I went to West Point two decades ago, before the apparent change to the honor code in 2015 that allowed for second chances.
It does take a little time to adjust to the honor code, but among all the things learned at WP, this one stuck with me the most. I (and many of my friends) came to literally hate lying/cheating, and to disdain those who do. But there’s another route that is taken too — the opposite, where some cadets become very good at lying/cheating. What starts out as a trivial lie must be covered up with larger more intricate lies, moving from something accidental or thoughtless to something intentional and deliberate. The cover-up and defense, often bringing friends into the mix, turns toxic really quickly. This is what happens when a perceived innocuous lie is seen a a life-ruiner.
My father also went to a service academy, and often after catching me in a lie would say, “I’m mad at you about lying, but I’m ever madder you were dumb enough to get caught!” My dad is one of the most moral men I’ve ever met, and I only just now connected the dots here with regard to a zero-toleration honor code.
I suspect the 2015 change was a practical rather than principled change: to make it easier to catch and correct violations instead of letting them fester and spread.
In some ways the service academies are a giant experiment in human character. Humans naturally lie, cheat, and steal in order to survive and protect their own tribe (i.e., go to war). Can you change that? Not really. But you can create a culture like that. The change, as ironic as it may seem, may do a better job of creating that kind of culture by attacking the tendency to dig deeper holes.
I've been through the Canadian equivalent of West Point and have done a week exchange at West Point. You're totally right about the experiment in human nature.
Depending on which degree you were working on, there was often just way too much to do with the time given. The "academic wing" wouldn't coordinate with the "military wing" and we'd end up having a slew of inspections alongside midterms. I remember getting caught skipping out on military training on a Saturday (which was just a day of lectures, easy to slip out after attendance) to catch up on homework. At the same time, an officer went through the dorms to ensure nobody was skipping. I was caught in my room and spent the next two weeks having to wear an uncomfortable uniform all day and reporting to do drill every morning.
Obviously, choosing to cheat academically is way worse than skipping a Saturday of lectures, but if the system is designed to break you, it shouldn't be impossible to recover from.
I am an '04 grad, and there has been some system of second chances for a while. I have a friend that started a year ahead of me who was a "turn back" for an honor violation. The violation was in her first year and they decided she was still adapting to the honor code when it happened. The result was 5 years at West Point where she had an in between rank of Cadet PFC for her second year.
The idea of zero tolerance is a little crazy. Have you ever violated a software license, or streamed something with someone else's account? Those should technically be honor violations, but they aren't prosecuting those. It isn't 100% clear to me where to draw the line.
It is also a more general behavior, observed when people are raised in extremely strict households. They can become very shy of conflicts, and start lying about the smallest things - stuff that regular people wouldn't think twice about lying.
Basically - anything that could lead to some sort of conflict, they can lie about, just to avoid.
Which is kind of ironic - as people often cite or view strict upbringing as something which will build character and "mature" kids for adult life. But then you see a lot of these kids end up becoming master liars.
> It does take a little time to adjust to the honor code, but among all the things learned at WP, this one stuck with me the most. I (and many of my friends) came to literally hate lying/cheating, and to disdain those who do. But there’s another route that is taken too — the opposite, where some cadets become very good at lying/cheating.
Honest question: Don't you think that is systemic within the Military itself and is one of the trademarks of its so called culture? Which is why the State will go the lengths it will when things are leaked and given how Assange and Snowden are treated when they prove Intelligence agencies lied (supposedly crimes punishable with long term sentences) to Congress and the US Citizens?
I come from a military family and the hypocrisy is suffocating, any time you even suggest what it really is (Empire) its like the scars from the kool-aid levels of indoctrination re-open and they leap to extremes about fictional forms of 'terrorism' to rationalize their existence with even more lies.
