Originally Posted by Anonymous
Seems weird to me that 100+ Harvard students (30% or more of the students enrolled in this class) would choose this take home, open book, gut course exam as the time to "cheat".
According to the Harvard Admissions Web Site Statistics for the Class of 2016, 1665 students enrolled for classes in September. Figuring that is the size of the average year at the institution, 100 students is a very small population from the entire undergraduate base of some 6400 students. Still, we are talking about 1.5% of the enrolled total student body.

Originally Posted by Anonymous
These students don't have to cheat to succeed (even the athletes who might not otherwise have been admitted), and the sheer numbers involved points to a mistake or misunderstanding, especially in an academic environment that has been encouraging "collaboration" for the last 30 years.
There are two strongly warring factions involved here : a University "Honor Code" for exams and the idea of collaboration, particularly on a take-home final examination. Based on various academics with whom BOTC has discussed this subject, whether you more strongly support an "Honor Code" or the take-home final concept dictates how you see this issue.

Originally Posted by Anonymous
I'm sure the faction in the administration that believes there should be no admissions exceptions for athletes, ground their axes when they realized a number of athletes were involved.
Actually, the investigation took placed based on an audit of consistently worded answers across exam booklets, not due to athletics.

Originally Posted by Anonymous
It appears all these students can apply for readmission, and perhaps many will be back at Harvard in the future. However, I doubt those who were admitted based in part on their athletic prowess will get the same consideration the next time around.
Will the institution open this debate for a second time? Will these students (not just student-athletes) now need to compete with the entire transfer pool for admission? Unless agreements which are not public were agreed prior to the expulsions, BOTC doubts that any more than 25% of these students will be re-accepted.

Originally Posted by Anonymous
People need to take responsibility for their actions, but there may be more going on here. I'm sure far worse has gone unpunished at Harvard.
Comparing this situation against other "unpunished" or "unidentified" rules infractions shows a lack of rigor. If such were the baseline for a society of laws, no one would ever be convicted in the court system as there will always be some one "who got away with it".

Whether or not cheating actually took place in this course, the ultimate question at stake here is one of ETHICS. The school feels that there was a breach of ETHICAL behavior by the students involved for either excessive collaboration or outright cheating. The students felt that such collaboration on a final exam was considered ETHICAL (or so goes the argument) and therefore went without question.

So, a question for our readers : when the students were asked for the names of individuals with whom they worked on the exam, were the names provided? Based on what we have read in the media, not very many students were forthcoming with this information. Limited reporting? Perhaps.

In closing, if the students truly believed that their behavior and actions were ETHICAL, would there have been any hesitancy in identifying the study-group members?

Now, can we prove either side of this debate? Absolutely not based on the publicly disclosed information. However it is fairly clear that that University's inquisition did not provide adequate answers from the students to explain the ETHICAL nature of the results.