Honesty good, honesty policy inappropriate

A professor’s use of the Ten Commandments for an academic honesty policy has sparked indignation within the student body.

In general, there’s nothing wrong with the Ten Commandments, but their use as an academic honesty policy is weak at best.

Apparently, the policy was in response to an exam on which several students cheated. The policy includes the following:

“If I have cheated last week, then, I (your name) have violated God’s Ten Commandments, will be sorry for the rest of my life, and go to hell.”

Thus, a new spin on the  perennial question of academic integrity. The only commandment relevant to academic integrity is probably number eight, “Thou shalt not steal [thy neighbor’s

correct answers.]” Another candidate could be number 10, “Thou shalt not covet [thy neighbor’s correct answers].”

Either way, at least eight of those rules are irrelevant to academic integrity, because we assume that students won’t kill each other.

The university’s academic integrity policy is perfectly acceptable in this case. If you cheat, you fail, and possibly get thrown out of school. Hellfire and damnation happen sometime after that, if that’s what you believe.

Obviously, cheating is wrong, but so is welding a specific religion to everyone’s class performance.

The professor said he did this to help make a better society. Good idea, bad execution. It’s OK, though. We hear forgiveness is a virtue.

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