Just When You Thought You've Heard Everything: University’s Ban On Cheating, Plagiarism ‘Unfairly Targets’ Minority Students, Ivy Leaguer Claims; Princeton Sophomore Says College Honor Code Prohibiting Cheating Is Racist

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University’s Ban On Cheating, Plagiarism ‘Unfairly Targets’ Minority Students, Ivy Leaguer Claims:

A Princeton University student argued in a Sunday night opinion article that the school’s Honor Code unfairly impacts racial minorities, citing parallels to the U.S. criminal justice system.

The Ivy League school’s Undergraduate Honor Code lays out standards for student conduct that all undergraduate students must abide by and prohibits students from plagiarizing or cheating, according to its website. Emilly Santos, author of the op-ed and Princeton University student, likened the code to the United States criminal justice system to propose that it “disadvantages” minority students.

“Princeton’s Honor Code, tasked with holding students accountable and honest in academic settings, mirrors the criminal justice system in its rules and effects,” Santos wrote. “It is harmful to the entirety of the Princeton community: the fear it instills in students fosters an environment of academic hostility. But it is often most damaging for first-generation low-income (FLI) students — students who also often belong to racial minorities.”

Honor Code violations include “tampering with a graded exam,” “claiming another’s work to be one’s own” and obtaining a exam materials prior to the examination date, the website reads. --->READ MORE HERE

Princeton Sophomore Says College Honor Code Prohibiting Cheating Is Racist:

In a world where hard work and rational thinking are conflated with “whiteness,” it makes sense that prohibitions on cheating would be characterized as systemically racist. That’s precisely the “anti-racist” hill one Princeton University sophomore chose to proverbially die upon.

In an article for Princeton’s college newspaper, The Daily Princetonian, sophomore Emilly Santos argues that “American systems of legal administration enact violence against minority populations,” which includes the criminal justice system. “Princeton’s Honor Code, tasked with holding students accountable and honest in academic settings, mirrors the criminal justice system in its rules and effects.”

Santos then outlines that the disciplinary actions imposed — such as suspension, withholding of financial aid, a record on your transcript, or even expulsion — on students who violate the honor code affect minority or “first-generation low-income (FLI) students” the most, whom she argues are unprepared at navigating such a system in the first place. As such, Santos recommends that “the University should lead by example by dismantling the Honor Code system, which acts as a barrier to social mobility and a more equitable society.”

That prohibitions on cheating and plagiarizing are now conflated with systemic racism shows how effectively propagandized the nation’s allegedly best and brightest — at Ivy League schools, no less — have become. That Santos seriously recommends dismantling the honor code solely for racial “equity” implies she believes low-income minority students must cheat or plagiarize to excel academically at Princeton. In other words, Santos is engaging in the soft bigotry of low expectations at the expense of her college classmates. --->READ MORE HERE

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