5 Collaboration or Collusion? The Harvard Government 1310 Cheating Incident

(Note: one additional participant who did not ask to be listed as an author participated in this project.)

Introduction

One of the world’s most prestigious educational institutions, Harvard University, became embroiled in a significant scandal in 2012 following reports of widespread cheating in an undergraduate course. In May 2012, Matthew B. Platt, the instructor of Government 1310: Introduction to Congress, identified similarities in several student exams and reported the matter to Harvard’s Administrative Board (Ad Board). In response, the Ad Board launched a comprehensive review of the take-home exams submitted by 279 enrolled students, which led to the discovery that 125 students had potentially engaged in academic misconduct (Wikimedia Foundation, 2024). The allegations revolved around improper collaboration, with some students submitting nearly identical answers. Although the exam was open-book, students were instructed to complete it independently, yet the lack of proctoring created ambiguities about acceptable conduct.

The evolution of the Government 1310 cheating scandal

According to The Harvard Crimson, Dr. Platt identified and reported widespread cheating in his Government 1310 course based on the similarity of students’ exam answers. On May 14, 2012, he submitted a letter to John “Jay” L. Ellison, Secretary of the Harvard Ad Board of Regents, detailing how 13 out of 279 submitted exams were suspected of plagiarism. This number later grew to 125 students. Dr. Platt discovered that some students’ answers shared identical wording, structures, spelling mistakes, and misunderstandings of course material. These similarities made it clear to him that the responses were not the result of independent work but indicated inappropriate collaboration between students (Cook & Robbins, 2012).

For instance, in a bonus question on the exam, students were asked: “Describe two developments in the history of Congress that ostensibly gave individual members of Congress (MCs) in the House greater freedom and/or control but ultimately centralized power in the hands of party leadership.” In the letter, Platt mentioned that some students answered with the same two “somewhat obscure” events: the Cannon Revolt of 1910 and Henry Clay, a long-serving Congressman in the 19th century. In addition, Dr. Platt found identical phrases in some students’ answers, such as “Freddie Mac’s stealth lobbying campaign” and “22, 500 organizations in 2008.” These phrases were identical and contained the same typo—an unnecessary space after the comma in “22, 500” (Cook & Robbins, 2012).

Subsequently, the Ad Board conducted a comprehensive review of over 250 take-home exams and interviewed students involved (Harvard Gazette, 2012). The role of Harvard’s Ad Board is to monitor students’ academic regulations and social behaviors through fair investigations and solutions (Administrative Board Home Page, n.d.). According to John Harvard’s Journal in Harvard Magazine, the “Academic Dishonesty” section in the Harvard University Student Handbook states that students must follow the guidelines outlined in the course syllabus and adhere to the cooperation policies established for each course (2012).

Dr. Platt’s exam policy for Government 1310 clearly stated “The exam is completely open book, open note, open Internet, etc. However, in all other regards, this should fall under similar guidelines that apply to in-class exams. More specifically, students may not discuss the exam with others—this includes resident tutors, writing centers, etc.” (Conway & Yaqhubi, 2013; Robbins, 2012). However, contradictions between Dr. Platt’s previous leniency and the stricter actions he took in 2012 seemed to upset students. One student testified that Dr. Platt had told the class he did not care about attendance and had awarded over 120 A’s in previous years (Halperin, 2012). To the students’ surprise, Dr. Platt introduced a more challenging exam format in the spring of 2012. According to the syllabus for Government 1310, the exams in Spring 2010 and Spring 2011 required students to write a three- to five-page essay responding to one of three prompts. However, in Spring 2012, Platt “replaced the essay question with a short-answer section containing several multi-part questions, many of which had definitive right or wrong answers”. This change heightened student anxiety and frustration (Robbins, 2012; Hackett & Robbins, 2012).

Jay M. Harris, Dean of the College of Undergraduate Education, who assisted the Ad Board in reviewing the cheating case, stated that evidence of cheating included “answers that look quite alike to answers that appear to have been lifted in their entirety”; showing “clusters of students who seem to have collaborated,” rather than a widespread conspiracy to cheat (John Harvard’s Journal, 2012).

