If you visit West Point, the U.S. Military Academy, you are likely to find yourself on Thayer Walk. The Walk is a broad road blocked to vehicles for a few hundred yards, starting at one end in a cul-de-sac that was shaded until recently by stately elms. Alas, disease made them unsafe and they are now cut down. I miss the shade and the shadows of their leaves in the afternoon light, outside my office window.
If you come to the Walk from this end, the long low wall towards the river will catch your attention and there you will see the Civil War Reconciliation stones. Here the Long Grey Line of cadets who have graduated from the Point since 1806 honor those who fought bravely in that bloodiest of conflicts, both for the Union and for the Confederacy. Ultimately, the inscriptions tell us, both sides could respect those who fought honorably in the honest belief that they were duty-bound so to do. It was a painful but cathartic reconciliation that took generations to accomplish.
Walk another 2 blocks or so. Up ahead is the Plain where the cadet Corps assembles, 4000 strong, for formal parades and reviews, the viewing stands along one side shining in the early autumn sunlight. Further back is Storm King Mountain and to your right and below flows the Hudson River. In Henry Hudson's day, the tricky currents of the river and the winds funnelled by the unyielding granite of the mountain challenged the wooden ships and their crews. Today barges and pleasureboats make their way upstream with ease, past Bannerman Island where the old castelated ruins still beckon. But during the Revolutionary War, this narrow, difficult passage was a strategic defense point against the British navy. The American army has been here ever since.
As you come down Thayer Walk towards the Plain, between the granite buildings with their whimsical gargoyles fashioned after cadets and the subjects they study, you find yourself in front of the Honor Bench. A simple set of stone seats and behind them carved in stone the heart of the Long Grey Line, the immovable center of West Point, the cadet Honor Code:
A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.
Simple, stark and taken very seriously.
The cadets own the Honor Code. It is theirs -- they absorb it, they enforce it and they pass it on to new cadets each year. Cadet teams investigate potential honor violations, cadet Honor Boards hold formal hearings for those charges which appear to potentially be valid. JAGs give advice and, if the allegations involve academic cheating, faculty may be asked to testify, but from start to finish the process belongs to and is run by the cadets.
In the old days, cadets who were Found (i.e found to have violated the Honor Code) were "separated" -- cast out of the Corps, shunned by all and forced to leave. Even today, a cadet who is found moves out of his barracks to a room in the on-post motel while the Superintendent of the Academy, a 3 star general, decides whether to accept the Board's recommended punishment or impose another. Found cadets who are not separated may be turned back (required to leave until the next year) or required to spend some time as an enlisted soldier before returning to the Point.
So what sorts of violations might trigger such strong action? Not crimes - those are dealt with through the military justice system. Instead, the honor system deals with violations of the key commitment cadets make to one another:
A cadet will not lie, cheat or steal, or tolerate those who do.
On the battlefield, officers must be able to trust the integrity and honesty of their peers. An officer who lies about an action he took, fudges the account of a disastrous encounter, takes credit for something someone else did -- such an officer cannot be tolerated, because lives are at stake.
And so at the Point, future officers develop the deeply ingrained habits of truthfulness, honesty and high standards despite painful consequences.
I have had a cadet turn in a major assignment (completing assignments is a duty - no cadet is allowed just to take a 0%, work must be turned it) and include in his Documentation of sources used, "This work was copied from the work of Cadet X."
No honor violation there. No academic credit, but no honor violation. Simple honesty. I had a long office session with the cadet in question, evaluated what he had learned and what he was still having trouble with in my class, and we took things from there.
It's not unheard of for a cadet to self-report, i.e. to report on his or her own initiative that s/he has violated the code. Self-reporting does not get one off the hook -- recently, informed rumor had it, a well-regarded firstie (senior) self-reported that s/he allowed a younger cadet to use the firstie's ID while on a trip. As a consequence, it was said, the firstie was turned back for a semester despite being within months of graduation. Details of honor cases are kept confidential so I cannot confirm this story, but neither the self-reporting nor the consequence would be surprising.
The honor system at West Point works, not because it is imposed from without, but because the Corps, as a professional community, embraces and enforces it from within. Cadets called to serve on an honor board grapple with issues of integrity, proportional punishment and trust. Whose word to believe when a cadet denies the charges against him? What evidence is there?
And always in the back of their minds - and explicitly, in the process - is the knowledge that a compromise of the honor code is a compromise of the Corps itself and a failure of accountability to those who came before and who will come in future years.
