Editorial: An Honor Code That Says Less — and Risks More

Last spring, the College Council proposed shortening the current honor code, which is four pages long, to just one paragraph. The vote was ultimately cancelled in response to widespread student concern over its implications, and the administration promised further discussion during the following semester. The proposal returned to the Association of Amherst Students (AAS) last Monday. A town hall to address questions and concerns raised by the broader student body was hosted the following Wednesday, and the vote is now slated for this Monday. Students will receive instructions to vote via email on Monday at noon and will have until Tuesday at noon to cast their vote.

We, the Editorial Board, have several significant issues with the proposed honor code. The college not only failed to deliver on its promise of a clearer, more deliberate process, but also disregarded substantive concerns about the honor code’s content by leaving the language of the original spring 2025 proposal untouched.

As we explained in our response to the proposal last spring, reducing the honor code (found here) to a single paragraph removes several rights and standards in the current text including: “the right to protest and to dissent in a peaceable manner and to join with others in other nonviolent forms of common action”; “the right to privacy in one’s assigned room”; the right to be free from harassment based on one’s social and political identities; and, most importantly to us — “the right to engage in the free exchange of ideas,” which allows us to publish articles without concerns of censorship or personal attack. On campus, The Amherst Student is one of the primary spaces where an exchange of ideas takes place in a formal, public, and accessible way. For that reason, we care deeply — not just as observers, but as participants — about the very exchange of ideas the honor code claims to protect. Removing this language only muddies our understanding of our rights and obligations.

We are also concerned about the rushed rollout of the proposal. Similar to last year’s proposal timeline, this year’s action meets students at a time — in the week before spring break and at the height of midterms for many students — where opportunities to read, discuss, and critically engage with the proposal are limited. Between a town hall hosted on a Wednesday evening and a vote scheduled for the following Monday, students are not meaningfully able to engage with the proposal through The Student, one of Amherst’s main forums for public discourse. This lack of a moderated space for debate and the dissemination of information has encouraged many students to turn to informal platforms, like Fizz, to gauge the popularity of the issue based on anonymous upvotes and posts.

We understand that there may be a compelling reason for this new proposal — whether that be clarity, student-body unity, or ease in remembering our core Amherst values. But these repeated procedural inconsistencies have only made things more confusing for students. In a broader political climate where transparency and participation are increasingly under strain, the normalization of rushed decisions and restricted access to information sets a troubling precedent. It raises concerns about how student voices are valued in institutional decision-making more broadly. For a college whose motto is “Let them enlighten the lands,” its students are unfortunately being kept in the dark for decisions like this.

As a publication that prioritizes student voices and is composed entirely of students, The Amherst Student Editorial Board encourages fellow Amherst students to vote “no” on the new honor code proposal. We urge our peers to carefully consider the process by which this proposal has been advanced, to reflect on the changes in content, and to vote accordingly.

Unsigned editorials represent the views of the majority of the Editorial Board (assenting: 4; dissenting: 0; abstaining: 0)

Editor’s note: The Amherst Student publishes weekly on Wednesdays. Because the vote for the proposed honor code will be held between Monday and Tuesday, the Editorial Board voted to publish its editorial this Monday so that it could be taken into consideration before students may vote on the proposed honor code.