The aftermath

Out of the roughly 125 students accused of cheating, half of them were required to temporarily withdraw from Harvard, while the remaining students were placed on disciplinary probation. A tiny percentage of the students remaining in the course received no punishment. Many students experienced severe doubts about their personal and academic plans due to this occurrence. The dean, Jay M. Harris, decided that he didn’t want to keep this case a secret from the public and wanted to take this event as a learning opportunity for everyone by announcing publicly what had happened and calling it an incident of widespread cheating that was “unprecedented in anyone’s living memory” (Clarida & Fandos, 2013). The following year, Dr. Platt was not promoted after a routine tenure-track review (Clarida & Fandos, 2013).

Additionally, Harvard’s Committee on Academic Integrity suggested the college’s first honor code, professors highlighted collaboration rules in their curricula, and administrators hosted town hall meetings to gather student input on Harvard’s academic culture (Clarida & Fandos, 2013). In 2015, Harvard adopted an honor code for the first time in its history which ends with the following sentence: Cheating on exams or problem sets, plagiarizing or misrepresenting the ideas or language of someone else as one’s own, falsifying data, or any other instance of academic dishonesty violates the standards of our community, as well as the standards of the wider world of learning and affairs.

Discussion Questions

1. Did Dr. Platt’s exam format encourage cheating, and if so, how should the exam format be adjusted to help professors avoid potential student cheating?
2. What role should the institution (Harvard) play in fostering a culture of academic honesty, and how?
3. Which format is more effective in assessing a student’s true abilities, open-book or closed-book exams? If you think it’s an open-book exam, how do you define how do you clearly distinguish between “resource sharing,” “collaborative learning,” and “cheating”？If you think it’s a closed-book exam, how do you balance student stress with quality instruction?
4. In what ways could the instructor have better supported both the students and the institution in understanding and adhering to academic integrity standards?
5. Should students be penalized for misunderstanding or misinterpreting academic integrity guidelines?

References

Administrative Board Home Page. Office of Academic Integrity and Student Conduct. (n.d.). https://oaisc.fas.harvard.edu/administrative-board/

Cook , M. R., & Robbins, R. D. (2012, September 12). Typo at root of cheating scandal, letter reveals: News: The Harvard Crimson. News | The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/9/12/platt-letter-reveals-scandal/

Clarida, M. Q., & Fandos, N. P. (2013, September 18). Matthew Platt, instructor at center of cheating scandal, now off the tenure track | News | The Harvard Crimson. Thecrimson.com. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/9/18/matthew-platt-tenure-track/

Conway, M. R., & Yaqhubi, Z. D. (2013, May 30). Collaboration post-gov 1310: News: The Harvard Crimson. News | The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/5/30/collaboration-post-gov-1310/

Fandos, N. P., & Pisner, N. B. (2013, April 11). Joining the Ranks | Magazine | The Harvard Crimson. Thecrimson.com. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/4/11/scrutiny-tenure-harvard/?page=1 Ferreol, M. D. L.., & Lucky, J. T. (2013, February 1).

“More than half” of Ad Board cases last fall led to withdrawals, Harvard says: News: The Harvard Crimson. News https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2013/2/1/cheating-scandal-smith-withdraw/

Hackett , G. K., & Robbins, R. D. (2012, September 4). Cheating scandal erupts after short-answer questions added to Congress exams: News: The Harvard Crimson. News | The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/9/4/government-exam-harder-questions/

Halperin, A. (2012, September 4). Accused student: Harvard “out for blood.” Salon. https://www.salon.com/2012/09/02/accused_student_harvard_out_for_blood/

Harvard Gazette. (2012, August 30). College announces investigation. Harvard Gazette. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2012/08/college-announces-investigation/

John Harvard’s Journal. (2012, August 29). Harvard College investigates cheating. Harvard Magazine. https://www.harvardmagazine.com/2012/10/investigating-academic-misconduct

Manjoo, F. (2012, September 4). There is no harvard scandal. Slate. https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2012/09/harvard-cheating-scandal-everyone-has-it-wr ong-the-students-should-be-celebrated-for-collaborating-on-an-unfair-test.html

Robbins, R. D. (2012, August 30). Harvard investigates “unprecedented” academic dishonesty case: News: The Harvard Crimson. News | The Harvard Crimson. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/8/30/academic-dishonesty-ad-board

Robbins, R. D. (2012, October 7). Gov 1310 no longer listed for next semester| News| The Harvard Crimson. Thecrimson.com. https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2012/10/7/gov1310-removed-course-catalog/

Wikimedia Foundation. (2024, September 7). 2012 Harvard cheating scandal. Wikipedia. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2012_Harvard_cheating_scandal