Joelle* glances up from her desk, checking to make sure her teacher is helping another student. Once she has ensured the coast is clear, she pulls out her phone and snaps a picture of her Spanish quiz to send to ChatGPT. She works her way down the answer list, making sure to get one wrong every seven questions. With another 20 minutes left to pretend she’s still taking the quiz, she’s forced to question her own morality: Does her cheating make her a bad person? Does it make her dishonorable? And what does it mean that she signed her name under the Honor Code and cheated anyway?
Joelle said she usually doesn’t feel bad about cheating on an assignment and then signing the Honor Code because the Honor Code holds no meaning to her.
“[My guilt] depends on how far the extent of my cheating has gone,” Joelle said. “Most times, I don’t feel super bad knowing I’ve turned in an assignment that I used ChatGPT on or made my tutor do. For me, signing the Honor Code is more of a formality. It’s like writing my name or writing the date. The Honor Code makes me feel no type of way, good or bad, about [myself] just because it means nothing to me.”
When the Harvard School for Boys and Westlake School for Girls merged in 1991, many traditions had to be reconciled. A new mascot was chosen, the student newspaper was renamed from The Sentinel (Harvard) and The Pi (Westlake) to The Chronicle and Harvard lost its large episcopal influence. The Honor Code was written by the Prefect Council in 1992 after Former Head Prefect and Editor-In-Chief Spencer Rascoff ’93 (Luke ’27, Sofia ’23) led the initiative to create one, according to a 2024 Chronicle article. Rascoff said an honor code presented a chance to create an ethical foundation for the newly formed Harvard-Westlake.
“Creating the Honor Code was a perfect opportunity to create a new tradition at this newly merged school,” Rascoff said. “[It] would hopefully unite the school around something that we thought was important, which was to create a moral compass for the student body. It was [also] an opportunity to bring an ethical and moral lens into the student experience.”
When the Honor Code proposal was created, there were mixed feelings about it within the school community. The November 1996 editorial in The Chronicle “Proposed Honor Code Will Deter Cheating” represented the views of the staff at the time. It said the potential Honor Code would provide a chance for students to have a role in the disciplinary process and help discourage cheating. However, in a May 1996 article in The Chronicle, “Council Proposes Honor Code” by Alex Krantz, Junior President and Head Prefect Miriam Shapira ’97 said she did not believe the Honor Code would prevent cheating.
“In theory, it’s a really good idea,” Shapira said. “But realistically, the problem is that if people are going to cheat, they’re going to cheat anyway. I don’t think the Honor Code is a good enough deterrent.”
According to a November 1996 Chronicle poll, 94% of students had copied homework assignments but only 39% of them considered it to be cheating, despite the student handbook at the time saying that “copying from another student’s classwork or homework” is strictly prohibited. In comparison, 39% of students copy homework assignments and 73% of students consider it to be cheating, according to a recent Chronicle poll.
Rascoff said he believes the Honor Code is successful in deterring cheating.
“The Honor Code is supposed to provide that speed bump to give students a moment to think about the implications of what they’re about to do,” Rascoff said. “I think it has accomplished that. I’m sure students still cheat at Harvard-Westlake as they do everywhere, but hopefully the Honor Code gives them a moment’s pause and changes some minds about how students want to behave.”
The tradition of writing and signing a pledge at the bottom of every assessment goes back to when the Honor Code was first introduced. In a February 1993 issue of The Chronicle, Nick Cramar ’94 wrote an opinion piece titled “Without Moral Education, Honor Code Is Useless.” In it, Cramar criticized the pledge as not helpful to deter cheating. President Rick Commons, who was an assistant sophomore dean at the time, wrote a response to Cramar in The Chronicle. Commons said an honor pledge can guide students and strengthen their sense of integrity.
“Cramer’s [article] concerns the value of a pledge of honor signed at the bottom of papers and tests,” Common said. “I would oppose a pledge if I thought it would become a perfunctory chore. I do not wish to see the concept of honor reduced to a series of thoughtless and hasty words. But if students can democratically agree upon a meaningful pledge, then that statement could become a valuable affirmation of each individual’s commitment to honor. As a student in a college that relies upon an honor code, I found its pledge a source of moral strength when I was under the confusing pressure of exams. A pledge that students support would also affirm a collective character, one in which all of us could take pride the same way we take pride in our individual talents.”
