At Least 249 Cadets at Air Force Academy Caught in "Massive Cheating Scandal"

Cheating at the Academy came after classes were moved online and follows a similar scandal at West Point earlier this year.

Issue 4, February 3, 2021

“Widespread” Cheating at Air Force Academy

According to multiple, military-affiliated news reports, at least 249 Air Force Academy cadets were under investigation or had been investigated for cheating on assignments and exams after instruction went digital and remote due to Covid-19, in March 2020.

Most, the reports say, admitted to cheating. Some have been removed from the school, others reprimanded. The news was reported initially by Air Force Magazine. (Jan 29).

Military.com reported the violations were varied,

including improper source citation, "using unauthorized online tutoring websites to receive solutions to exam questions in real time," and completing exams in small groups rather than individually. The cheating behavior was discovered through established Dean of Faculty academic safeguards.

Most of the cadets were placed on probation for six months and placed in a required “remediation” program. Some were expelled. A Lt. Gen. has also ordered a review of the Air Force Honor Code.

According to Military.com, this is not the Academy’s first cheating problem.

In 2019, suspicious exam results prompted an investigation into cheating among at least 10 cadets. And in 2017, 13 first-year cadets were accused of cheating on a test.

That pattern makes the most recent 249 simply shocking. Moreover, 249 is roughly 9% of the entire cadet population that was given remote classwork and exams last year and another example of the correlation between online instruction and cheating.

This Air Force scandal also begs the question why it was big news in the Washington Post, New York Times and USA Today when 70 or so Army cadets at West Point were accused of cheating not 60 days ago, but this story has not moved past a handful of military websites.

At a minimum, it’s time to reconsider the notion that, as Christian B. Miller, a philosophy professor at Wake Forest University wrote in the New York Times this past November:

Honor pledges not only are surprisingly effective in curbing cheating; they also promote honesty. 

Clearly, honor codes are good. But they are not the solution to cheating.

In the next, “The Cheat Sheet” - research showing that remote exam proctoring reduces cheating. That’s probably this Friday.