It is enormously impressive to watch, as I have, these 18-21 year old men and women reinforce, embrace and live out this code of honor and integrity.
Watching the ongoing debacle regarding Dan Rather, CBS and what appear to be clearly forged documents, I can only wish that Rather and the leaders of CBS had the moral clarity and the willingness to assume responsibility that my young students show daily.
New cadet candidates arrive at West Point every summer and spend weeks in Cadet Basic Training (affectionately called Beast Barracks) out at a camp in the woods nearby. Those who make it through are sworn in as cadets and begin their 4 year experience at the Point. Beast Barracks, as with all training at the Point, is run in part by a cadre of upperclass cadets. One of the simple lessons the candidates learn is honesty and directness in response to questions. To instill these traits, only 4 basic responses are acceptable when they are questioned about their actions:
Yes, Sir/Ma'am.
No, Sir/Ma'am.
I don't know, Sir/Ma'am.
and perhaps the most important of all,
No excuse, Sir/Ma'am.
No excuses, no stonewalling, no dependent clauses. Did you do such and such? Yes or no. Why did you do something proscribed or fail to do what you were supposed to?
No excuse. I take responsibility for my failure.
That kind of clarity means that commanders will get honest, timely reports during battle -- good news or bad. It means that if your peer says he has delivered supplies or secured an area, then he has done so to the best of his knowledge and ability. It means that when mistakes are made or things go wrong, everyone says so and gets on with the business of fixing the situation.
If 18 year olds can learn to meet that standard, perhaps it's not unreasonable to expect adults to do so as well.
UPDATE: Readers may enjoy Rolling Stone writer David Lipsky's book Absolutely American, based on 4 years of interviews and unfettered access to cadets. He comments that, to his surprise, West Point cadets are the happiest undergraduates he's met. There are some reasons for that, and the honor code is one of them.
Robin
Thanks for such an insightful post. I might add that the Honor Code is not only prevalent in the Military Academies but is also prevalent through out the military branches. It is made clear within each branch that there is no room for liars, cheats, or thieves and they tend to police themselves very well for the most part. It could be said that the academies take the white lie to the extreme but then again it is what sets them apart from the rank and file. Call it skull and bones call it what you like. I will say this much though, those who live by the code expect the same from all regardless of stature in society.
As for the CBS scandal. Corporate politics will be the order of the day. In a sense it seems as though the public at large has gotten so used to being told lies that not only do they expect it to happen they expect it to happen without reprisal.
This code does indeed permeate all levels of the services, USMC, so far as I have seen. Perhaps CBS should send some executives to study how the cadet corps instills these values and how the military services create a culture in which they are upheld.
Actually, a retired general and West Point grad runs a center for ethical business leadership. He comes to West Point to meet with high school seniors each summer. Unfortunately, the message hasn't gotten through to their elders yet, it would appear.
It's not the age, Robin, it's the expectations. The military is a profession. Journalism is not a profession, it's a trade. And, until very recently, it hasn't been a particularly honorable one. Go back and take a look at The Front Page. No, not the more recent movie, the old version with Pat O'Brien and Adolphe Menjou. The old cliches of reporters as hard-drinking, crude, cynical reprobates is a cliche because it had an element of truth. Now compare that The Paper. Quite a difference.
Journalists are just returning to their roots.
To echo Dave Schuler, the old TV series "Kolchak" comes to mind as to what journalism is reverting.
The more I reflect on that thought, Rather might have a new calling in doing a new series on reporting on the "fantastic and the supernatural".
There are also completely civilian institutions with self-administered Honor Codes.
As far as CBS, I remain completely mystified by what happened in CBS's vetting process, and why they found their source trustworthy.
I retired with 22 years in the Army as a Sergeant First Class (E-7)about 15 years ago.
Having worked with more than a few ring knockers, I have my own version of the "code."
"I will try winning fair and square first, but I will win and never tolerate anyone who doesn't."
In any endeavor that involves risk, honesty is a nice trait. But I have never met a sucessful US Army officer who let honesty get between him and winning.
But that is just my way of seeing things, you are welcome to yours!
Robin, All very valid points. One problem this website has noted, however, is in the carrying out of the Honor Code. I’m thinking, in particular, of the fact that cadets are the enforcers of the code, and of the case of Cadet Andrea Prasse at the US Air Force Academy.
