<p>This may be the first post to directly address the original thread issue, but I find this justification unsatisfactory, likely reporting differences notwithstanding. If “the Honor Code is simply the ideal that the college challenges its students to reach” then I would expect that (i) the students who willingly accept that challenge and who are provisionally identified by the college as being the ‘right stuff’ for it would be ‘better’ at attaining that ideal than ‘the average’, and (ii) exposure to this ideal and the experience of trying to meet this challenge would over the course of a student’s years at the college lead to ‘improved’ behavior, with more respect of fellow students.
Neither of these expectations is borne out by the figures; recall that Haverford’s statistics are not just indistinguishable from similar colleges, they are noticeably worse. The most natural conclusion would be that either the Honor Code is considered simply fluff by many students, or that something about the environment created by the Honor Code encourages those so inclined to think that sexual assault is OK, … or perhaps it actually induces some potential assaultees (survivors) to let down their guard [itself no justification for the acts] - which is the opposite of “no one familiar with the college that I know has the expectation that it prevents bad stuff from happening on campus”.</p>