The U.S. Military Academy at West Point is confronting its biggest academic scandal in nearly five decades after more than 70 cadets were accused of cheating on a calculus exam last spring, officials said.
Fifty-nine cadets have admitted to cheating on the test, which all the accused took remotely rather than on the academy grounds because of the coronavirus pandemic, West Point officials said. The cheating scandal was first reported by USA Today.
Six cases were dropped — two for lack of evidence; four after the cadets resigned — and eight cadets face honor code hearings that could result in their expulsion, Lt. Col. Christopher Ophardt, the academy’s public affairs director, said.
“The honors process is working as expected, and there have been no exceptions to policy for any of these cases,” Colonel Ophardt said in a statement. “Cadets are being held accountable for breaking the code.”
Most of those who have acknowledged cheating, a violation of the academy’s honor code, have been enrolled in a rehabilitation program that officials introduced several years ago to give cadets who run afoul of West Point’s rules and regulations a second chance rather than simply dismissing them, as had been the practice in the past.