University Student Judiciary systems promise to uphold integrity and ethics inside the school, but those who are familiar with the disciplinary hearing processes will know that the system often fails to live up to these values.
A school has many good reasons to enforce its codes strictly, especially those against academic dishonesty. The university must maintain that its graduates’ degrees are meaningful and not the result of a series of cheating schemes. Unfortunately, these goals manifest themselves in burdensome sanctions that do not befit their respective offenses and in a judiciary council that values punishment over justice.
But the penalties given, at most, can only accomplish as much justice as the judicial process itself. The University of Maryland’s USJ rejects the adversarial nature of true legal proceedings in favor of a more “academic process unique to the community of scholars that comprise a university,” according to the university’s academic integrity code.
However, a hallmark of this more academic process is a “compelling interest of the University to expeditiously conclude the matter.” As a result, a student may seek help from the Student Legal Aid Office, but “participation from these offices is not required, nor is it guaranteed by the Code of Academic Integrity.” In fact, the university’s academic integrity code states that “the work of an Honor Board will not, as a general practice, be delayed due to the unavailability of an advocate or an advisor.” But what does it mean to not even guarantee a student’s right to counsel? How can this basic right not even be guaranteed?
Additionally, the burden of proof, in both the university’s code of student conduct and code of academic integrity, is clear and convincing evidence. For those unfamiliar with the law, it’s not as stringent as it sounds, and is actually a middle ground below reasonable doubt, as in typical criminal cases. Considering that some violations of the code of student conduct are criminal matters such as rape, and some violations of the code of academic integrity result in F’s or dismissal from the university, this denies opportunities for a student facing such severe charges to absolve himself.
When I was interviewing for a USJ position last semester, I was similarly unsettled by practices inside the organization, which ultimately led me to realize that the USJ is not an organization I wanted to be a part of. Despite my own interest in law, I became convinced that the kind of “judicial” experience I would have as a member of USJ would not be much different than those seen in authoritarian governments, but only on a smaller scale.
In a personal interview, I was given a scenario in which a student with extenuating circumstances in his life committed an act of academic dishonesty. I was to decide his penalty. Upon asking for more information about the student’s circumstances and the context of his actions, the interviewers couldn’t tell me. And when I asked if such information would be obtainable if this were a real case, they responded that, many times, USJ members had to render decisions with incomplete information. Ironically, this means that in the USJ, only punishments are guaranteed, but not a fair and thorough review of the facts.
In a separate group interview, five other applicants and I played the role of a college admissions committee whose job was to decide which three college applicants to admit among 10, all with some sort of “unacceptable” behavior on their records. The interviewees around me supported the free-thinking applicants who committed civil disobedience but denied admittance to those whose “free thinking” and civil disobedience didn’t adhere to the interviewees’ own social agendas. Worse is that the interviewers, who themselves were students in no way immune to partiality or with significantly more wisdom in the study of law and ethics, did not seem to take any issue with this kind of decision-making.
Some of you may be wondering what the harm is in judging a student accused of cheating or sexual assault through a student judiciary organization that isn’t entirely impartial or doesn’t entirely adhere to formal legal proceedings seen virtually anywhere else outside the walls of the campus. Some of you may feel that the students accused of those crimes must have at least done something wrong, and if a biased judicial system ends up punishing those students because the student judges were biased toward “campus safety” or “academic integrity,” then how could this system possibly be bad? It would even seem that this kind of student judicial system is working for the greater good of the campus.
The issue with this line of thinking is that bias is a sword that cuts both ways, and very often, biased systems eventually lead to corruption. Take the countless examples of sexual assault and cheating cases against athletes that are eventually dismissed and go unpunished due to their subjects’ status and value to the university. Or how many university-controlled nonindependent newspapers lead to censorship. It is clear then that any flawed or biased system, no matter the intent, is susceptible to influence and exploitation and that the greatest good for society can only be delivered if lady justice is blind.
Perhaps it would be more beneficial to the university community at large if we remolded the USJ to give respondents more due process rights, to work not for the greater good of the university and its bottom line, or even for students, but for the greater good of justice, and aim to correct behavior instead of punishing to the fullest extent allowed by university policy.
This is not to say that the functions of USJ are not important. However, equal justice is something that must be granted to all — not just to the greater community, but to the individual under scrutiny as well. A judiciary system that holds one to be more important than the other opposes the central tenets it’s created to uphold, and at that point, it becomes a threat to society.
William An is a freshman finance major. He can be reached at willandbk@gmail.com.
