The Honor Code Must Be Defended

“I swear on my honor that I …”

The preamble of the Student Honor Code has remained the same since students democratically amended it in 1984: “It’s each student’s responsibility to contribute to an environment of trust that protects the freedom of all to exchange ideas and to grow.” Today, this fundamental purpose — freedom of expression — is under threat. Across the nation, the freedom of higher institutions to promote discourse and defend dissenting views is under attack. Columbia and Harvard are only the latest targets; there and elsewhere student protestors are facing prosecution and deportation. Attacks on free expression are an affront to democracy, and when democracy is threatened, a liberal arts education is at risk. There has never been a greater need nor a firmer urgency for Amherst College to uphold our basic rights — freedom of speech, freedom of protest, and freedom to privacy.

The new Honor Code is a step in the wrong direction. By reducing the Honor Code to three lines, it cheapens the value of the Amherst creed and the strength of its norms. By moving the Honor Code’s rights protections to the Code of Student Conduct — written by the Office of Student Affairs (OSA) — it takes the democratic power to be the keepers of our rights out of our hands. In sum, it would allow Amherst College to quietly abdicate its duty to academic freedom.

The old Honor Code was essentially a student bill of rights. The administration wants to reduce it to a brief credo of academic integrity and curiosity. Moving student rights from the Honor Code to the Student Code of Conduct reduces them from an honest and shared pledge to an enforced decree. While our rights will still exist on paper, there will be a difference in their meaning and therefore their power.

The Honor Code has its own tradition at Amherst College, from which it derives strength. That tradition is more than a commitment to academic integrity. It’s a statement of the college's core values and the values we live by. The preamble reads, “by matriculating at the college, students acknowledge that they have read the Honor Code, including all related statements and standards, and understand their obligations to subscribe to its principles.” When students swear this pledge they promise to act with integrity, but they also promise to uphold the rights which the Honor Code guarantees. The Honor Code has never been purely academic, as the college and its students have always known. The Honor Code is the code we live by and defines the values we share. It means more than a set of rules enforced from above. Unlike the Honor Code, the Student Code of Conduct is written by the administration — not decided democratically. Rights granted by it can also be taken away. In a time when students’ fundamental rights are under attack, any compromise on public expression is a compromise with anti-democratic, anti-constitutional forces.

The new Honor Code will undermine our student democracy by silencing our voice over our own rights. For now, the Honor Code is reviewed every four years by a committee of students and faculty, and all changes are confirmed by a student vote. On the other hand, the OSA can rewrite the Student Code of Conduct with no warning or input. If this vote passes, it will be the last time we will ever be asked to vote on our rights. We will be left at the mercy of the administration, which, like Columbia, could well concede to anti-democratic pressure.

In their article on the new Honor Code, Tim Carroll ’25 and Joe Sweeney ’25 remind us that we were given a mere six days to vote. Six days is not enough given the gravity of the threat we face. The weight of this decision demands discussion and debate. To paraphrase former President James Madison in "Federalist 47," legislative power stems from the deliberative quality of open discourse — it cannot be forced into a limited amount of time. To deprive the student body of time to debate is antidemocratic.

The preamble of the Honor Code declares: “[this document] is collectively shaped and upheld by students, faculty, and staff.” The new Honor Code is a double threat: it deprives the students of a universal credo of rights and the means to uphold them democratically. At best, it’s an awkward exercise in wordplay. At worst, it’s obedience to antidemocratic forces in advance.  The spirit of student democracy, as expressed in the honor code, is our faith to uphold. As Benjamin Franklin warned, “A Republic! If you can keep it.”