Some University students and officials consider the 14-page Student Conduct Code so unwieldy and filled with legal jargon that they decided to rewrite it.
The Student Conduct Committee, which is composed of four faculty members and four students, has been working for years to make the code more readable for students and more applicable to the issues facing students today.
“We haven’t kept up with the latest trends in procedures,” Student Judicial Affairs Director Chris Loschiavo said. “What we’re doing is changing the procedure overall to be less adversarial.”
Loschiavo has been working with the committee on the process. He said the code has remained virtually unchanged since the 1960s, and a number of sections need to be changed or deleted completely. The committee plans to add a section about the University’s Internet use policy and to eliminate the provision for informal hearings by referee — a process Loschiavo said isn’t used. In addition, Loschiavo and the committee want to eliminate the use of words like “evidence” and “prosecution” in the code.
Once changes have been proposed by the committee, a public hearing will be held to discuss them before they are sent to the University Senate for approval. Loschiavo said he hoped the process would reach the public hearing phase by the end of spring term. But at least one of the changes being considered is already meeting with resistance.
Student Advocacy Director Hilary Berkman has objected repeatedly to suggestions that the code be expanded to give the Office of Judicial Affairs more off-campus jurisdiction.
Currently, Judicial Affairs has jurisdiction over sexual assault and harassment committed by students off-campus. Loschiavo and others want to include non-sexual assault and stalking.
“Say you have a case where a really smart stalker is following somebody — waiting for them when they leave campus, but never coming on campus,” Loschiavo said. “To say that doesn’t have an impact on that student when they’re on campus is ludicrous.”
But Berkman argued giving the University more jurisdiction over off-campus events wasn’t necessary.
“What troubles me is that there are no discreet limits to that jurisdiction,” she said. “I don’t think we want the University in our homes.”
Berkman also expressed concerns that the language used in some of the proposed changes is even more vague than the language in the current code and that some of the attempts to “simplify” the process would interfere with students’ rights.
Students facing sanctions are currently allowed to request a hearing, regardless of the sanctions facing them. One of the suggested changes to the code would allow formal hearings only in cases where a student was facing suspension or expulsion — it would also limit the function of an attorney or advocate for the student in a hearing.
“The current code is crafted to be even-handed,” Berkman said. “These proposals leave a lot to the University’s discretion.”
Allison Jennings, a political science major now in her second year on the committee, said great care was being taken to avoid the kind of problems Berkman described but agreed the committee needed to proceed carefully.
“That’s actually Hilary’s position on our committee,” she said. “That’s why the code hasn’t been changed yet — because it’s so important to protect students’ rights.”