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More than 70 American West Point cadets cheated on a math test during the pandemic. This is already considered the biggest academic scandal since the 1970s at America’s leading military academy.
The 73 cadets, 72 freshmen and one sophomore, were charged with violating the West Point Cadet Honor Code in a remote math test in May when they were studying remotely due to the pandemic. . Most admitted to cheating on the test. The instructors became suspicious when they noticed irregularities when reviewing the calculus tests.
The 58 cadets who admitted failure will now serve a six month rehabilitation program and they will be tested for the rest of the time they will be at West Point, according to the US press. Others will be heard at a hearing by a panel of colleagues who will decide whether they will be sanctioned or expelled.
Some cases have already been dismissed due to lack of evidence or the abandonment of the career of some of the students.
“A cadet will not lie, cheat, steal or tolerate those who do”says the Cadet Code of Honor, etched in stone on a monument at West Point, which even drove out some of the best-known generals in American history, such as civil war rivals Ulysses S. Grant and Robert E Lee and World War II commanders Douglas MacArthur and Dwight Eisenhower.
West Point law professor Tim Bakken considers scandal a national security problem, remembering that West Point cadets will become leaders on which the nation depends. “We are counting on the military to honestly tell us when to fight the war and when we can win it,” the newspaper “USA Today” stressed.
The academy, on the other hand, seems to have devalued the fragility of the system. “The honor system at West Point is strong and working as intended”said the superintendent of the academy, Lt. Gen. Darryl Williams, in a statement to the same newspaper. “We made the deliberate decision to maintain our academic standards during the pandemic. We are demanding that these standards apply to cadets,” he added.
Secretary of the Army Ryan McCarthy also said West Point’s disciplinary system is effective.
This is the biggest fraud scandal since 1976, hitting the military academy about 100 kilometers north of New York. At that time, 153 cadets were expelled or abandoned for cheating on an electronic engineering exam. However, most of the students were later readmitted, in a complaint process against the way the investigation was carried out.
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