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As is the case at many U.S. colleges and universities, there is constant pressure to get good grades (see following story). The "goats," with the low marks, sit at the back of a classroom, while the "engineers" sit up front and get special privileges. Still the electrical engineering exam that is at the root of the current scandal was worth only 5% of the final grade in that course. Indeed the students being hauled before the Honor Committee included good students as well as borderline cases.
West Pointer Berry (class of 1948) suspects that the main reason for the incident has been the rapid expansion of the academy from 2,496 cadets to 4,417 during the turbulent decade from 1964 to 1974 that included Watergate and Viet Nam. In this period, Berry points out, American teen-agers became more questioning and skeptical, including those who enrolled at West Point. "There has been great discussion about integrity in the Army itself, most of it arising out of My Lai," says Berry. "Frankly, this is a terribly difficult time for the academy."
The cadets who violated the honor code by cheating on a relatively insignificant exam knew that West Point graduates had not hesitated to lie in Viet Nam—falsifying body counts, concealing the bombing of Cambodia, covering up My Lai. Indeed the commander of the Americal Division, which included the platoon led by Lieut. William Galley at My Lai, was headed by Major General Samuel Koster, who became superintendent of West Point in 1968. Two years later, Koster resigned after he was accused of taking part in the campaign to cover up the facts about the massacre at My Lai. Koster was demoted, censured and retired in disgrace in 1973.
"All adolescents are skeptical to some extent," says Ulmer, "and the line between skepticism and cynicism is a thin line." There is mounting evidence that many cadets in the junior class—if not in the corps as a whole—are becoming increasingly cynical about the honor code and system. Part of the reason is the code's extreme rigidity. Part is the growing feeling among some cadets that their fellow students on the Honor Committee are as sternly self-righteous—and occasionally as sadistic—as a Puritan elder in early Massachusetts. Says a high Pentagon official: "We have to moderate their enthusiasm to be inquisitors."
Important as these problems are, many critics of the honor system believe the fundamental fault lies in the nature of the code itself and the way it dovetails with life at West Point. In addition to having to live by the honor code, a cadet has to conform to hundreds of regulations contained in a manual known as the Blue Book. Life at West Point consists in large part of finding ways around the regulations; if a cadet is caught, he is disciplined. But, strictly speaking, many violations of the regulations could be interpreted as violations of the honor code. A cadet who misses a parade under false pretenses, for example, could be accused of cheating. According to Dr. Richard C. U'Ren, 37, who was chief of psychiatry at West Point from 1970 to 1972, this dichotomy gives cadets an unfortunate point of view: it is all right to violate the regulations as long as you do not lie about it. "Ethics," says U'Ren, "is often divorced from honor at West Point."