Harvard cheating punishment seen as fair

By 

O’Ryan Johnson / Boston Herald

Banished from the cushy ivory tower, scores of cheating Harvard students were sentenced to six months’ hard time in the real world before they can re-apply to the prestigious university.

The punishment came down on 60 crimson students ordered to “withdraw” — a forced break that can only be absolved after the ousted undergrads hold “a full-time, paid, non-academic job in a non-family situation” for at least half a year, dean of the faculty of arts and sciences Michael D. Smith wrote in an email yesterday. After that, the dean added, Harvard will consider letting the students back on campus.

“If they actually cheated, I think its fair,” said Harvard senior Dario Sava. “I think Harvard is pretty 
lenient about letting people come back in. There are very few things that will get you kicked out permanently. I don’t know if it’s a good thing, overall, but I think because it’s been their policy, it would be unfair to switch it mid-sentencing.”

The cheating accusations first surfaced in the student newspaper, the Harvard Crimson, in August 2011. The paper reported the cheaters were part of an Introduction to Congress class where 120 students were accused of cutting corners, a figure the university did not dispute.

Smith wrote in his email to students and staff that after an exhaustive effort to hear each case individually, about half the students implicated were asked to withdraw, another half were placed on academic probation and a few students escaped punishment.

“The college reports that somewhat more than half of the Administrative Board cases this past fall required a student to withdraw from the college for a period of time,” Smith wrote. “Of the remaining cases, roughly half the students received disciplinary probation, while the balance ended in no disciplinary action.”

As for working their way back on campus, one student said the damage is done and it’s time to move on.

“You want to give them a second chance,” senior Roy Zhang said. “My immediate thought when it happened was if that many people cheated, there’s got to be something wrong with the system in that class. But at this point, if the school is asking them to withdraw, I feel like that’s a fair punishment.”

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