I stopped talking about illegal interventionism by Imperial decree that violates the US Constitution (and their supposed sacred oath) long ago, as every conflict since WWII has not been declared by Congress. And most are Intelleence Agency led conflicts, that now last decades with no end in sigh based on lies to make private contractors incredibly wealthy. Let alone that that their is no (intentionally so) provision in the US Constitution for a standing Army (and defined limitations of conflicts) but only a domestic Navy to protect trade routes from pirates and states nothing about protecting 'freedom' abroad all while the US systematically becomes more an more of a surveillance-police State with ever more eroded Civil Rights and Liberties that are only rivaled in scope by the CCP, which is now he US' supposed Enemy #1 after all the pro-China rhetoric from the Obama/Biden administration years prior to now?
You say you hate lies, and talk about principals but how do you contend with this very blatant contradiction that is clear to anyone who cares enough to pay attention within it and not want to hurl yourself out of a building? In my lifetime alone, the US went from a place where people took massive risks just to have a chance to be to a place where its own Citizen's will pay an exhorbarnt amount of money if they have it to leave because of this Imperial interventionism and the degrading quality of Life due to an over-inflated currency to finance these Corporate-led headlong excursions that lead no where but death and misery have made it not worth it.
My dad worked at USMA from ‘93 to ‘98 and I grew up around the Academy in high school. I always thought it was so cool how if say you left your calculator on the desk it would just sit there and people would work around it. I worked at Victor Constant as a patroller and had lots of fun hanging out with some of the Cadets that were in Ski Patrol as well.
If they all made the same error on the test, in the same way, they're almost certainly all guilty - except apparently for two of them.
Every single one of these people should be dismissed or resign. They are simply not officer material. The Honor Code is very clear. You lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do and you're not military material.
There simply cannot be second chances. Second chances here are what result in subpar military officers. The last time this happened, everyone involved was dismissed or resigned.
Given the sheer number of instances where the higher ups in the military have lied, especially claiming they had no involvement in a problem; letting the shit roll downhill (as the expression goes) until it finds someone so low they can't blame anyone below them.... I find it ironic that being caught lying once is considered something that proves you're not officer material. That is, of course, it's the "caught" part, because it seems rare that anyone higher up is ever actually caught for anything; that's what the scapegoats are for.
To be very clear, I appreciate the military and all those men and women that serve in it. I just think it's ridiculous to think that they are of a higher moral caliber than the rest of the population. They're people, just like you and me. And learning from your mistakes is part of being human. You can't learn from a mistake if there's never second chances.
Individuals cheating and lying is to be expected. Trust in institutions is damaged when they get away with it. The most damaging aspect of this story is that the cheats are being allowed to continue on the course.
We lose trust in institutions when prospective government employees cheat on maths tests, but when they dropped the white phosphorous on villagers, massacred children, burned down peoples farms, etc in the war that occured between 2001-present... we wondered about brad pitt, paris hilton... and kim kardashians hair colour.
We want them to be really really good at following orders and not to think too much about the moral aspect of bombing civilians. The reason cheating is banned in West Point is not because it is wrong, but because it displays that people prioritise their own individuality over that of the institution, and that they do not blindly believe in its ideals
When did you go to university? As I went a couple years ago and cheating was universal to the point that you could ask random classmates for the answers to quizzes you had not done yet and the frosh leaders collaborated to give the year below them all the answers. We had a massive drive of answers maintained by the student society.
Academic integrity was an absurd pretense. Except for a few niche programs like political science and history, it just did not exist.
Not arguing that this is a good thing, just that higher education in general is not all that reliable.
considering iraq wmd, the financial collapse, the bailout, syria, libya, russia-gate, and the pandemic (among other things) I think the x-axis should go back further and resemble a negative sloping line instead.
While you raise a good point, the ascii art is a bit much. It may be novel because it's rarely done, but novel doesn't necessarily mean it's good for the site.
