Imagine you're a Princeton University student who's been accused of cheating on a test.

Maybe you blatantly used your cell phone to lookup answers. Maybe someone accused you of copying them. Or maybe you had an anxiety attack and ran from the room with your exam in hand, technically in violation of the university's revered Honor Code.

How should you be punished?

After years of Princeton doling out one-year suspensions for first-time violations of its Honor Code, students passed a referendum this fall to reduce the standard penalty for cheating on exams to disciplinary probation -- or so they thought.

With the vote, they ignited a messy and historic fight that has divided the student body, provoked alumni and prompted the administration to intervene.

"Academic integrity is one of the hallmarks of a Princeton education," university officials told students in January, when Princeton put the suggested revisions on hold until the faculty makes a recommendation to accept or reject them. "We must follow longstanding procedure that gives faculty input and oversight regarding these vital decisions."

The dispute stems from what probably seemed like a simple pact in 1893, when Princeton professors agreed not to proctor exams in exchange for students pledging not to cheat and to report anyone who even looked like they were trying to gain an unfair advantage.

The Honor Code, similar to those at other major universities, has survived several controversies and revisions since then, including a 1975 decision to reduce the punishment for first-time offenders from expulsion to a one-year suspension.

Today, accused cheaters are reported to the Honor Committee, students who investigate the cases and hand out punishments. First offenders can be punished with a one-year suspension or longer, unless there are extenuating circumstances, and second offenders can be expelled.

With the recommended punishment of disciplinary probation, students would be able to continue taking classes unless they are caught violating the Honor Code again.

The university couldn't provide data on how many cases the committee hears a year, spokesman Daniel Day said.

"But I do know that the number of suspensions in a typical year is very small, a single-digit figure," he explained.

In recent years, however, some students complained the code was enforced too strictly and students whose cases fell into a gray area were suspended, regardless of the circumstances.

Justin Ziegler, a 2016 Princeton alumnus who served on the Honor Committee, said the group began to lose sight of nuance -- did a student actually have intent to cheat? Were their actions influenced by a mental health crisis?

In one case, a student who ran out of the exam room during an anxiety attack was suspended because she took her test with her as she vomited in the bathroom, he said.

The Honor Committee was heavily influenced by administrators who warned decisions must be consistent, a safeguard against potential litigation, he said.

Ramifications for students accused of cheating can be life changing, he added.

"We are not talking about slaps on the wrist," Ziegler said. "You have a scarlet letter on your transcript in perpetuity... this is something that follows you."

The committee is supposed to consider whether a reasonable student would have known he was breaking the rules, said Micah Herskind, a junior and former member of the Honor Committee.

But the members consist of class presidents and students who apply for a position on the board, and Herskind thinks those students often took a harsher stance based on their own perspective as "ideal students," he said.

"It very quickly becomes the ideal student standard rather than the reasonable student standard," he said.

If students are going to get punished for misunderstandings, Herskind thinks the penalty should be softer, like probation with a warning that the next violation will bring a suspension or expulsion. The probation would carry consequences, too, because graduate schools and fellowships require students to report if they have ever been disciplined, he said.

Change doesn't come easy at an Ivy League university steeped in tradition, though. And especially not when that change is considered a slap in the face to the very standards that built Princeton's reputation.

As Herskind promoted a student referendum to revise the Honor Code this fall, other former Honor Committee members wrote letters to the student newspaper urging students to vote it down.

"We've seen firsthand the respect for honor, integrity and commitment that Princeton alumni are routinely accorded because of our high standards and ideals," wrote a group of nine former Honor Committee chairs. "Any change diluting the meaningfulness of the Honor Code could slowly erode the reputation that we will rely on for the rest of our careers and lives."

Students voted overwhelmingly to pass the referendum, along with other revisions to the Honor Code, including allowing a student's professor to effectively close the case by testifying that the student did not cheat. But the administration quickly stepped in, saying any major changes to the Honor Code need faculty approval.

"Our concern," said Jill Dolan, a university dean, "is that the proposed changes would fundamentally alter the expectations the faculty had in authorizing the establishment of the Honor System."

One of the administration's biggest worries is that lowering the punishment for cheating on exams would upset the balance of the discipline system. Plagiarism, an allegation reported to a separate disciplinary committee, would still carry a harsher penalty, such as suspension or expulsion.

The administration set up a committee to review the changes, with a recommendation expected this spring. Though the changes appear unlikely to win approval from the faculty, Ziegler cautioned against dismissing the students motivation for change.

"It's easy to make this a story of students who feel entitled, who don't want to get kicked out of school for cheating," Ziegler said. "It's also easy to make this a story of a university that's old fashioned and out of date. But it really is something in the middle, and it's something that affected people's lives very intimately."

Adam Clark may be reached at adam_clark@njadvancemedia.com. Follow him on twitter at @realAdamClark. Find NJ.com on Facebook.