Clayton v. Trustees of Princeton University

• Decision Date: 06 May 1985
• Docket Number: Civ. A. No. 80-1611.
• Citation: Clayton v. Trustees of Princeton University, 608 F.Supp. 413 (D. N.J. 1985)
• Parties: Robert CLAYTON, Plaintiff, v. TRUSTEES OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, a corporation of the State of New Jersey, Defendant.
• Court: U.S. District Court — District of New Jersey

608 F. Supp. 413

Robert CLAYTON, Plaintiff, v. TRUSTEES OF PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, a corporation of the State of New Jersey, Defendant.

Civ. A. No. 80-1611.

United States District Court, D. New Jersey.

May 6, 1985.

Neil Mullin, Morton Stavis, Hoboken, N.J., for plaintiff.

William J. Brennan, III, Alexander P. Waugh, Jr., Smith, Stratton, Wise & Heher, Princeton, N.J., for defendant.

OPINION

HAROLD A. ACKERMAN, District Judge.

This case presents the difficult and delicate issue of what role a court of law should play in reviewing a university's student disciplinary proceeding. In this case, Robert Clayton, a very intelligent and able student, was suspended for a year from Princeton University following a determination by the student Honor Committee that he had cheated on March 6, 1979 while taking a biology lab practical. This decision was affirmed by the President of Princeton University, William G. Bowen. Although Mr. Clayton later returned to Princeton and successfully completed his studies, the vigor with which this suit was litigated many years after the incident demonstrates the intensely felt sympathies and concerns on each side of this issue.

Gene Smith in his biography of Woodrow Wilson, who was head of Princeton University early in this century, describes Wilson's reaction to the same issue over 80 years ago. A student was expelled for cheating and:

his mother came to plead for his reinstatement with the man who passed upon the expulsion. She said she was undergoing serious medical treatments and that the shock of having her boy expelled might well bring those treatments to naught. The answer was, `Madam, you force me to say a hard thing, but if I had to choose between your life or my life or anybody's life and the good of this college, I should choose the good of the college.' But he could eat nothing at luncheon that day.

See G. Smith, When the Cheering Stopped — The Last Years of Woodrow Wilson, 28 (1964, William Morrow and Co.).

My conclusion in this case is that Princeton has accorded Mr. Clayton fundamental fairness in convicting him of cheating, and that is all that the law requires. While this ruling may resolve the case at hand, I am under no illusions that it will put to rest the heated debate engendered by this and other incidents where long established honor systems have been attacked. Public opinion on the subject naturally runs the entire gamut from the cynical to the reverential.

Joseph J. Ellis, former West Point instructor and author of School for Soldiers, commented:

We don't live in a world in which there exists a single definition of honor any more, and it's a fool that hangs on to the traditional standards and hopes that the world will come around to him.

See, "Cheating Promps Air Force to Halt Cadet Honor Boards", NEW YORK TIMES, Sept. 20, 1984, p. 1, col. 3.

On the other hand, William Fishback, a University of Virginia spokesman, was quoted in the same article as saying of the University of Virginia's Honor Code:

It is the one precious thing to the alumni. Wherever you travel around the country the alumni will ask after the condition of the honor system. Id.

While there is no particular evidence before me on the attitudes of the Princeton alumni to their Code, I surmise that their concern is also great. I surmise also that some of their respect for the Code is a retrospective appreciation of the role the Code has played at Princeton in turning young students into adults who must take personal responsibility for their own actions.

Oscar Wilde in an epigram once described a cynic as being a person who knows the price of everything and the value of nothing. If my premise regarding alumni concerns is correct, I suppose one could look cynically at such idealism. Being "burdened" with an honor system, however, can reasonably be viewed, as a vote of confidence in the maturity of a young adult.

While there are certainly some doubters, some cynics, and even some cheaters at Princeton, there is evidence in this case that some Princeton students do, even prospectively, recognize the value of the Code. Princeton has concluded that an honor system can have a beneficial effect on the training and education of its students, and I do not view that choice as being devoid of value.

With that backdrop in mind, I turn to the facts of this individual case.

FINDINGS OF FACT

The following findings of fact are made pursuant to Rule 52 of the Federal rules of Civil Procedure.