People saying they should be expelled:
1. They are mostly first years (this was a Calculus 1 course).
2. They will go through rehabilitation
3. West Point instituted second chances in 2015, not just for this group.
4. Together implying that they will have plenty of time to prove that this was a one time thing, or not.
Compassion and vulnerability are also important parts of leadership: leaders that can admit they made a mistake, perhaps even acted selfishly, and reflect on that behavior and avoid it in the future are better than those who cannot. This is the "new" way of leadership now, and personally, I am all for it, compared to the "old" style of pure hierarchy, repressed emotion, violence + fear as motivators, etc.
Given that turnbacks and rehabs have been a thing for years, it is probably working out the way the Army hopes.
I got in trouble a few times in the Army and there was a lot of effort to "rehab" me. When I got in trouble as an NCO, the whole point of my punishment was to make me a better NCO. That's what they said and it seemed that's what they were trying to do.
Anyone know if studying ancient Spartan training methods is a part of the West Point curriculum?
The Spartan boy, learned only the basics, according to Plutarch, such as music and mathematics. Their principal training is a military one, often even crossing moral boundaries, such as learning how to steal without getting caught. The philosophy was that, in case of a war, a soldier might have to steal food in order to survive. The main key point here is that, when a boy was caught, he was not punished for his act of stealing, but for being caught! The Spartan youth had their favorite "game" of stealing food or other possessions from servants (Greek: είλωτες, helotes).
A well-known story that proves the Spartan training and loyalty is this: Once, a 13 year old Spartan boy stole a fox from a village near his camp. Alas, a trainer found him and asked him what he was doing off campus. The boy had seen the trainer and had hidden the fox beneath his cloth. As the boy said nothing, the trainer insisted. The fox, still alive, beneath the boy's cloth, started scratching him, in order to escape. While doing that, the boy continued to deny the stealing until the wounds suffered by the fox killed him.
For all the folks doubting the decision making here, unless you know specifics, I suggest that the system is working well.
Years ago I worked very closely with the current Commandant of West Point BG Buzzard. I know him to be a man of honor. Based on my experience working with him and other quality officers during my enlistment, I can assure you that they are experienced, highly educated (BG Buzzard has a masters from Harvard), and have a good sense of the broader impacts of their decisions.
Fascinating that this kind of cheating happened in 1976 [1] at which point it was only the second most serious cheating incident. The first being from 1951 when 90 of 100 students were expelled or resigned.
Seems like they'd be a good fit for politics instead!
This is obviously made with (some) jest, but it is fascinating we pride ourselves on being societies where "the military answers to the civilian authorities", but we have nowhere near the same standards for civilian leaders as we apparently expect for military folk.
As a "math guy" I was more than once put into the uncomfortable position of being asked to help with problems on calculus take-home exams. Given the utter mathematical cluelessness I've observed in the average American college student, even at top schools, I wouldn't be surprised if cheating on math exams has always been rampant. For every busted incident there are probably a hundred or a thousand more that went undetected.
I 'cheated' on all my Air Force tests, D: all of the above and whatever answer that was longest. Like you could just skim the answers and select the longest one and move onto the next one without reading the question. What a horrible way to teach someone.
There was a post on the AITA subreddit recently about a father who finds out his son has reported his friends for cheating on a math final. The dad had no problem with cheating whatsoever but took issue with the actions of the son. Whether or not this story is true, it reveals that 99% of people on twitter feel cheating is completely acceptable. In school I was under the impression cheating was relatively rare and no one proud of it, but I learned that I'm really out of touch. https://twitter.com/AITA_reddit/status/1340437223594979334
Top level point: Lying in the Army has been normalized due to required attestations that are likely impossible to accomplish, leading to 'pencil whipping'.
I don't think that this is at all unique to the Army and I see this kind of thing where I work as well.
I didn't know about West Point's honor code, and found it ironic. At my university, in physics at least, it was a loud secret that all ROTC students shared answers for previous years testsand homeworks.