The USAFA, of course, was modeled on West Point and its Honor Code is identical. Ms. Prasse was haled before their honor court in 2002 eight days before her graduation, on the word of one prosecution witness, a jilted male cadet. “I didn’t lie or cheat. My teacher says I didn’t lie or cheat. My group members say I didn’t lie or cheat. And then this one cadet says that I did, and they find me guilty beyond a reasonable doubt.” Apparently the Air Force found it in error because they subsequently exonerated her, at least to the extent that she got her degree and a reserve commission.
This site had considerable discussion about the USAFA controversies, with further hyperlinks therein. While I don’t agree that this is an argument for junking the Honor Code, let alone the academy system, I wonder about the due process aspect. You’re right, Robin, in that the cadets should own the Honor Code. I wonder whether a 20- or 21-year-old senior cadet is capable of due process, or separating it from the culture. The Honor Code, as Ms. Prasse shows, may be vulnerable to misuse, in this case, accessory to breach of military law against abuse and rape.
Let me say, in light of this thread, that I am not an academy graduate, though I can claim 23 years as a reserve officer (Major, MP, US Army Reserve). I did get journalism training in college, and was a reporter and editor for a while in civilian life, and I can attest that that trade doesn’t have a clear code of ethics other than “don’t plagiarize,” though I hewed to honesty in reporting. I’m now in my last year of law school and I can say that the profession has a very strong, express code of ethics – see the ABA Model Rules of Conduct, especially Rule 8.4 on professional misconduct, which is quite similar to the honor code on dishonesty -- and another case of insiders enforcing professional ethics. State bar associations enforce rules like this, state Supreme Courts handle appeals, and the penalty for breach can easily be disbarment.
Difference here is that it isn’t 21-year-old law students upholding an entire profession, but its senior practitioners. This distinction is important because military officers – at least company commanders and above – do have judicial powers over their people in conducting Art. 15 proceedings – as I have – or convening courts-martial, and I’m speaking of line officers (including academy graduates), not the JAGs who conduct the trials.
Robin: I’d be curious just what sort of oversight goes with this code. The trouble with the proceedings is, that if they’re inquisitorial rather than adversarial (i.e., without, rather than with, opposing sides and a neutral panel) they do not reflect even military justice. I have not worked under this particular Honor Code and I do not contest it but I wonder about entrusting cadets with this kind of authority. Particularly when, in entering military service, the UCMJ governs, not the Honor Code.
PS. Quite another question is whether Dan and friends were dishonest -- or simply credulous and sloppy in running the story on that evidence. “Credulous and sloppy” is a breach of another unwritten canon in the newspaper trade. Even Hildy Johnson’s “Front Page” wouldn’t go there.
BTW: the link to Sensing's article on rape in the Army is dysfunctional (throught the link to USAFA controversies).
But Bob H's comments are slightly skewed by the fact that the honor code's effects are pretty tightly controlled by senior officer leadership at the academies once things go beyond identifying the offenders. This is means that his penultimate paragraph is answered by "the academies regard the Honor Code as so important that they don't let the cadets screw it up". It is important that cadets be intimately involved in enforcing the Code, but as we can see at USAFA's sexual abuse scandal, trusting in the cadets might be reliance on weak vessels indeed.
Now, I've some choice comments about the ethics of many lawyers whom I've chanced to deal with on a professional basis. In toto, they aren't a bad lot, but the bad apples simply are regarded as outliers and not as reprobates. So I hope Bob doesn't get dissappointed in his next profession.
Bob Harmon's comment is right on the money. I have my own feelings about the ABA code of ethics. There are things that were absolutely considered to be unethical by the practice 40 years ago that are commonplace now IMO to the detriment of the profession.
Dave Schuler,
Forty years ago? I seriously doubt that the ethics of lawyers has degraded significantly over the years. Or do you need to be reminded of the ethical lapses of attorneys in the Watergate years?
The profession of journalism:
Until quite recently, let's say the WWII era, most news organizations (meaning newspapers) were the adjuncts of political parties (this is why Republican and Democrat are so often part of a newspaper's name); its only in the post-WWII era we have created news organizations which are supposed to be "objective," etc., and that can at least be partly blamed on the efforts of government to create broadcast news organizations which are "objective." So what we think of the "ethics" of journalism has changed significantly over the twentieth century, and I don't neccessarily think that an ethic where "objectivity" has been held as ideal has been especially useful.
