Oh, our lovely rights… Students Try to Decipher the Proposed Student Code of Conduct
On November 4, students piled into a library classroom to voice their apprehensions to the Disappearing Task Force (DTF) in charge of revising the Student Code of Conduct. Many concerns were raised last spring when the first draft of the code was released to the students for public comment. Considering the level of attendance at the most recent meeting, students would like to take part in the review of the code more than once a year.
At the meeting, students raised concerns about the proposed revision of the Student Code of Conduct that was circulated last spring. Prevalent among the issues brought up was the ambiguous language used to describe what kind of off-campus behavior could result in punishment by the school. The DTF members maintained that the effort to bring off-campus behavior under the jurisdiction of the school is intended to enable the administration to take action against students who commit sexual assault or other violence off campus. Students agreed that such situations should be addressed by the administration, but that the language was not specific enough to assuage their fear that the clause could extend to students known to have participated in other types of illegal activities, such as civil disobedience and other forms of activism.
Students were also concerned that the decision on whether to apply the code to a particular situation would be made on a case-by-case basis by one person: the vice president of student affairs.
This conversation was quickly diverted by DTF members Wendy Endress and Andrea Seabert, both of whom work for the student affairs office.
As students raised their concerns, Wendy assured them that what they were referring to was part of the “old version” of the revised document. They now had a new version. Everyone perked up. Great, said the students, let’s see it. But there wasn’t a copy available. Wendy hadn’t brought one.
The students asked if it was online. No, it won’t be available there either. Wendy said that she wanted feedback from students, but not reactionary responses. By “reactionary responses” she was referring to the huge outcry against several sections in the “old version” of the code revision last spring, and the thirty students who were now squeezed into a meeting that she hadn’t expected anyone outside of the DTF to attend.
She also said that she had reservations about posting changes to the code online, because the committee goes back and forth on a lot of issues, and she didn’t want to get a flood of responses about something that might get changed the next week anyway.
And finally, she said, sometimes the DTF makes tentative changes to the code without knowing fully where they stand on the matter, and she wants to be sure she can defend the changes before they are made available to public scrutiny. So basically, revise first, then figure out some kind of justification, is standard operating procedure for this DTF.
Wendy’s comments initiated a merry-go-round of talking that lasted the rest of the meeting. Students made suggestions about how to make revising the student code of conduct a more public process, and Wendy made the same three points over and over. Students paraphrased the suggestions, Wendy repeated her answers.
Students basically said that substantive changes to the code should be posted online as they are made, or the latest version should be posted monthly, something so students can know whether or not to keep pestering the DTF about the serious flaws in the revision of the code, or whether they’ve been amended.
Wendy reiterated her reasons for not wanting to do this and said that in December, when they have a final draft, students will get to see it and voice their feedback, which the DTF will then consider. Students didn’t like this idea, because “final draft” sounds, well, final. They doubted how much their feedback would really be considered at that point.
The meeting ended with these issues unresolved. However, a student filed a public records request to obtain the “new version” of the revised code of conduct, which prompted Wendy Endress to post the damn thing online.
One thing this episode brings to light is the difference between representation and power. Reserving seats for students on DTFs and committees is better than keeping students out of Evergreen’s decision-making processes altogether. But when it comes down to it, these positions are filled by students who are expected to do little more than offer their token opinions. If the administration is already headed in one direction, it isn’t likely that these individual students will be able to turn them around.
Our student reps generally do a good job within the limits of their position, working to make change through compromises and lengthy discussions with other committee members. But compare this process with that of occupying the DTF meeting and filing a public records request, an action that resulted in at least one student demand being met immediately.
We interviewed Ray Campbell, one of the student representatives on the Student Code of Conduct DTF, to find out how much clout the “student voice,” has on this issue.
Ray told us that the board was “a pretty level playing field now that there are so many student representatives.” The students on the DTF went through the Geoduck Union interview process and were recommended by interview panels to serve on the committee.
It is very important that there are a number of students serving on this committee, but there also needs to be more of a dialogue with the wider student community. When asked whether the DTF was working to make this happen, Ray’s response was that “they are trying, but at the same time they don’t want [the meetings] open to twenty or thirty students each week…the majority of student input they are looking to get from student representatives.”
As Ray went on to say, it is the job of student appointees to be the voice of student opinion. When we inquired if there was an open meeting or another way for representatives to hear from the larger student body, he replied, “It is not exactly organized that way, but I certainly hope to do that,” and went on to discuss how he would like to work with other student appointees to work on gathering more student participation.
With the understanding that the committee was not looking for weekly input from students, we wondered how the committee planned to address student concerns. Right now, “the main way that the DTF is looking for student input is through meetings that they hold once a year, and they get student input, take that back and rework the draft. They will do that three or four times before the conduct code is solidified.”
This made us wonder whether last year’s concerns have been considered. Ray informed us about some recent changes made in the code: In last Wednesday’s meeting, the committee “made a change to the jurisdiction piece. We redacted the term ‘property’,” and next week, “we are going to take a look at the ‘adjacent’ part.” These both fall under Section Three: “Jurisdiction of the Code.” This section concerns what rights the college has to pursue actions against students for things that happen off campus. These changes only scratch the surface of the problems with this section of the code.
Many concerns coming from the student body address the power of the vice president of student affairs in applying the new code. When queried, Ray explained that the committee “addressed some of those concerns at last week’s meetings.” We wondered if the changes really made a difference and he responded, “I think the result is it’s just sounding better, but the thought behind changing the term was to make it seem more balanced.”
When going over the standards for students’ conduct, Section Four of the code, Ray pointed out a few issues he has with the language. The third term punishes the failure to be truthful and forthcoming, which “seems like it is a slight problem with the Fifth Amendment.” Ray assured us that “‘truthful and forthcoming’ will be brought up, at least if I have any say in it,” and that “you should be able to remain silent even if the police stop you.” This definitely seems like a basic right under the Fifth Amendment. Reading on only two items down, number five prohibits “failure to comply with the directions of members of the college community.” Ray said—and we couldn’t agree more—that “just because you are a community member doesn’t give you the official capacity to do that.”
Item ten prohibits the possession of firearms or weapons. Makes sense until you read the last part of that item, which includes, “realistic replica of such instrument, which might reasonably threaten or cause fear or alarm to others.” Interesting, what falls under “realistic,” a toy gun with a red point? Raymond believes that, “we can probably remove the realistic replica part because it is covered in the sounding of a false alarm.” His reference is to item twelve: “intentional sounding of a false alarm.”
We took a look at the back of the code under Section Eleven: Corrective Action. Last spring, and again at the November 4 meeting, students raised concerns about the power of the college to revoke degrees. At the time, Andrea Seabert said this had been redacted from the code.
However while reading the code, we found that the last item in the Corrective Action section was still the revocation of admission or degree, with no time limit of how long after you get your degree that it can be revoked. Ray stated that he, “will have to talk to Andi Seabert about that one”. To that we responded that maybe Andi should read her code a little more closely.