At least in my cohort and my university, cheating was endemic and done by almost everyone on every assignment. Not cheating was a significant disadvantage. I didn't ever hear of anyone getting caught which I find astonishing, since I'm sure the graders were faced with multiple identical answers.
Maybe because the subjects were quantitative, there was less scope for plagiarism detection? Or maybe they just didn't really care, or they didn't want the administrative trouble. I'm not sure.
Seems like they've figured out the best political trick to "winning" in international geo-politics and war? Anyone who's honest with the nature of humanity knows that complete nuclear proliferation will never work to bring peace on earth, because basic game theory tells us at least one side will just cheat and keep some hidden nukes ;)
After successfully navigating almost 4 years at West Point, these idiots risk everything for one single exam. Ignoring the Honor Code violations, their actions demonstrate they simply are not fit to become officers as their decision making skills are severely compromised.
There has been a lot of talk about the ethics side of it. But another side that is also disturbing is that they would need to cheat to pass the class. West point is supposed to be an elite institution. Maybe the admissions processes is also compromised?
The other point that no one seems to be bringing up is that cheating on an introductory calculus test is a nonsensical thing to do. These aren't MBA students, they're engineering students, right? Everything in a technical math curriculum builds on what came before. If you have to start cheating that early, the only rational thing to do is to admit you're not in the right program and drop out gracefully.
Academic ethics aside, cheating at this level is just plain bad judgment. No one who has to cheat in Calc I is going to get through Calc II without having to do the same thing, over and over.
[+] [-] wildermuthn|5 years ago|reply
It does take a little time to adjust to the honor code, but among all the things learned at WP, this one stuck with me the most. I (and many of my friends) came to literally hate lying/cheating, and to disdain those who do. But there’s another route that is taken too — the opposite, where some cadets become very good at lying/cheating. What starts out as a trivial lie must be covered up with larger more intricate lies, moving from something accidental or thoughtless to something intentional and deliberate. The cover-up and defense, often bringing friends into the mix, turns toxic really quickly. This is what happens when a perceived innocuous lie is seen a a life-ruiner.
My father also went to a service academy, and often after catching me in a lie would say, “I’m mad at you about lying, but I’m ever madder you were dumb enough to get caught!” My dad is one of the most moral men I’ve ever met, and I only just now connected the dots here with regard to a zero-toleration honor code.
I suspect the 2015 change was a practical rather than principled change: to make it easier to catch and correct violations instead of letting them fester and spread.
In some ways the service academies are a giant experiment in human character. Humans naturally lie, cheat, and steal in order to survive and protect their own tribe (i.e., go to war). Can you change that? Not really. But you can create a culture like that. The change, as ironic as it may seem, may do a better job of creating that kind of culture by attacking the tendency to dig deeper holes.
[+] [-] fbelzile|5 years ago|reply
Depending on which degree you were working on, there was often just way too much to do with the time given. The "academic wing" wouldn't coordinate with the "military wing" and we'd end up having a slew of inspections alongside midterms. I remember getting caught skipping out on military training on a Saturday (which was just a day of lectures, easy to slip out after attendance) to catch up on homework. At the same time, an officer went through the dorms to ensure nobody was skipping. I was caught in my room and spent the next two weeks having to wear an uncomfortable uniform all day and reporting to do drill every morning.
Obviously, choosing to cheat academically is way worse than skipping a Saturday of lectures, but if the system is designed to break you, it shouldn't be impossible to recover from.
[+] [-] chrisBob|5 years ago|reply
The idea of zero tolerance is a little crazy. Have you ever violated a software license, or streamed something with someone else's account? Those should technically be honor violations, but they aren't prosecuting those. It isn't 100% clear to me where to draw the line.
[+] [-] TrackerFF|5 years ago|reply
Basically - anything that could lead to some sort of conflict, they can lie about, just to avoid.
