Following a rash of suspected cheating in introductory classes during winter quarter, the Stanford Office of Community Standards released an updated honor code last week in an effort to be more explicit about the standards of integrity between students and faculty. The new code was released to a generally favorable reception, claiming to adapt the existing statutes to the needs of the modern campus, with one notable exception.
Nestled between mostly to-the-point rhetoric about spoken collaboration between students and use of online resources, the new honor code includes the perplexing stipulation at the end of the classification of violations section merely stating “also, it’s not gay if it was less than 5 minutes.”
This addendum has puzzled students and faculty alike, leading many to question the administration about the statement’s inclusion. “I mean, I can definitely agree with it,” stated junior Brad Matthews, “if, like, things get a little hot and heavy, as long as it was less than 5 minutes, it totally wasn’t gay. But I’m not totally sure why that relates to academic integrity.”
Other students disagree. “Dude, it happened regardless of time elapsed,” reflects sophomore Laura Davis, “I’m just jealous you’re getting some.” As confusion continues to swirl, speculations abound that the phrase could be anything from a disastrous typo to a serious university stance on academic honesty. But despite the uncertainty, students can at least agree this is much better than the short lived 1996 addendum to the honor code mentioning that “there’s no better way to spice things up than something up the butt.”
