The Exceptional Moral Character of YU Students

by, Judah Diament

Rav Yisroel Meir Kagan is known popularly as “The Chofetz Chaim”, after his famous work by the same name. In klal 10:1-2 of Sefer Chofetz Chaim, he codifies the rules regarding when one is allowed to share negative or damaging facts about another Jew in order to achieve a positive goal, such as correcting an improper behavior. The first rule of the seven is that one must have witnessed the incident or behavior in question firsthand, and must not have only heard about if from someone else. The fourth rule is that one may not exaggerate the facts, even though his intention in doing so is to achieve something good.

Since arriving in Yeshiva College as a professor of Computer Science in 2016, on multiple occasions I have heard or read claims that cheating is “widespread” in YU. Like any other decent person, I was and am deeply disturbed by the idea that YU students would cheat. Equally disturbing, however, is the complete lack of rigor and care with which I have seen people talk and write about this topic.

While cheating is categorically forbidden due to the gneiva and/or gneivas da’as involved, publicly exaggerating the frequency of cheating, and thus slandering the overwhelming majority of roughly two thousand students, is also categorically forbidden and, in fact, involves a much larger number of prohibitions than those that were transgressed by a student who cheated (see the opening to Sefer Chofetz Chaim for a list of all the prohibitions involved.)

I have asked our students’ many accusers (be they YU employees or students) who have claimed that cheating is widespread in YU to please put forth the evidence they have to support that claim. Not one person has been able to produce even the slightest shred of evidence that demonstrates that cheating is “widespread” in YU. In many cases, the accusers did not have firsthand knowledge of even a single case of cheating. In all cases, the accusers extrapolated from second hand rumors and concluded that cheating is commonplace, thus ignoring the rules cited above from Sefer Chofetz Chaim and employing approximately the same standards of evidence as those that were used in the Salem Witch Trials.

We have, unfortunately, had a small number of academic integrity incidents in the YC computer science department over the last three years, and those cases were taken very seriously and appropriate punishments were handed out. There have been incidents in some other departments as well, which were also dealt with. However, I have yet to see anyone produce any evidence at all that cheating is widespread or commonplace in YU. The only piece of data (as opposed to anecdotes or rumors) that I am aware of on this topic appears in a March 3, 2019 article in The Commentator which reported the results of student survey and stated, “Only 6 percent of Syms-Men students, 3 percent of YC students and 3 percent of Stern students have admitted to cheating on an exam and/or plagiarizing material for an assignment.” Let’s assume for argument’s sake that those numbers are skewed lower due to guilty students being afraid to admit their dishonesty. Even if one doubles or triples those numbers, one is still left with roughly 90% of our students being totally honest. That is a far cry from having “widespread” cheating.

I ask our students’ accusers to either produce evidence or cease the slander. Furthermore, I ask our students to continue to be the wonderful collection of exceptional young men and women that they are, and encourage them not to be disheartened by unsubstantiated rumors of impropriety by their peers.

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