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The toleration clause has caused severe problems since it was introduced. Admits Brigadier General Walter F. Ulmer Jr., commandant of cadets: "It's not natural for an 18-year-old to tell on his friends. It's something that has to be instilled." Accordingly, cadets get 25 hours of formal instruction in the intricacies of the honor code.
As a prime reason for having an honor code, instructors frequently note that one combat officer must always be able to rely on the word of another. To illustrate this point, the cadets are often told a story—perhaps apocryphal—of a company commander who radioed one of his platoon leaders to move his unit out of a particular area. The platoon leader, deciding that his men were too tired to stir, later radioed back that the maneuver had been completed—but he actually let his troops stay in place. Relying on this false statement, the company commander ordered an artillery unit to open fire on the area. The entire platoon was blasted away.
The present scandal began with an exam that required juniors to design a voltage-regulator circuit. When an instructor began looking over the completed papers, he found a handwritten footnote on one that stated: "I have received assistance on this paper."
Later the same day, the instructor found another test paper with wording identical to the one that bore the footnoted confession. The hunt was on. Soon 117 papers with suspiciously similar phrasing and matching misspellings were discovered. The Honor Committee, composed of 88 cadets from the top two classes, formed seven subcommittees of three students each to study the suspect papers and interview their authors.
fter the initial screening, 101 cadets were under deep suspicion. They were next called before boards composed of twelve Honor Committee cadets for further examination.
Some appearances lasted three hours, some three days. At the end of a week, the Honor Committee decided that 49 cadets were innocent and 52 guilty.
Four have already resigned (their names are still kept secret); the other 48 are now having their cases reviewed by five-member officer boards, each chaired by a full colonel, which have the power to reverse the findings of the Honor Committee and declare a cadet innocent.
The final court of appeals at West Point is Berry. As superintendent, he has the power to overturn the findings of the review board and decide that a cadet is innocent. But even then, the absolved cadet's classmates may shun him as a pariah. To some zealots who swear by the honor code, the very fact that a cadet is accused of wrongdoing is reason enough to condemn him —a situation that shows how a system designed to develop honor can be warped to foster dishonor.