Which is kind of ironic - as people often cite or view strict upbringing as something which will build character and "mature" kids for adult life. But then you see a lot of these kids end up becoming master liars.
[+] [-] Melting_Harps|5 years ago|reply
Honest question: Don't you think that is systemic within the Military itself and is one of the trademarks of its so called culture? Which is why the State will go the lengths it will when things are leaked and given how Assange and Snowden are treated when they prove Intelligence agencies lied (supposedly crimes punishable with long term sentences) to Congress and the US Citizens?
I come from a military family and the hypocrisy is suffocating, any time you even suggest what it really is (Empire) its like the scars from the kool-aid levels of indoctrination re-open and they leap to extremes about fictional forms of 'terrorism' to rationalize their existence with even more lies.
I stopped talking about illegal interventionism by Imperial decree that violates the US Constitution (and their supposed sacred oath) long ago, as every conflict since WWII has not been declared by Congress. And most are Intelleence Agency led conflicts, that now last decades with no end in sigh based on lies to make private contractors incredibly wealthy. Let alone that that their is no (intentionally so) provision in the US Constitution for a standing Army (and defined limitations of conflicts) but only a domestic Navy to protect trade routes from pirates and states nothing about protecting 'freedom' abroad all while the US systematically becomes more an more of a surveillance-police State with ever more eroded Civil Rights and Liberties that are only rivaled in scope by the CCP, which is now he US' supposed Enemy #1 after all the pro-China rhetoric from the Obama/Biden administration years prior to now?
You say you hate lies, and talk about principals but how do you contend with this very blatant contradiction that is clear to anyone who cares enough to pay attention within it and not want to hurl yourself out of a building? In my lifetime alone, the US went from a place where people took massive risks just to have a chance to be to a place where its own Citizen's will pay an exhorbarnt amount of money if they have it to leave because of this Imperial interventionism and the degrading quality of Life due to an over-inflated currency to finance these Corporate-led headlong excursions that lead no where but death and misery have made it not worth it.
[+] [-] dfxm12|5 years ago|reply
What penalty is there to breaking the honor code that it ruins one's life?
[+] [-] ssimpson|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dehrmann|5 years ago|reply
Is it this?
> A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal, or tolerate those who do.
I'd hope we're not admitting cadets who make a habit of cheating and stealing before joining.
[+] [-] cbozeman|5 years ago|reply
Every single one of these people should be dismissed or resign. They are simply not officer material. The Honor Code is very clear. You lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do and you're not military material.
There simply cannot be second chances. Second chances here are what result in subpar military officers. The last time this happened, everyone involved was dismissed or resigned.
[+] [-] RHSeeger|5 years ago|reply
To be very clear, I appreciate the military and all those men and women that serve in it. I just think it's ridiculous to think that they are of a higher moral caliber than the rest of the population. They're people, just like you and me. And learning from your mistakes is part of being human. You can't learn from a mistake if there's never second chances.
[+] [-] cpascal|5 years ago|reply
If you're referring to the 1976 scandal that's not completely true. Yes they were dismissed, but a large number of them were given a second chance.
The 1976 scandal involved 150 cadets but 92 cadets were readmitted after completing year of useful service as stipulated by the Pentagon. [1]
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/21/nyregion/west-point-cheat...
[+] [-] cs702|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Veen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] KLexpat|5 years ago|reply
We want them to be really really good at following orders and not to think too much about the moral aspect of bombing civilians. The reason cheating is banned in West Point is not because it is wrong, but because it displays that people prioritise their own individuality over that of the institution, and that they do not blindly believe in its ideals
[+] [-] weallcheat|5 years ago|reply
When did you go to university? As I went a couple years ago and cheating was universal to the point that you could ask random classmates for the answers to quizzes you had not done yet and the frosh leaders collaborated to give the year below them all the answers. We had a massive drive of answers maintained by the student society.
Academic integrity was an absurd pretense. Except for a few niche programs like political science and history, it just did not exist.
