Bring graduates to honor: Graduate student Honor Code violators should be heard by the Honor Court

The graduate student government is right to make dealing with Honor Code violations through the honor system a top priority.

The Graduate and Professional Student Federation is currently attempting to get more Honor Code violations — which include plagiarism and cheating on tests — reported to the graduate student attorney general.

Right now many graduate student violations are dealt with by individual professors and not officially reported.

This is a problem.

Faculty are required in the Honor Code to report violations to either the undergraduate or graduate student attorney general.

By circumventing the system professors are not giving accused graduate students a fair chance to prove their innocence.

And for guilty students a professor-implemented censure does not carry the legitimacy of a censure that has gone through the honor system.

The honor system is part of our unique tradition of self-governance at UNC.

But self-governance only works if the people involved abide by the set rules. When people — faculty or students — circumvent the system the system cannot function.

No doubt many professors find the honor system inefficient. Reported violations can take a long time to sort out.

But the honor system does not exist for convenience.

Professor-implemented censures have no systematic method. They are arbitrary even if they are well-intentioned. And a professor who knows students personally has no way to remove his or her bias from the situation.

The federation's decision to encourage professors to report Honor Code violations is a decision to reinstate impartial judgments for graduate students.

Sending violations through honor system will protect innocent students and ensure that guilty students are properly dealt with.