A third-year law student at the University of Virginia has ignited a controversy over honor on campus after admitting he filed a false complaint that charged two campus police officers targeted and harassed him based on his race. In a letter to the editor of the Virginia Law Weekly dated April 22, Johnathan Perkins, who is black, detailed a walk to his apartment during which two officers pulled him over without legitimate cause, mocked him, searched him, shoved him against the police car, and eventually followed him home.
Two weeks after publication and a subsequent police investigation, Perkins recanted.
“I wrote the article to bring attention to the topic of police misconduct,” he wrote in a statement. “The events in the article did not occur.”
Campus Police Chief Michael Gibson did not file charges, saying that doing so “might inhibit another individual who experiences real police misconduct from coming forward with a complaint.”
And while filing false complaints is illegal, the offense is rarely prosecuted, said Sean McGowan, executive director of the Virginia Police Benevolent Association.
But at a school renowned for one of the strictest honor codes in the country, students and alumni are calling for an honor code investigation, saying Perkins not only violated a sacred promise not to lie, cheat or steal as a U.Va. student, but did so in a way harmful to actual victims of racial discrimination.
“This is a disservice to the people to whom this really happens — it makes them a lot harder to be believed,” said Florette King, a black senior at U.Va. “As a law student especially, he should know better.”
The school’s honor code committee is completely student-run, with undergraduate and graduate student representation. It is confidential, and takes place much like a legal trial, complete with the right to counsel, a jury and an appeal. The only punishment is expulsion — or, in the case of Perkins, potential withdrawal of the juris doctor degree he’s slated to receive later this month. Without a degree and with a mark of dishonor against him, earning admission to the bar would be practically impossible in Virginia and most states.
Should Perkins’ case go before the honor board, his purported attempt to “bring attention to the topic” may serve as a mitigating factor, said Teresa Fishman, director of Clemson University’s Center for Academic Integrity. But it would have to be a pretty compelling case.
“If it turns out the deceit was part of a systematic campaign to get rid of corruption, that’s one thing. If it was a gotcha on the police, that’s another,” she said.
