Cadet Honor Code Both the United States Military Academy and the United States Air Force Academy have adopted a Cadet Honor Code as a formalized statement of the minimum standard of ethics expected of cadets . Other military schools have similar codes with their own methods of administration . The United States Naval Academy has a related standard , known as the Honor Concept . A system and tradition of peer - enforced honorable conduct in a higher educational setting has historically been a part of campus life in other notable U . S . institutions , including Princeton , College of William and Mary , Texas A & M University , and Harvard , among others . In contrast , the U . K . educational system has not until very recently adopted such honor codes , sarcastically dubbing them " cheaters charters " . The U . S . Military Academy at West Point . West Point ' s Cadet Honor Code reads simply that Cadets accused of violating the Honor Code face a standardized investigative and hearing process ( ) . First they are tried by a jury of their peers . If they are found guilty , the case will go up to the Commandant of the Academy who will give his recommendation , then to the Superintendent of the Academy , who has the discretion to either impose sanctions or recommend that the Secretary of the Army expel the cadet from the Academy . Definitions of the tenets of the Honor Code . LYING : Cadets violate the Honor Code by lying if they deliberately deceive another by stating an untruth or by any direct form of communication to include the telling of a partial truth and the vague or ambiguous use of information or language with the intent to deceive or mislead . CHEATING : A violation of cheating would occur if a Cadet fraudulently acted out of self - interest or assisted another to do so with the intent to gain or to give an unfair advantage . Cheating includes such acts as plagiarism ( presenting someone else ' s ideas , words , data , or work as one ' s own without documentation ) , misrepresentation ( failing to document the assistance of another in the preparation , revision , or proofreading of an assignment ) , and using unauthorized notes . STEALING : The wrongful taking , obtaining , or withholding by any means from the possession of the owner or any other person any money , personal property , article , or service of value of any kind , with intent to permanently deprive or defraud another person of the use and benefit of the property , or to appropriate it to either their own use or the use of any person other than the owner . TOLERATION : Cadets violate the Honor Code by tolerating if they fail to report an unresolved incident with honor implications to proper authority within a reasonable length of time . " Proper authority " includes the Commandant , the Assistant Commandant , the Director of Military Training , the Athletic Director , a tactical officer , teacher or coach . A " reasonable length of time " is the time it takes to confront the Cadet candidate suspected of the honor violation and decide whether the incident was a misunderstanding or a possible violation of the Honor Code . A reasonable length of time is usually considered not to exceed 24 hours . To have violated the honor code , a Cadet must have lied , cheated , stolen , or attempted to do so , or tolerated such action on the part of another Cadet . The procedural element of the Honor System examines the two elements that must be present for a Cadet to have committed an honor violation : the act and the intent to commit that act . The latter does not mean intent to violate the Honor Code , but rather the intent to commit the act itself . History and relevance . " Although West Point did not formalize the Honor Code and system until the 1920s , the history of the honor code at the Academy goes back to its inception in 1802 . The Code of Honor within the officer corps at the time was simply that an officer ' s word was his bond . When Sylvanus Thayer was the Superintendent in the 1820s , he focused on the principles of good scholarship and expressly forbade cheating . West Point treated allegations of stealing singularly under Army regulations through the 1920s . The first major step toward formalizing the unwritten Honor Code came in 1922 when the Superintendent , Brig . Gen . Douglas MacArthur , formed the Cadet Honor Committee to review all honor allegations . In 1947 , the Superintendent , Maj . Gen . Maxwell Taylor , drafted the first official Honor Code publication marking the beginning of the written “ Cadet Honor Code . ” However , the Cadet Honor Code did not formally include a “ tolerate those who do ” clause until 1970 . " " The Honor Code provides a minimum standard of ethical behavior for cadets . This standard , as applied to fourth class development , is easy to live by and provides the foundation for further ethical development . " In August 1951 , " Time magazine " reported that 90 of the Academy ' s 2 , 500 cadets were facing dismissal for mass violations of the honor code related to " cribbing " , receiving the answers to exams ahead of time , allegedly through upperclass tutors who were assisting other cadets , mostly dedicated football players , to study for those exams . " The Army arranged for an investigation headed by famed jurist 79 - year - old Judge Learned Hand . The investigating board recommended dismissal of all 90 suspected violators of the Honor Code , and while the Army and Congress debated the issue and its causes , the cadets were left with a cloud hanging over their heads and their futures . There have been other instances of mass cheating scandals at the Academy , including one very famous one , in August 1976 , where it was found that possibly over half of the junior class at the Academy had violated the honor code by cheating on a case assignment . U . S . Air Force Academy . The Cadet Honor Code at the Air Force Academy , like that at West Point , is the cornerstone of a cadet ' s professional training and development — the minimum standard of ethical conduct that cadets expect of themselves and their fellow cadets . Air Force ' s honor code was developed and adopted by the Class of 1959 , the first class to graduate from the Academy , and has been handed down to every subsequent class . The code adopted was based largely on West Point ' s Honor Code , but was modified slightly to its current wording : In 1984 , the Cadet Wing voted to add an " Honor Oath , " which was to be taken by all cadets . The oath is administered to fourth class cadets ( freshmen ) when they are formally accepted into the Wing at the conclusion of Basic Cadet Training . The oath remains unchanged since its adoption in 1984 , and consists of a statement of the code , followed by a resolution to live honorably : Cadets are considered the " guardians and stewards " of the Code . Cadet honor representatives throughout the Wing oversee the honor system by conducting education classes and investigating possible honor incidents . Cadets throughout the Wing are expected to sit on Honor Boards as juries that determine whether their fellow cadets violated the code . Cadets also recommend sanctions for violations . Although the presumed sanction for a violation is disenrollment , mitigating factors may result in the violator being placed in a probationary status for some period of time . This " honor probation " is usually only reserved for cadets in their first two years at the Academy . In popular culture . The 2005 ESPN made - for - TV movie " Code Breakers " was about the 1951 scandal in which 83 West Point Cadets were implicated in violations of the Cadet Honor Code in order to help the West Point football team . The film was nominated for two awards . The John Ceepak novel series by Chris Grabenstein frequently mentions the honor code the titular character follows as a holdover from his time in military service .