My experience has been that no tolerance policies for cheating tend to be disasters unless they're enforced with an Orwellian disregard for personal privacy (i.e. the Military). People who might have otherwise reported cheating won't except in the most extreme cases because they institutional response is so out of proportion to the crime, and meanwhile the institution ruins a couple of basically innocent lives every year by expeling some poor kid who made a small mistake (often not what you would have traditionally called cheating, more like collaborating on a homework project) and who didn't have that basic natural dishonesty to lie his way out of it.
If the clear expectation is that you are to do the work alone, or with no aids, or whatever, and you don't... Nice knowing you. The institutional response is absolutely appropriate if you are knowingly and willingly held to a higher standard than most and you deliberately violate that standard. The honor code was no secret, everyone is aware of their expectations, and what the penalty is for failing to uphold their end of the agreement.
It works, and quite well. You don't get kicked out for bouncing a check at the student bookstore, you don't get kicked out for failing to properly cite a reference. You get kicked out for blatant (and provable) plagiarism, cheating, theft, etc. No innocents are getting railroaded, no helpless students lives ruined for nothing. You get a hearing, with evidence, testimony, etc. You have a chance to defend your actions, present your own evidence, etc. Too hungover to go to the library and finish that busywork project for intro to European Post War Reunification, maybe you could just lift your fraternity brothers answers off the house computer, wake up - that's cheating. You don't like it, just go to another school and take your chances. I take great pride in the honor system, and was fortunate to be able to attend Universities that felt the same. If I need a crib sheet to remember the physics formulas, Krebs cycle, differential equations, etc, I deserve to fail. If you want to bring a crib sheet into a test, where you affirm on your honor that you didn't give or receive aid on the exam, you deserve to be expelled. There's no room for academic dishonesty in medicine. I'd rather work with 100 imbeciles than one dishonest resident. He's far more dangerous. To me and the patient.
When I was an undergrad, I flew out of town for a long weekend, my flight got cancelled, and I was going to miss an exam. I called the professor and explained the situation. His response, "No problem, you can take it the following day in my office." Same test, 24 hours later, no problem. Guess what was in labelled folders on his desk? Everyone else's exam. He left as soon as he handed me the exam and said to leave it on his desk. Why would someone do this? The honor code. Someone above mentioned heavily proctored med school exams. We could take the exam anywhere we wanted, the lecture hall, library, lab, lobby, home, anywhere, as long as it was back by the designated end time, and we signed the pledge. No pledge, no grade. I really don't know why more universities don't implement a real honor system. It benefits everyone. People who never experienced it find it an alien concept, but people that lived it wouldn't want it any other way.