Joelle said the Honor Code does not prevent cheating because students do not take it seriously.
“The Honor Code is not a good way of deterring kids from cheating because the only thing that can actually deter children from cheating, especially teenagers, with how AI has been developing, is fear mongering them,” Joelle said. “Teenagers have no problem lying [and] clearly they have no problem tarnishing their name. The only way you can get teenagers to cooperate is to scare them, and there’s nothing scary about the honor code.”
If the Honor Code means nothing to students that cheat, it raises the question of whether or not those students are people of honor. Father Jay Young was the school Chaplain for 21 years before retiring in 2018. Young, who sat on many Honor Board cases, said honor can come from handling your mistakes well.
“I often interviewed students before they were about to go before the Honor Board,” Young said. “I remember telling them [that] as human beings, it’s not about not making mistakes, because we’re naturally flawed. Honor is really how you handle those mistakes once you’ve made them and how you handle yourself, admitting that you’re wrong and making amends. It hurts a person to make dishonorable decisions and follow them up by handling it in a dishonorable way. Making a bad decision and handling it well actually creates a sense of honor in a person, and that’s the beauty of our honor code system.”
Upper School History Teacher Chris Murphy attended Trinity College Dublin and University College Dublin for their joint philosophy program, ultimately receiving his doctorate in philosophy from University College Dublin. Murphy said being competitive for the sake of a higher status is self absorbed and therefore dishonorable and detrimental to the attempt of being a good person.
“I believe it’s possible to be competitive and honorable at the same time because people often compete just to see for themselves what they’re made of,” Murphy said. “But I don’t think honor and competitiveness sit comfortably with each other because I suspect most people tend to be competitive out of a craving for status, and that craving tends to be morally problematic. Unless somebody is trying to gain status just to do a lot of good in the world, that craving seems to be rooted in a fear of vulnerability and a worry about whether their life will have meant something. If we’re prisoner to such fear and worry, and thus craving higher status than others, that makes it hard to lead a good life because a good life means not counting our own interests more than anyone else’s interests just because they happen to be our own interests.”
Ella Tulloch ’27 attended the Archer School for Girls through 9th grade before coming to Harvard-Westlake for 10th grade. Tulloch said Harvard-Westlake is a more competitive and less friendly environment compared to Archer.
“Harvard-Westlake definitely fosters a more competitive environment,” Tulloch said. “At Archer, people are more friendly with each other, and talk about their grades, and even college, less in general. People were less competitive with each other [there]. It was more about being competitive with yourself and wanting to do [the best] you could, rather than being better than somebody else. In general, there was less of that pressure to get a certain grade on assignments and that type of thing.”
Head of Upper School Beth Slattery said students’ intense focus on college creates pressure that drives kids to cheat.
“Kids’ obsession with college is the biggest barrier [to honor and integrity] because so much of the stuff the honor board deals with is instances of cheating and academic integrity,” Slattery said. “If people cared less about college, they would care less about their grades and about having to get every sort of advantage. It’s good kids making decisions, often impulsively, because they feel like the stakes are so high. I wish we could diminish the stakes of college.”
Senior Prefect Sarah Anschell ’26 said the school community is overall honorable, despite the academic pressure many students face.
“Given all the pressure that students at [the school] are under, the vast majority of the time, they do act honorably [and] true to our school values,” Anschell said. “The easy way out would be to act dishonorably way more than I think students actually do.”
Rascoff said morals and ethics are an important aspect of education that is often lacking.
“Schools have a responsibility to educate their students, not just on facts and figures and how to develop an intellectual interest in learning, but also how to develop a moral compass,” Rascoff said. “So as Harvard-Westlake graduates go out into the world, they can then lead an ethical life that influences others positively. That, to me, is a core responsibility of [the school] and of all education. The Honor Code is just one way in which students can get a nearly daily reminder of the importance of acting truthfully, honorably and ethically.”
Anschell said that most students already act with honor and respect for others.
“Students at [the school] believe that they have a responsibility to one other, whether that’s being a good friend or having trust,” Anschell said. “People act honorably because they think if they act honorably, others will do the same, and therefore, we [will] go to a school and live in a community that’s kinder and more respectful all around. People [understand] everybody is responsible for doing their own part if we want to go to a school that has integrity.”
*Names have been changed
