In the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton had an extramarital affair with White House intern Monica Lewinsky. He deplorably and inexcusably cheated on his wife, his family and his country. In December, news broke that businessman Bernie Madoff organized and operated one of the largest Ponzi schemes is world history and cheated Americans across the country out of their life savings. If he is indeed guilty of that which he has been accused, he unpardonably stole billions of dollars from innocent investors. Towards the end of January, President Obama signed an order to close Guantanamo Bay within a year. He did so after it became apparent that prisoners there were illegally denied their rights in order to coerce information out of them.
Obviously, there are countless instances when appalling and selfish acts of cheating have resulted in atrocious consequences. But that begs the question as to what was actually wrong; was it the cheating itself or was it the ensuing consequences? Simply put, cheating is not always wrong. In fact, there are many examples that give substance to the clich? “If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.” There is nothing intrinsically wrong with cheating, just with cheating that ultimately leads to unfortunate situations. It is not the cheating that is wrong; it is the shortsightedness of the charlatan that makes it such.
On Feb. 11, the Herald published an article detailing a recent study conducted by Rutgers University that shows that business students are the most likely to cheat. The article said that “53 percent of business school students and 48 percent of students studying other academic fields reported written cheating, including plagiarism from print or Internet sources.” This article and these statistics were met with many different reactions. Some didn’t feel it mattered; they felt the information was trivial and inconsequential. As Donald McCabe, a professor at RU’s business school, put it, “I don’t think the students consider it as serious an issue.” Others write it off as a travesty; they argue that it is a terrible embarrassment and all cheaters must be prosecuted to the full extent of university law. Many like me, however, met this article with a giant bravo. Good for the business students, I say.
I have been told since I was young that if you cheat on a test, you are only cheating yourself; if that is the case (which I believe it to be), cheat on. When Alex Rodriguez was caught using steroids, were people disturbed because he cheated himself? No, we were upset because he cheated the game! When Irv Blitzer snuck weights to the front of his bobsled to give Team USA an unfair advantage in the Cool Runnings Olympics of 1972, were we all disappointed because he hurt his own personal integrity? No, we were upset because he cheated his country. We, (society) don’t get upset when people cheat themselves, we get upset when they cheat us or people like us.
When these students cheated, ultimately, they only cheated themselves. To those who assert that by cheating these students are breaking the integrity of their respective university, I simply ask how? Justifiably or not, at the end of the day, in the tradition that our country has come to embrace, all that really matters is grades. When you hand in your r?sum? and it says GPA: 3.8 on it, that looks a hell of a lot more impressive than “I never cheated.” These students are doing everything in their power to ensure that they set themselves up for the brightest possible future if you think they are wrong for that, do not blame them! Blame the society that has raised them to believe that good grades are of a greater importance than a fine education.
Other people can even argue that by cheating they are affecting the curve, and that argument is just sad. The idea of a grade quota, in which a certain percentage of kids must fall into every letter-grade category is borderline humorous. The notion that we allow a system in which students are not graded on their own merit, but rather by comparing them to others in the class should not be acceptable. What if no one deserves to fail? What if every student happens to deserve an AB? The fact that by cheating these kids are potentially weakening everyone else’s chances by knocking down the curve is not the fault of the cheater, it is the fault of the university for allowing such a ludicrous grading method.
If one is able to cheat without any negative consequences, they would be cheating themselves if they didn’t cheat. To even go a step further, one can find examples where cheating is necessary, even condoned. It is ironic that in 1984 the U.S. Supreme Court ruled to allow evidence obtained illegally if it is proven that it could have been found legally. That is a completely absurd corruption of what the law should be. Evidence that could have been found legally but instead is found illegally should be dismissed; attorneys should be expected to go as far as they can to find evidence legally. If such a ridiculous concept of legal scholarship constitutes justice, than a somewhat less absurd standard should take its place: evidence that could not have been found unless it was done illegally should be admitted. If cheating is necessary to catch a criminal, cheating should be accepted. The U.S. exclusionary rule is simply a preposterous byproduct of a ridiculous cultural definition of cheating. In July of 2008, Adam Liptak of The New York Times wrote a piece on how only in the U.S. is the process too strict. The U.S. should take a lesson from countries around the world and realize that sometimes cheating is not condemnable, it is even commendable.
Rules are not meant to be broken. Rules have been established in order to ensure a certain social order and avoid corruption and dishonesty. However, certain rules are definitely bendable. If one is certain that by breaking a rule they will somehow guarantee a greater good, or even that they simply won’t hurt anyone but themselves, they should act outside the rulebook. Business students are not hurting the integrity of the business world (in fact, that is an oxymoronic aphorism), and they certainly aren’t compromising the veracity of academia (i.e. try your hardest). Don’t challenge them as to why they cheat, challenge society as to why we look so down upon it.
Jordan Soffer ([email protected]) is a sophomore with an undecided major.
