On Cheating, Ethics, and Academic Culture
I have been a teaching assistant at IIT Bombay since 2007. With one exception—a one-year stint in industry after completing my master’s degree—this has been a continuous association. I prefer programming- and lab-oriented courses. I also take a somewhat perverse interest in figuring out which student has copied an assignment. There have been many instances of cheating in these courses, and my intention here is to reflect on that phenomenon.
One of our professors, known for his bluntness in the classroom and widely regarded as extraordinarily hard-working (not just by local standards), once remarked that when someone cheats, he is essentially admitting his own incompetence. “Why would anyone cheat or import if he can do it himself?” he wondered. He went on to say that this applies not only to individuals but also to nations. This observation is true in its own context. I have known students who were technically weak yet did not cheat, and others who were sharp and technically sound but did not mind cheating when given half a chance.
During my M.Tech., I was close to a group of undergraduates. They were sharp and clever; one of them was perhaps brilliant. They were usually well-behaved, even in their private spaces, though their behavior during what they called “profile-reading” resembled that of a drunkard in my village during Holi. I remember visiting their hostel once and witnessing one of them call another “chutiya” while the rest looked on with amusement. It later emerged that during a lab examination, they had all been huddled in a corner cheating, and the so-called “chutiya” had refused to participate. An individual refusing to join a peer group in an activity he considers unethical is rare in our kind of society. It is also natural for a group to ridicule a member who does not take part in its activities, whether benign or evil. Still, one expects a group of students to be more tolerant of a so-called “black sheep.”
There is no doubt that cheating can be beneficial in the short run, and there are temptations—sometimes with seemingly valid reasons—to indulge in it. But we cannot ignore the fact that we live in a society that tolerates such dishonesty to a great extent. Individuals pursue their interests, not always consciously, but it is a mistake to believe that everyone pursues those interests at any cost, most of the time. What stands out here is the gall of this group in contemptuously ridiculing one of their own members for refusing to pursue benefits at the cost of his dignity.
How cheating is perceived and defined varies from individual to individual. What appears to be cheating to some may not look like cheating at all to others. Still, an academic community can define what constitutes unethical practice and can reasonably expect its members to honor that code. The best way to maintain such standards is through internal censure. When this internal censure weakens, dishonesty increases. Copy-and-paste practices in seminar reports submitted by our students are rampant and tolerated to a great extent. Last year, in a panel discussion titled “What Is Research?”, a professor remarked, “There have been cases of plagiarism in Ph.D. theses.” These cases were tolerated because they did not want to “appear on the front page of the Times of India.” This is odd: to admit, on one hand, that basic ethical standards cannot be maintained due to real or imagined fears, and on the other hand to demand greater autonomy.
Unless pointed out with great clarity, many students caught cheating do not like to see it as academic dishonesty—partly due to ignorance and partly to avoid the stigma of corruption. Who likes to see himself as morally crippled? Therefore, they devise ingenious arguments in their defense. I do not know many who support cheating in public without offering one reason or another. “Everyone does it” is one such argument they often give to their peers. It would not be hard to prove that not everyone, or even most people in this society, are cheaters. But proving a fact is one thing; being caught in a feeling is another. In a society where people constantly accuse one another of wrongdoing, it is not unnatural for individuals to believe that such behavior is the natural state of affairs.
I know at least one teaching assistant who made a case to the instructor—who was also her guide—in favor of such students. She argued that there is usually a “lack of time” to complete assignments and that it is therefore natural for students to “do what they have done.” I suspect there are many others with similar opinions. Her guide was not convinced, but he felt that punishment should not be very severe because “everyone in IIT does it.” There may be some element of truth in the insinuation that “all of them do it,” but I also suspect that the Indian mind is prone to comparing everything with the worst possible case.
Lack of time can hardly be an acceptable argument. That particular instructor had mentioned many times in class that if someone was having difficulty with assignments, he should approach him. Besides, why not submit a partial assignment? There is a very thin line between “discussing with friends” and cheating, and this line is often crossed. This need not be the case, but it is the usual experience. The “lack of time” argument for cheating is no more convincing than the argument academics often put forward for not honoring their teaching commitments—namely, that they spend too much time in meetings and committees (and, occasionally, in strikes). As far as students are concerned, this excuse sits oddly with my own experiences. These supposedly time-starved students spend an unusual amount of time being social butterflies. I do not recall many occasions when a hostel room was not either empty or occupied by more than one person chatting, watching movies, or engaging in loud and cheerful conversation. Doing individual assignments is a solitary activity, and spending time in solitude does not come naturally to an Indian who is extremely gregarious by nature.
Apart from the temptation to obtain as many marks as possible by fair or foul means, there is perhaps a conviction—consolidated by past experience and not entirely without reason—that they can get away with it, especially when they belong to a majority. This is perhaps why a cheater often begins his defense by saying, “Everyone does it,” attempting to draw strength from numbers. In a society where constitutional morality is weak and institutional foundations are fragile, the “rule of numbers” often prevails over the “rule of law.” As for the temptation to cheat, the promotion of brutal competition has its own costs: it can create a society that is callous and self-serving. In such a society, skills such as leadership, gardening, art, empathy, honesty, and the desire to help one another count for little (see The Rise of the Meritocracy by Michael Young).
Should universities or other institutions punish these errant members? There are arguments both for and against it. It is naïve to believe that those who cheat are merely “victims of the system” or acting solely due to a “lack of time.” They know what they are doing, and they know it well. They do it to reap rewards at the cost of their profession and their institution—and perhaps at the cost of their colleagues as well. Sympathy for the young aside, they are often tolerated by faculty because the faculty themselves once breathed the same air their students breathe now. Even if we accept that these students are acting under one illusion or another, there is a limit to what a university should tolerate. These students may not care about their own reputation and dignity, but when dirty linen is washed in public, it irreparably damages the reputation and dignity of the institution. There will then be demands for external censure, which will be hard to deny—even by those who strongly advocate academic autonomy.
An academic community must convince itself of the importance of strong internal censure. If it is inwardly convinced that this is not a serious issue, then such an institution is headed toward an unfortunate fate. Lack of competence may not force people to cheat, but those who cheat habitually are not only parasitic in character; they are often deeply incompetent. No institution can survive—let alone flourish—without a competent and dignified academic community that upholds even the most basic academic standards and ethics.
End Notes
- Prof. H. Narayanan on personal ethics.
- Stuyvesant Students Describe the How and the Why of Cheating, a news report, The New York Times, September 25, 2012.