in the hands of the Commandant. The third...you went back to the wing. I both loved and feared the honor code. I loved the fact that I could leave things in my room (we didn't have keys to lock the doors then) and never worry about anything disappearing. I feared the very thought of someone thinking I might have stepped over the line. I think it might have been easy to cheat in my math classes but I was SO afraid of being before an honor board...I could accept academic failure and my family could have to. But to be sent home for honor? I couldn't live with that.
And I saw the pain, the absolute soul-crushing results of an honor violation. A good friend of mine, a classmate, a gent I'd known from the first minutes of BCT...made a mistake during a final exam three weeks before graduation. He ended up before an honor board. He was found in violation (he admitted everything, said he'd made a mistake). The SECAF had to be consulted on his case as it was so close to graduation. The decision was that he would graduate with the class, he would NOT receive his commission, and he would immediately be ordered to active duty in an enlisted status for five years.
(I have a problem with that solution, but that's for another rant)
When I think of him, and others...this "solution" of USAFA is, to me, insulting to their memory and to the graduates that came before.
Okay, old guy rant over...
(Geez, I sound old...)
Not old... wise
No1Fanof2
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I dont know the circumstances where the cheating occurred, except it was when everyone got sent home for covid. That was a very hard for adjustment for everyone. Not everyone went home to a space where they could quietly and privately work. Not everyone had adequate internet connection. Not everyone went back to the same home life they left or became use to at the academy. Many factors to make someone become desperate and make unwise decisions. Hopefully all can have a fair shot to an appeal to plead their case.
Small Team Bacsi
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Group cheating at all the SAs over the years——-could there be anything good about this?
It could if you assume that the strong bonds that help lift everyone together against obstacles can also lead to group cheating and other honor code violations. Other violations like not reporting cheaters that you are aware of. (See the study above)
In one different survey 62% of approx 700 + USAFA grads said they knew of cheaters they did not report those cheaters as the honor code required them to do.
2020HD
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When you watch 4,000 cadets or Mids walk by, one after the other for about 20 minutes, you realize right away it’s OK to toss out a few cheaters, drop some for failure to meet standards, or let a few pursue a professional sports deferment. There’s more than enough of them (not even counting OCS and ROTC) to insist on an honor code. And for all sorts of reasons, they should.
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Forgive my curiosity, and unrelated to the topic, but how would this affect those guys' draft status if the discharges were other than honorable? There was more than a slight risk of ending up carrying a rifle in a swamp, PFC-style, unless this made them ineligible to serve.
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Small Team Bacsi
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A few?
A survey of 700+ USAFA grads, no names attached, were asked in a survey if they knew of cheating and did not report it ——an honor code infraction—-62% were found to have not reported but tolerated the cheating.
62% who should have been thrown out themselves? It’s these 62% that let cheating exist.
My guess is that if graduation week included a lie detector test——did you ever break the honor code or tolerate those that did—-finding parking places for the actual graduation would be really easy.
And I will speak for every 0311 0327 or 8404 with a CAR or in the process of earning their CAR——absolutely no one would care if their officer had cheated,on a calc exam. Not one of them would.
Informers of room mates who got their room mates kicked out——some might care. A lot might care. Would be seen in less a light than the actual cheaters IMO.
If you have a system set up where so many cheat , and the SAs have a long long history of student cheaters——some few of whom are caught—-the problem may also be with the system not 100% with the students..
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Small Team Bacsi
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New book pulls back curtain on 1976 West Point cheating scandal
“Choosing the Harder Right” tells the story of Cadet Timothy Ringgold, who stood up to senior leadership at his beloved school.
www.militarytimes.com
An interesting look at a previous USMA group cheating crisis
153 cadets expelled for cheating on an exam.
After an investigation about 90 or so reinstated. The reason for the reinstates , allegedly from the article above, because the investigators found that cheating at USMA was much more wide spread than the admin had let on.