Many things are taken for granted at Dartmouth, not the least of which is trust among students and faculty. This is evidenced by our Honor Principle, low crime rate and comparatively safe campus.
But because crimes and offenses do occur sometimes, the administration has created a safety net to catch perpetrators before they jeopardize the web of trust the rest of the community adheres to. But what happens when the safety net doesn't work and the administration does not fulfill its duty? The web is torn, and the community is forced to patch it up as hastily as possible, much to the disappointment of the rest of the student body.
Three out of five women members working on one staff on campus were sexually harassed by their male superior. They reported the incidents to the respective administrative office. No action was taken until eight months later, when he was caught in a more publicized offense which threatened to ruin the reputation of the administrative office. At that time, he was asked to leave his position.
A student made $600 worth of overseas phone calls on Dartmouth Broadcasting phone lines and was not held accountable. The members of the Dartmouth Broadcasting directorate adamantly held to the position that these were personal calls, not station business. But because Dartmouth Broadcasting bylaws do not specifically prohibit overseas calls and do not specify time limits for calls, a dean's hearing found in favor of the student, claiming that the calls could conceivably have been station business.
While very different, both incidents have this in common: Students involved were left to feel that their trust had been violated and the administration, while claiming to solve the problems, succeeded only in stifling complaints. The women who were sexually harassed were told to make the best of the situation: interact with the male on a strictly-business level and avoid situations which might make them uncomfortable.
The members of Dartmouth Broadcasting left the dean's office knowing that they would have to rewrite station bylaws, which had functioned successfully for nearly 40 years to account for the dishonesty of one or a few individuals.
Meanwhile, the administration has been very concerned that trust at Dartmouth is at risk, in the form of the Dartmouth Honor Principle. Last term, an extensive survey was conducted of students and faculty to discern whether or not the Honor Principle was being obeyed. The results concluded that most members of the Dartmouth community support the Honor Principle and uphold it on a personal level. Hooray for the administration, they've regained their trust in the system now that they know the rest of us believe in it too.
However, they have overlooked many other facets of trust in Dartmouth life, which, frankly, are much more important to me and to many other students. My personal safety and well-being mean far more to me than the implications of watching the student next to me take his exam with notes scribbled on his hand.
Knowing that administrators and the judicial system at Dartmouth cannot guarantee punishment of sexual harassment or thievery hascertainly violated my trust in the system. In both cases described above, the victims were made to do penance because they were victims. The women were forced to interact with a man in a leadership position whom they no longer trusted and to some extent feared.
Dartmouth Broadcasting must pay the $600 in phone calls and make a list of regulations for every station member to sign to ensure that this does not happen again. The message from the dean's office essentially told the students not to trust anyone. Not even Dartmouth's judiciary system can guarantee that trust and respect are upheld here.
I know that more serious violations of trust have occurred on this campus; these two examples are taken from my own personal experiences at Dartmouth. The point I am trying to make, and the point I think many students will agree with, is that Dartmouth's system of dealing with offenses on campus leaves much to be desired from the victim's perspective. A respected judiciary system at Dartmouth can improve trust at Dartmouth. But in order to be worthy of that trust, Dartmouth needs to evaluate and reform the system, more so than it needed to evaluate the Academic Honor Principle. In addition to evaluating the actual judiciary system itself, the form of punishment should be examined as well.
