Writing journals and completing community service will no longer be a punishment for student offenders in sexual assault cases, the University of Oregon board of trustees decided Thursday at a board meeting.
The board of trustees also removed the six-month statute of limitations, meaning that if a sexual assault is reported, it can be investigated and offending parties punished at any time.
Other changes made the timeline move faster: The Office of Student Conduct and Community Standards now has to alert an accused student of the allegations made against them within 60 days instead of six months, and the accused student only has seven days to respond — not 14.
Also, the UO can also now place holds on students’ transcripts if they withdraw from the UO before the conduct proceedings are complete and a verdict has been reached. That makes it hard for possible offenders to enroll at other schools.
Punishments for sexual assault offenders can include suspension, expulsion from campus residence halls and even removal from the university. Usually university boards don’t change student conduct code, but since its creation last year after the sexual assault case and the ensuing lawsuit against the UO and basketball coach Dana Altman, the board is reserving the right to make changes.
Panel hearings were also officially removed from UO’s student conduct procedures in Thursday’s decision. The hearing process involved a panel of judges who determined whether or not a student was responsible of violating the student conduct code. Hearings were removed as an option for any type of conduct violation because some professors and administrators didn’t think was appropriate to involve students in adjudicating sexual assault cases, The Oregonian reports.
Administration at the UO said it was the widest reform to the university’s Student Code of Conduct in more than a decade, according to The Oregonian.
Some of these changes have actually been in effect since fall, but only temporarily. This vote finally made them official.
One member of the board didn’t think it was time to do that yet.
Helena Schlegel, the only student representative on the board, was also the only member to vote “no” on both of the changes to the student conduct code. Schlegel felt that students weren’t involved in the process of proposing those changes because the subcommittee which suggested these changes to the board didn’t meet over the last year.
“I would have preferred to keep the changes temporary so that students would have had a chance to submit their input on the proposed changes,” Schlegel said. “It was a member of administration proposing the changes.”
She pointed out that this wasn’t a move taking power away from survivors: If more people had voted “no,” the changes wouldn’t have reverted. They would have remained temporary until students could provide their input.
Schlegel was recently elected to be next year’s ASUO president and ran on a platform that championed support for survivors of sexual assault.
Schlegel also disagreed with the board’s decision to remove hearings from the student conduct process.
Student Conduct Code updated, sexual assault offenders will no longer do public service or essays
Scott Greenstone
June 4, 2015
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