The plaintiff, Robert Clayton as admitted to Princeton University as a member of the Class of 1981. On Saturday, March 10th, 1979, (four days after the episode) Clayton, then a sophomore, was convicted by a student-run disciplinary body, the Honor Committee, of cheating during a biology laboratory exercise.¹ Mr. Clayton was suspended for one year, a result of which he did not graduate until June of 1982. He did, however, successfully graduate and go on to medical school.

The defendant, The Trustees of Princeton University, is an educational corporation in the State of New Jersey. It operates the well known and prestigious institution of higher education known as Princeton University ("Princeton"). Princeton offers undergraduate programs leading to the degrees of Bachelor of Arts and Bachelor of Science in Engineering. It has approximately 4,450 students in its undergraduate division and approximately 1,445 students in its graduate division.

The plaintiff has raised numerous areas where he feels his rights under the Princeton Honor Code were denied. They are as follows:

He was not properly advised of his rights under the Honor Constitution; the Honor Committee abrogated his right to have an advocate on his behalf at the hearing; they improperly interrogated him prior to the hearing; they abrogated his right to call witnesses on his behalf at the hearing; the Committee was biased; the Committee failed to keep proper records of its proceedings; they misrepresented the record to President Bowen; and Princeton failed to supervise or otherwise control the Committee. Each of these issues will be discussed seriatum.

THE HONOR SYSTEM

With respect to its undergraduate students, Princeton maintains a bifurcated disciplinary system with non-concurrent jurisdiction in two committees, the Princeton Honor Committee and the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline. Charges of violations of rules and regulations with respect to academic exercises not covered by the Honor System, including essays and laboratory reports, are adjudicated by the Faculty-Student Committee on Discipline. The Faculty-Student Committee has administrative, faculty and student members and can impose penalties ranging from censure to expulsion.

The Faculty-Student Committee has no jurisdiction over matters relating to cheating during written examinations, even if the faculty member administering the examination fails to adhere to the formalities which attend the administration of written examinations. It is the nature of the exercise, not the presence or absence of certain formalities, which determines the jurisdiction or the Honor Committee. A form of the phrase, "at Princeton, all written examinations are conducted under the Honor System," appears in virtually every University publication before the Court. Plaintiff originally contended that the Honor Committee did not properly have jurisdiction of this matter, but plaintiff no longer urges the court to reach this issue, and I shall not.

In 1893, the undergraduate students at Princeton established the Honor System. Prior to that year, all undergraduate examinations were proctored by University personnel, and charges of cheating were adjudicated by the faculty and administration. Since then, all written examinations are under the Honor System. Charges of violations of the Honor System are adjudicated by the Honor Committee, an all student body, with a right of appeal to the President of the University. The system is still viable.

Cheating allegations are adjudicated by the Honor Committee, composed of seven present and past presidents of Princeton's undergraduate classes. At the time of Robert Clayton's conviction, the Honor Committee consisted of the presidents of the four undergraduate classes, two members of the senior class and one member of the junior class. The Chairman of the Committee was the senior who had been president of his junior class.

The members of the Honor Committee are agents of Princeton for purposes of fulfilling their Honor Committee responsibilities. The Constitution of the Honor System states:

Violations of the Honor System shall consist of any attempt to receive assistance from written or printed aids, or from any person or papers, or of any attempt to give assistance, whether the one so doing has completed his or her own paper or not. This rule holds both within and without the examination room during the entire time in which the examination is in progress, that is, until all papers have been handed in. Article V, par. 1.

The Honor Constitution and any informational materials explicitly state that it is an Honor Code violation both to give or to receive assistance on an examination. See e.g., Honor System materials in Matriculation packet; Admission Information bulletin; Undergraduate Announcement; Rights, Rules and Responsibilities. Indeed, after every examination a Princeton student must write and sign a pledge on the exam paper stating, "I pledge my honor that, during this examination, I have neither given nor received assistance." Honor Constitution, Art. V, Par. 4.

There was some confusion in the testimony at trial, however, as to whether failure to report an incidence of cheating was a violation of the Honor Code. A careful review of the testimony and the Princeton publications discussing the Honor Code leads me to conclude that failure to report an observed incidence of cheating is not an Honor Code violation. At most, failure to report a violation of the...