Word: pelosi
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...cadet honor committee, however, had the last word. It sentenced Pelosi to "the silence," a severe form of ostracism meted out to those who refuse to resign when accused of cheating but against whom there is insufficient evidence for dismissal. Immediately, Pelosi became the Quasimodo of the Point. He ate alone at a table meant for ten, an easy target for the ice cubes that fellow cadets would lob at him during dinner. His mail was opened, his clothes were dragged through the latrine, his person threatened by anonymous callers. None of the cadets talked to him except on official...
...Manhattan bank executive who served as a fighter pilot in World War II Pelosi lost 26 lbs. in the first months of the treatment, but he resolved to stay. "I was innocent, and to leave would have been giving in to a guilt I didn't feel," he explained. Eventually, his determination won over some of his tormentors. During his last few months, several sympathetic cadets, in particular his former friends, began to visit with him. The sanctions against him became almost unenforceable. By the time he graduated last week, there were even handshakes...
...Pelosi, 21, one of the few West Pointers to endure the silence, knows that his ordeal is not over. A cadet blackballed by the honor committee is theoretically doomed to be ostracized by Point graduates the rest of his life...
...determination to make the Army a career, Pelosi has almost no other silence alumni to look to-except Benjamin O. Davis Jr. Silenced during his first year at the Point-1932 to 1936 -Cadet Davis survived to become a lieutenant general in the Air Force. An encouraging example, but not all together analogous: Davis' only sin was presumably his black skin...
...diploma in hand, Pelosi argued last week-not very convincingly-that it had all been worth it. He also suggested that honor-committee members -he had been one, too-place "themselves above the law, and no one has a right to do that." His view is about to be tested in court. Last April, 21 cadets were accused of cheating on a physics exam. Most resigned immediately, but six of those who opted to fight the charges have filed a lawsuit with the U.S. district court, arguing that the honor system subverts the due process guaranteed under the Fifth Amendment...