President Eisgruber is on the right track in opening up the honor code for discussion. I’m afraid a searching inquiry into this subject will be disquieting. Why have cheating incidents increased? Very simply, it’s because growing numbers of students realize the game has been rigged and they are the ones being hammered.
Thanks to our economists, business leaders, and academic deep thinkers, our students are expected to look forward to working in a zero-sum game in which people get ahead on the basis of everything other than merit.
Aware that 40 cents of every dollar our government spends is borrowed, the economists tell our students, “Not to worry, debt does not matter; we’re never going to pay it, anyway.” Aware that 75 percent of all seats in Congress are safe due to gerrymandering, the “experts” tell our students, “Not to worry, ours is the best system of government on Earth, and we need to bomb the rest of the world into adopting it, or else.”
Even grades no longer mean anything: A good student can be denied a well-deserved good grade merely because his professor is permitted to award only a limited number of good grades.
I don’t approve of cheating on tests, but I can understand the frustrations that bring it about. Our sons and daughters mirror the values of their parents.