The University Senate voted 24-7 Wednesday to adopt the final draft of the revised student conduct code. Two faculty and all five student members of the Senate voted against the approval.
“It became very clearly faculty against students,” said Hilary Berkman, the director of the Office of Student Advocacy.
The University will put the revised conduct code in place this fall, said Chris Loschiavo, director of Student Judicial Affairs.
The new code broadens the University’s ability to discipline students for off-campus violations when the alleged misconduct “involved violence or produced a reasonable fear of physical harm,” the revised code says.
The new code does not require that the alleged victim be a member of the campus community in order for the University to punish the accused student.
Definitions of sexual misconduct have also been revised, as have policies on record-keeping, dispute resolution and legal representation.
“We said our piece and we tried to make it clear,” Senator Mike Filippelli said afterwards. “Let the students know – Big Brother is watching.”
ASUO President-elect Jared Axelrod said he was bothered by the apparent lack of concern by the faculty, many of whom left before the final vote.
Both Peter Keyes, University Senate president, and Lisa Freinkel, chairwoman of the ad hoc faculty committee in charge of finishing the revised code, emphasized the lengthy process that preceded the drafting of the revised code.
Before the ad hoc committee was formed, there was an eight member Senate sub-committee in charge of revising the code. At the end of last school year, the sub-committee had failed to produce a final version because it couldn’t reach consensus on certain changes.
The ad hoc committee, charged with finalizing the code for a full Senate vote by the end of this school year, comprised four faculty members and one student. During the past seven months, it met with ASUO leaders, faculty and students to get feedback on the revisions.
Freinkel compared the current process to a 1994 student-led initiative to improve campus climate and revise the conduct code to include acts of off-campus sexual misconduct.
“Times change. Now, a decade later, different students are suggesting not only that we resist finishing what we started in the ’90s, but we revisit even the logic of the sexual misconduct code,” she said. “By extending jurisdiction in the question of violent offenses we are simply completing the work begun more than a decade ago.”
Freinkel urged the senate to act swiftly to pass the revisions and to not be swayed by student opposition, because a “fundamental difference of opinion” regarding how the revisions should be made had already left the process deadlocked.
“This proposed language needs to be voted on today,” she said. “To send the code back to the (Student Conduct Committee) would mean the death of this revision process, and so the decision is yours – is ours to make as it should be according to the University charter.”
The ASUO Executive, the Office of Student Advocacy and members of the Student Conduct Committee filed a formal memorandum opposing the revisions, and ASUO President-elect Jared Axelrod addressed the senate.
While the code had made many improvements and much time had already been invested, Axelrod said, the need for haste should not outweigh the need for a sound document.
Axelrod and the authors of the memo took issue with five points of the code: the increased authority of the administration over student conduct procedures and policies, the lack of a statute of limitations for non-academic offenses, fewer procedural rights and protections, an increase in the University’s off-campus jurisdiction, and the increased retention of student disciplinary records.
“We recognize that many years have been spent updating this code, but please do not disregard these important aspects in the final stages of approval,” Axelrod said.
When the floor was made available for open discussion, Freinkel and Loschiavo verbally sparred with Axelrod and other ASUO representatives, including Senators Dallas Brown, Toby Piering and Mike Filippelli.
The students said the changes to the powers of legal representation constituted a change in name only, leaving students exposed to face serious allegations that could potentially ruin a student’s academic or professional career. Freinkel emphasized that the changes marked a shift from an adversarial system in which the University acted as a prosecuting “district attorney” to a more educational experience.
Associate Professor of Law Susan Gary, who voted to approve the changes, said the revised code reflects a shift from litigation to conflict resolution also occurring in modern law.
The two sides clashed again when Freinkel implied that the concerns raised by ASUO executives and students in attendance did not represent most University students.
Axelrod said he strongly disagreed.
“The ASUO speaks for the students of the University. It’s in our charter and our mission,” he said.
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