2026-10-22: I found these old writings when I was cleaning up some stuff and added them here.
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The argument promotes the effectiveness of introducing an honor code compared to close supervision by teachers to prevent incidences of cheating and provides some evidences to justify it's continued use. The declining reports of cheating at Groveton College also leads the reader to believe the same but a closer scrutiny might reveal some gaps in the proposed logic.
It is assumed by the author that the teacher never reported any false-positives and all the reported cases were genuine. If we put this assumption under question then the integrity of our baseline data is compromised. This, combined with the point presented in next paragraph, might upturn the argument of honor code being more effective.
Another highly illogical assumption made is that the students are as fair as the faculties in reporting any occurrences of cheating. It is totally possible that they internally have made a sort-of union and decided that no one will report any cheating that they observe and similarly their forays in cheating will also remain unreported. This creates, for the authority, creates a false front which does not portray a correct picture of the underlying scenario of cheating, which might actually have increased because each student now feels safer compared to before.
As long as the above mentioned explanations can't be countered with accurate data, the argument of honor code being more effective in curbing cheating among students has no solid grounds to support it.