73 cadets at West Point have been accused of cheating on a calculus exam this past May, taking advantage of remote-testing procedures introduced in connection with the Covid pandemic.
US media described the cheating as the worst academic dishonesty scandal to hit the academy in more than four decades.
According to The Hill, some fifty-nine cadets admitted to cheating, with the academic dishonesty reportedly discovered after instructors discovered the same mistake being made on the exact same portion of the exam dozens of times.
Fifty-eight cadets admitted to cheating, with most of them put on probation for the rest of their time at the academy and enrolled in a rehabilitation programme. At least four others resigned, with others still to face hearings which may end in their expulsion. Two cases were reportedly dismissed because of a lack of evidence.
According to the USA Today, rehabilitation, otherwise known as the ‘Willful Admissions Process’, requires cadets to ‘write journals and essays on their experience’ together with a mentor over a six-month period.
The cheating scandal strikes a blow against West Point’s code of honour, which explicitly states that “A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal, or tolerate those who do.” The school threatens to expel cadets who break the code.
The case harkens back to a similar scandal in 1976, when more than 150 cadets were expelled after being caught cheating on an electrical engineering exam.
West Point law professor Tim Bakken described the scandal as a national security matter, telling USA Today that “when the military tries to downplay the effects of cheating at the academy, we’re really downplaying the effects on the military as a whole. We rely on the military to tell us honestly when we should fight wars, and when we can win them.”
The cheating scandal isn’t the worst public relations problem the state-funded educational institution has faced lately. In recent years, the college weathered an arguably far more serious storm relating to the sexual assault and rape of cadets by other cadets. A 2018 report pointed to a doubling of sexual assault cases at the academy in the 2016-2017 year, with female cadets in particular reporting a surge in “unwanted sexual advances."
In 2019, a military appellate court controversially dropped a rape conviction against a cadet charged with raping a sleeping classmate, allowing him to return to school, with critics of the decision blasting the military trial court system for a perceived lack of fairness and proper application of the law.
