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West Point Case

In: Business and Management

Submitted By takeya1
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MBA 633
“West Point: The Cheating Incident” Case

DESCRIPTION- “West Point: The Cheating Incident” case is about cadets that were accused of cheating on a take home exam at the United States Military academy at West Point. Over 100 juniors were involved in cheating scandal which made them in violation of the Cadet Honor Code. Anyone who violates such code is to be expelled from the Academy. 52 of the accused were found guilty and 48 appealed their cases. The cheating scandal brought about the attention of the media, press, and even caused for the involvement of the secretary of the army and congress.
DIAGNOSIS- The cause of the problem stems from the vagueness of the Honor Code. The Honor Code simply states: “A cadet will not lie, cheat, or steal nor tolerate those who do.” The fact the Honor Code has a toleration clause makes the system code extremely difficult to enforce. The dilemma that Lt. General Berry, the Superintendent, had was whether to use the Code as a determination of guilt of the cadets or a more detailed and systematic method. During the case some of the accused cadets begin to write affidavits implementing their fellow classmates. They pointed out specific incidents of other cadets lying, cheating, and stealing. If the Honor Code does not allow toleration then that would mean that the other cadets would have to be tried for the violations of the code as well.
THEORY- The theory that applies to this case is personal accountability. One of the things that really stuck out about the case, in my opinion, is the affidavits from the accused cadets. After they got caught, they wanted to tell things that they should have told from the beginning, according to the Honor Code’s toleration clause. I think that the cadets that got caught should have taken responsibility for their own actions and accepted the consequences. Only if the cadet knew that they

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