The Honor System Fails Because the Administration Consumes its Power

A commentary on the disturbing case of Daniel Selby

By The Editorial Board

If not for the recent coverage by The Ring-tum Phi, Daniel Selby, formerly a member of the Class of 2025, would likely still be on campus. 

Selby, who pleaded guilty to sexual battery on February 3, 2023, was arrested nearly five months ago, on Sept. 21, 2022 for an offense that occurred on September 9. According to court records compiled by The Phi, “Selby paid a bail of $5000 within hours of his arrest” and was originally charged with “object sexual penetration by force, threat, intimidation or via mental incapacitation/helpless victim.”

Selby ultimately spent 2 nights in jail for what was lowered to a criminal misdemeanor charge of sexual battery. He only moved out of his campus townhouse on February 7, the same day The Phi published their first story about him. And by February 8, a university spokesperson said that Selby was no longer enrolled at Washington and Lee University.

Following The Phi’s reporting, students began filling social media channels with a discussion of Selby. Conversations invoked themes of fear and anxiety as students became disillusioned to the alleged safety of our campus. 

Naturally, many students took to the Executive Committee weekly Business Meeting to express their concerns.

According to the February 7, 2023 minutes, EC President James Torbert, ‘23, read the Executive Committee’s 2020 Statement on Sexual Discrimination and Misconduct.

Written in response to the university’s 2016 update to its sexual discrimination and misconduct policy, the EC reitterated in 2020, “Although the EC considers sexual discrimination and misconduct dishonorable, we do not hear cases involving sexual harassment, sexual assault, sexual exploitation, domestic and dating violence, stalking, or retaliation.”

In other words, sexual assault is not an Honor Violation; the Executive Committee does not adjudicate cases of sexual assault, instead delegating that authority to the Harassment and Sexual Misconduct Board (HSMB).

The HSMB, meanwhile, is completely absent of student involvement. Eight administrators from various departments and a law school dean run the board, while Sidney Evans, Megan Hobbs, and other deans serve as mandatory reporters and investigators. Evans, Hobbs, and President Will Dudley all refused to comment for The Phi.

Even the Department of Public Safety “was unable to turn over any records involving Selby at the request of the university’s communications department,” The Phi reported on February 8.

Such silence has been very damning to the administration’s reputation, which was in the news at the beginning of February for an unrelated lawsuit between a former fraternity house director and two deans, Dave Leonard and Sidney Evans.

Many students have a hard time trusting the Administration when they have a history of subterfuge, inaction, and intransparency. In the February 7 Business Meeting, for example, Meaghan Endres, ‘26, delivered a long, ambiguous speech regarding another incident reportedly unrelated to Selby. “My safety and comfort at this university, as well as that of many other female students, is at your mercy,” Endres said.

Shortly after, Haley Neaman, ‘25, spoke directly upon Selby’s case of sexual assault and “inquired what the W&L administration is doing to combat this problem, especially since a situation like this is making many members of the Student Body feel unsafe on campus.”

Torbert then responded “that the Deans are very receptive to students bringing ideas about how to combat this issue on campus, and that students should feel comfortable approaching them to speak on this issue.”

The Spectator reached out to Lauren Kozak, Title IX Coordinator, on Monday, February 13, to clarify the HSMB’s general impact among students. Kozak had not responded by the time of publication.

Kozak did, however, report to The Spectator a few days earlier that the HSMB “goes back way before my time.” According to her, “there was the Confidential Review Committee (CRC) that heard cases in the late 1980’s[,]” followed by the Student Faculty Hearing Board (SFHB) in 1992. 

“The SFHB heard sexual misconduct cases (with procedural changes over the years) from 1992 to 2016, when the HSMB was created,” Kozak concluded.

But as far back as these boards go, it appears that the HSMB is the first to be void of both student and faculty involvement. According to the HSMB webpage, “In cases against students, faculty will not serve on the hearing panel.” 

Since everything is so confidential with the HSMB, there is no way of knowing if that board of deans had even investigated Selby in this five month period. Even if they did, procedural red-tape may have prolonged the disciplinary process in ways that do not undermine EC investigations.
Perhaps, then, it is time for W&L students to rethink this process and demand that the Honor System once again have a say in student sexual misconduct and harassment cases, considering how the deans clearly are not doing their job.

Selby, The Phi reports, had a dangerous history of assault going all the way back to December 2021 or earlier. Despite this, “the university allowed Selby to return this fall after taking a semester off in winter 2022[.]”

The Phi even reported that one of Selby’s former fraternity brothers “turned to [the] university administration multiple times, including asking how to enroll Selby in the Washingtonian Society,” a free, on-campus substance recovery program. “But the fraternity member,” The Phi continued, “said the school did not help,” and actually worsened the situation.

Selby’s fraternity, Pi Kappa Alpha, voted to remove Selby from the chapter in 2022, and upheld that decision unanimously after Selby appealed it at the beginning of 2023.

Imagine if the EC had the same power; they could have dismissed Selby for any number of Honor Violations in 2021 and prevented the sexual battery that occured last year.

Instead, the HSMB failed its duty by allowing a dangerous student to remain on campus.

Even if the HSMB had punished Selby, it may have just been a slap on the wrist. After all, his one year sentence in jail was commuted to a mere two nights in prison. Should we expect that the HSMB was any less lenient?

Some supporters of the HSMB argue that the single-sanction policy of the Honor System would discourage reporting of sexual misconduct — that witnesses and even victims of sexual assault might hesitate to “turn-in” their peers knowing they would be expelled — and that the HSMB ensures victims have a greater say in the punishment process. 

More importantly, however, the single sanction would discourage actual sexual misconduct and reinforce the community of trust that has unfortunately faded in the past week. When we strip the Executive Committee and the Honor System of its influence over student life, when we diminish the prominence and consequence of the single sanction, and when we empower a bureaucracy of unqualified deans who have no respect for the historic precedence of the Honor System, we ultimately let down our community of students and invite more terrible cases like Dan Selby to occur.