Not arguing that this is a good thing, just that higher education in general is not all that reliable.
[+] [-] ASalazarMX|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] branweb|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jklinger410|5 years ago|reply
A large drop occurred in the 60s, again in the 90s, and since 2000 to today it is at an all-time low.
These cadets were likely not raised to respect this country in its current form.
[+] [-] fullshark|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] jandrese|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] godelzilla|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] TheAdamAndChe|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dannykwells|5 years ago|reply
Compassion and vulnerability are also important parts of leadership: leaders that can admit they made a mistake, perhaps even acted selfishly, and reflect on that behavior and avoid it in the future are better than those who cannot. This is the "new" way of leadership now, and personally, I am all for it, compared to the "old" style of pure hierarchy, repressed emotion, violence + fear as motivators, etc.
[+] [-] pnw_hazor|5 years ago|reply
I got in trouble a few times in the Army and there was a lot of effort to "rehab" me. When I got in trouble as an NCO, the whole point of my punishment was to make me a better NCO. That's what they said and it seemed that's what they were trying to do.
[+] [-] keiferski|5 years ago|reply
The Spartan boy, learned only the basics, according to Plutarch, such as music and mathematics. Their principal training is a military one, often even crossing moral boundaries, such as learning how to steal without getting caught. The philosophy was that, in case of a war, a soldier might have to steal food in order to survive. The main key point here is that, when a boy was caught, he was not punished for his act of stealing, but for being caught! The Spartan youth had their favorite "game" of stealing food or other possessions from servants (Greek: είλωτες, helotes).
A well-known story that proves the Spartan training and loyalty is this: Once, a 13 year old Spartan boy stole a fox from a village near his camp. Alas, a trainer found him and asked him what he was doing off campus. The boy had seen the trainer and had hidden the fox beneath his cloth. As the boy said nothing, the trainer insisted. The fox, still alive, beneath the boy's cloth, started scratching him, in order to escape. While doing that, the boy continued to deny the stealing until the wounds suffered by the fox killed him.
https://www.ancient.eu/article/342/the-spartan-education/
[+] [-] jsperson|5 years ago|reply
Years ago I worked very closely with the current Commandant of West Point BG Buzzard. I know him to be a man of honor. Based on my experience working with him and other quality officers during my enlistment, I can assure you that they are experienced, highly educated (BG Buzzard has a masters from Harvard), and have a good sense of the broader impacts of their decisions.
[+] [-] npalli|5 years ago|reply
https://www.nytimes.com/1976/04/08/archives/more-than-90-cad...
[+] [-] forgingahead|5 years ago|reply
This is obviously made with (some) jest, but it is fascinating we pride ourselves on being societies where "the military answers to the civilian authorities", but we have nowhere near the same standards for civilian leaders as we apparently expect for military folk.
[+] [-] unknown|5 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] oefrha|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] aj7|5 years ago|reply
Cheat on a calculus exam?
[+] [-] KingMachiavelli|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] technonerd|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] jere|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] csours|5 years ago|reply
Link to study itself: https://ssi.armywarcollege.edu/lying-to-ourselves-dishonesty...
Top level point: Lying in the Army has been normalized due to required attestations that are likely impossible to accomplish, leading to 'pencil whipping'.
I don't think that this is at all unique to the Army and I see this kind of thing where I work as well.
[+] [-] psalminen|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hnracer|5 years ago|reply
Maybe because the subjects were quantitative, there was less scope for plagiarism detection? Or maybe they just didn't really care, or they didn't want the administrative trouble. I'm not sure.
[+] [-] d33lio|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sizzzzlerz|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] confidantlake|5 years ago|reply
[+] [-] CamperBob2|5 years ago|reply
Academic ethics aside, cheating at this level is just plain bad judgment. No one who has to cheat in Calc I is going to get through Calc II without having to do the same thing, over and over.