To Tom Roberts, you've grasped my point exactly,
>> It is important that cadets be intimately involved in enforcing the Code, but as we can see at USAFA's sexual abuse scandal, trusting in the cadets might be reliance on weak vessels indeed.<<
Yes, yes, yes.
I don't dispute the Honor Code itself, but I do question the idea that the cadets would understand the corollaries of that code: a sense of both objectivity and justice. That needs tutoring and oversight.
To Dave Schuler, I have no illusions about the profession as practiced, hell, I can see in the back pages of California Lawyer every month just who gets disbarred or suspended simply for carelessness with clients' trust accounts. And deservedly.
The fun part of lawyering, if you practice on your own, is that you can be a gladiator with a letter of marque. And the cruellest thing you can do to any profession, be it law, the military, or the government, is that you hold them to the words they profess.
"In all other professions in which men engage, says I to myself, says I; the Army, the Navy, the Church, or the stage ...
Professional license, if carried too far, your chance for promotion will certainly mar, and I fancy this rule might apply to the Bar."
-- the law according to W.S. Gilbert, former attorney
He comments that, to his surprise, West Point cadets are the happiest undergraduates he's met. There are some reasons for that, and the honor code is one of them.
Or it could be that happy people simply self-select to be there.
Also, how do you know that the Code works? It seems to me that there are enough attempts to cover stuff up over the Army's history to state that its hardly perfect. Or are you arguing that its better than nothing?
For Honor Codes to work, the entire community, including the staff, must buy into it and teach the code directly and indirectly. Otherwise, honor codes can become the world's least expensive and least effective proctoring method. West Point is a special environment that is highly structured and has a strong network of traditions. People attend West Point to participate in and pass on those traditions, which really helps.
Michael S.
The key word here is risk. In times of war especially when life or death is on the line the rule book and codes go out the window.
Bob H.
Are you advocating that it is wrong to hold people or organizations accountable for their actions or are you arguing it is wrong for organizations and people of those organizations to hold themselves accountable for their own actions? Not quiet sure I follow your line of thought here other than enforcing accountability is destructive versus constructive.
Gary
The Honor Code and conduct that goes against it are separate issues. If you follow the code you have nothing to worry about save the Hamilton / Burr effect. At that point you get into Bob H. and his concerns of enforcement and whether or not the jury so to speak is capable of administering the code without bias or malice. The same applies to jury selections and judicial appointments. I’ll step out on a very weak limb here and state that yes we as a discerning public do see and hear about the results of failures and successes in administering such a code. The difference here is the general public is not subject to the code and regardless of their perceptions their views don’t apply. The bigger question is if and when should public law / uniform code of military justice intervene or take precedence.
re: objectivity and justice, JAGs are involved in the West Point honor cases in order to ensure that legal proprieties are met.
It's my experience that cadets do a pretty good job of balanced investigation and proportionate action. Lipsky's book details the honor case of an unpopular cadet -- the cadet board threw out the case when the accuser admitted she set him up with a hostile question then used his answer to bring charges against him. That sort of headhunting is frowned upon and discredits the accuser.
Alice is dead on when she says the entire community must buy into a code like this if it is to work well. Professions like journalism have codes of ethics, but enforcing them can be tricky and may not have wide and deep support.
How do I know it works at West Point? There are two levels at which an honor code might work. First, in how it is administered. And second, in the actions it encourages.
Re: the latter, I look around and generally see compliance. Cadets regularly admit and often self-report information that is detrimental to them. Cadets never lock their rooms (are not allowed to), but the thefts are rare. Academic cheating does happen on occasion, but when my cadets must allocate credit for team projects among the members, most often they all agree who did how much of the work and where they got help.
Based on discussions I've had with undergrads elsewhere, these standards are not as widely held or enforced elsewhere.
Re: the administration of the honor system, the numbers of cadets who are found vs. investigated are small as a percentage of the Corps size, but the time spent is substantial and significant effort is made to ensure fairness. Accused cadets bring a supporting cadet with them to honor hearings and other cadets are allowed to watch the procedings. There is substantial peer pressure to both uphold the code and to be fair. I've watched it in action and it generally works well.
However -- and it may be a big 'however' to some -- there is no fudging the standard. A lie, i.e. a false statement made with the intent to deceive, is unacceptable whether the issue lied about is a small matter or a huge one. That's because the mission at USMA is to create leaders of character and not just to enforce rules.
One other thing: not all cadets or grads live up to the code. But it is significant that it is promulgated and that many do, to a degree that exceeds (by a long shot) what I saw in the corporate world and in academics elsewhere (see my post today on academic fraud).
