How Likely Is It That I Will Be Forced to Withdraw from University Because of an Honor Code Violation?
Honor Code Violations are a serious matter. No one wants to receive an email informing them they will have to appear in front of their University’s Honor Council for suspected honor code violations. After receiving that communication most people scramble to understand the honor code rules and the Honor Council’s administrative process. Then most students want to understand the potential penalties if a violation is determined to have occurred.
How does the University determine the penalty if an honor code violation is found? Typically, initial communications from the Honor Council referral will specify the potent penalties for violations based on available or recommended penalties. During deliberations the honor council will consider the severity of the violation based on the aggravating and mitigating factors during deliberation in the case. They may also recommend alternative penalties if warranted by the circumstances of the case.
The outcome from an Honor Council decision can be:
No Action Taken
Local Sanction
Admonishment
Academic Probation or
Forced Withdrawal from the University
There can are also Alternative Penalties such as bad grades, repeating the course, losing privileges etc. But we will not discuss these specialized penalties for the purpose of this discussion.
Ultimately it comes down to the circumstances of the violation, any mitigating factors, the remorsefulness of the student, and the leniency of the Honor Council members or philosophy of the University. I understand that is a general and amorphous answer to a question where people want to hear percentages. Let’s look at a case study to give us an idea of how often academic probation or forced withdrawal occurred at Harvard University.
On November 8, 2022, Vivi Lu and Leah Teicholtz wrote and article for The Harvard Crimson examining Harvard’s Undergraduate Honor Council outcomes from 2015 to 2021. The possible outcomes were: scratch, take no action, local sanction, admonish, probation, and require to withdraw. It is safe to assume that scratch or take no action where likely situations were no violation was found or the violation was insignificant. Just from a visual estimate of the chart, we can see that probation and forced withdrawal from the institution ranged from 40 to 60%. In other words, 40% to 60% of Harvard’s Undergraduate who received referral to the Honor Council for violations were placed on probation or forced to withdrawal.
If those percentages ring true for all universities, then it is imperative for you to seek out an attorney who will assist you in an academic violation case. Because the possibility of delaying your graduation or having to finish your academic studies at a different university could significantly impede your future plans.