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Comment by tillinghast | Hacker News Reader

> The last time this happened, everyone involved was dismissed or resigned.

That would be 1976, when all 153 fourth-year cadets were expelled. I guess we're all enlightened now. From the article: "Nearly all of those who admitted guilt have been allowed to remain at the academy on the condition that they complete a rehabilitation program that includes meeting with a mentor and after-hours classes about the honor system and the importance of being a better leader..."

A "rehabilitation program". Not only should these cadets be expelled, but so should the clowns running this program.

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> That would be 1976, when all 153 fourth-year cadets were expelled. I guess we're all enlightened now

Actually, the majority if the 1976 participants were allowed to return to West Point:

> Ninety-two of those involved in the scandal were later readmitted as cadets and allowed to graduate after accepting a Pentagon amnesty that required them to complete a year of “useful service” away from the academy.

See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/nyregion/west-point-cheat...

> In 2015, Ophardt explained, the academy made changes to the honor code allowing for second chances.

Why did they change this? Did the other US military academies (USAFA, USNA, USCGA) change their codes/concepts, as well?

The Honor Code is (was?) straightforward and if you broke it, you were gone.

For whatever reason, the stance toward academic dishonesty has changed everywhere in higher education for reasons that aren't clear to me.

The two other institutions I taught at used to have very strict policies about it and then at some point they became laxer in a similar way. It used to be a no warnings policy, and then became more wishy washy.

I always assumed it was to be more realistic, in that many students were being granted exceptions of sorts. There also can be a lot of grey area with cheating. Overall my impression was that some lawyers recommended the change to avoid liability. But I really don't know.

Its completely clear to me. If you kick out a first-year student, you've deprived the university of the next three years of income from that student.

We've allowed money to become the guiding principle of higher education, rather than ability.

The sad truth no one wants to admit to, is that most people don't need to go to college, and frankly, if we were go to back just 60 years to the rigor of those curriculums, most people couldn't hack it, either.

That doesn't really apply in this case-- for service academies student's are all on a full-scholarship and are paid a stipend.

If anything it would be cheaper to kick them out. But that is at odds with the goal (competent service-members).

A zero tolerance policy often has unwanted outcomes. Because the punishment is so extreme even for minor problems it isn't enforced that way in practice, unwritten policies are used. It means that problems cannot be corrected, you can't learn from mistakes

>The last time this happened

It's just the last time they were caught en masse.

Otherwise, I'm pretty sure that this has happened time and again...

> > The last time this happened

> It's just the last time they were caught en masse.

Yeah that's what happened here, so that's exactly what “the last time this happened” means.

When you develop a system that can successfully impose consequences for behavior without detecting it, let us know.

>Yeah that's what happened here, so that's exactly what “the last time this happened” means.

Well, hardly "exactly", as it also implies the cheating last happened at that time, which is, I'm willing to bet, not true...

>When you develop a system that can successfully impose consequences for behavior without detecting it, let us know

That's trivial and doesn't need inventing. You just impose consequences without detection. Not fair, but trivial to implement.

But how about better detection? If the "last time" they were caught was 1975, then something is surely amiss...

Well, the only time you can really prove cheating, is when people get the same wrong answers....

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