Also, re: Lipsky's comments about cadets being the happiest undergrads he met, he also notes they gripe constantly -- but are happy nonetheless.
I'm not at all sure that's just because they self-select for that. I've taught plebes (freshmen), who seem to run the gamut of emotional stances when they arrive and in some cases have taught the same cadets as firsties (seniors). I think it's formed in many and reinforced in others throughout the 4 year process. There is a common shift in emotional stance that often occurs during their time at the Academy that I have not observed happening, necessarily, in students at other schools.
Finally, I should respond to the Air Force Academy sexual harassment situation. The Air Force Academy has a different culture in some ways from West Point and its mechanisms for overall development of cadets are a little different. USMA invited an outside panel to investigate whether there was a culture of harassment and whether the mechanisms for reporting and validating harassment claims were supportive and appropriate. The response was that USMA was doing very well, which is about what I've heard informally from women cadets as well.
Bob Harmon:
For me the practice of law is the path not taken. My dad was a lawyer. I expected for much of my life that I would be one, too. When he died (at age 53) it took the wind out of my sails.
I had decent grades, took the LSAT's (96th percentile), applied to schools, admitted to Michigan. Then just decided not to go. I frequently regret the choice.
In my previous comment I was speaking quite concretely. Advertising was considered unethical. It was considered "fomenting litigation". Now it's a commonplace.
To USMC, You ask if "Are you advocating that it is wrong to hold people or organizations accountable for their actions or are you arguing it is wrong for organizations and people of those organizations to hold themselves accountable for their own actions? ... enforcing accountability is destructive versus constructive."
Actually, I advocate neither, that it is right to hold people and institutions accountable and that self-regulation is one useful way. Both the Honor Code and the law profession's various rules of professional conduct serve that latter purpose, to hold themselves and the profession accountable. And, the academies and the legal profession also have to answer to the laws of the United States, which is to say, the people and Gov't of the US. All of that is proper.
My point, once more, is that any "Code" should involve due process and oversight, that's all. The law profession entrusts this to senior members. The academies entrust that to cadets, as Robin mentions. I wonder whether a 21-year-old has a clear notion of due process. I question if any institution can carry out anything in a closed, unaccountable proceeding without it lending itself to abuse. The Andrea Prasse matter suggests that an Honor Code cloaked an institutional problem, rather than solving it.
The concept is fine. The execution of it is the critical point.
Robin's point seems to be, in the last post, that the USMA culture is healthy and that the Honor Code reflects it, and that some outside oversight did buttress its fairness. And if the USMA uses the Army leadership manuals -- FM 22-100, was it? -- in its leadership classes then it is teaching a leadership style that is fair and just. But that sense of justice is vital. Does a cadet have it fully-developed? Because the Honor Code system has some of them sitting in judgment in a real-life tribunal. That does need oversight.
Actually, a great deal of care is given to preparing cadets to administer the Honor Code at West Point. Both officers and more senior cadets train junior cadets for these roles.
More broadly, cadets are given extensive responsibility for running the Corps, but it is always with oversight and in incremental chunks. Plebes are responsible for learning to follow. Yearlings (sophomores) are responsible for a plebe. Cows (juniors - don't ask how that name arose, I haven't the faintest!) take on broader leadership roles and firsties (seniors) run the regiments and the brigade.
One of the 3 dimensions of cadet life -- the military training -- is devoted to teaching them how to do this and to giving them real leadership roles with real responsibilities for running the Corps.
In order to accomplish this, West Point staff include an entire structure of Tactical Officers and Tactical NCOs who monitor, teach and evaluate the cadets as followers and leaders, headed up by the Commandant, a Brigadier General with command experience in the operational Army.
(The other general officers on post are the Dean, another Brigadier General who is promoted from among the academic department heads and serves for an extended period, and the Superintendent, a LtGen or 3-star, who has had extensive command experience in the operational army.)
Having said this, I think Bob Harmon is emphasizing only one side of an important balance. It is true that oversight and training are important if the Honor Code is to be executed fairly and well. It is equally true that the fact that the cadets have real power and responsibility for the honor process is a major reason it is fair and effective. Every cadet serving on an honor board, or on the honor committee which manages the entire process, knows that there will be real consequences as a result of how well or how poorly they do their job.
But since that is true of ALL of their leadership training at the Point, it's not surprising they tend to do it well.