Spring Break
Editorial: Faculty Senate should oppose URI Patriot Act
Issue date: 4/20/05 Section: Editorial/Opinion
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04/20/05 - Next month, the University of Rhode Island Faculty Senate will consider drastic changes to the Student Handbook that will undermine every student's rights.
From allowing housing staff to search through closets and refrigerators without consent to assuming that a student was more likely than not guilty of a crime, these changes would represent a disturbing trend of expanding the university's powers at the expense of the students? These changes are indeed URI's version of the Patriot Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
While the changes would seem, on their face, to only affect "bad guys" who have committed some infraction of university policy, there is more to the story than that. For example, the university expanding the Judicial Board's power to punish people for infractions committed off-campus.
While the only people affected by this change would be people who are already breaking laws, it must be remembered that the only way the university would know about these infractions is if local police had already arrested those responsible. Since the police would have charged these people with a crime, the university would be punishing these people a second time for the same crime. Do these people really deserve to be punished twice for one mistake?
Secondly, the current lack of oversight is very concerning. The judicial system is locked tight. This is a problem because in many cases, proponents of the changes have said they do not want to abuse their new powers. However, without any way to monitor the judicial system it is impossible to confirm whether they are abusing their power or not. One of the proposed changes states housing staff may search a room without consent only if they have "concrete evidence." How can the community be sure they had concrete evidence if nobody can attend the board's hearings, even if both parties consent?
Finally and most disturbing, the university is moving to "de-legalize" the judicial process, even changing the name of the judicial system to the Orwellian "conduct system." However, proponents of the changes are failing to note two things - that the judicial system prosecutes cases as weighty as rape and assault, and the board can hand out punishments as severe as an expulsion. To change the standard of evidence from the equivalent of "beyond a reasonable doubt" to "more likely than not" would mean students could be expelled, or punished for raping another student, even though members of the board are not positive the student committed an offense.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is good enough for the U.S. judicial system. Why isn't it good enough for the university?
From allowing housing staff to search through closets and refrigerators without consent to assuming that a student was more likely than not guilty of a crime, these changes would represent a disturbing trend of expanding the university's powers at the expense of the students? These changes are indeed URI's version of the Patriot Act, passed by the U.S. Congress in response to the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
While the changes would seem, on their face, to only affect "bad guys" who have committed some infraction of university policy, there is more to the story than that. For example, the university expanding the Judicial Board's power to punish people for infractions committed off-campus.
While the only people affected by this change would be people who are already breaking laws, it must be remembered that the only way the university would know about these infractions is if local police had already arrested those responsible. Since the police would have charged these people with a crime, the university would be punishing these people a second time for the same crime. Do these people really deserve to be punished twice for one mistake?
Secondly, the current lack of oversight is very concerning. The judicial system is locked tight. This is a problem because in many cases, proponents of the changes have said they do not want to abuse their new powers. However, without any way to monitor the judicial system it is impossible to confirm whether they are abusing their power or not. One of the proposed changes states housing staff may search a room without consent only if they have "concrete evidence." How can the community be sure they had concrete evidence if nobody can attend the board's hearings, even if both parties consent?
Finally and most disturbing, the university is moving to "de-legalize" the judicial process, even changing the name of the judicial system to the Orwellian "conduct system." However, proponents of the changes are failing to note two things - that the judicial system prosecutes cases as weighty as rape and assault, and the board can hand out punishments as severe as an expulsion. To change the standard of evidence from the equivalent of "beyond a reasonable doubt" to "more likely than not" would mean students could be expelled, or punished for raping another student, even though members of the board are not positive the student committed an offense.
Beyond a reasonable doubt is good enough for the U.S. judicial system. Why isn't it good enough for the university?
