The Badger Herald: Opinion: UW fear-mongers to justify new misconduct policy

Opinion

UW fear-mongers to justify new misconduct policy

Looking for a print version?
Simply use your browser’s ‘Print’ command and a printer-friendly document will be generated automatically.

Also by Sam Clegg:

Lunch trays signal end of America (April 30, 2009)
SSFC right on; ASM muddles on as year ends (April 28, 2009)
Far left coalition shattered from Monona to Mendota (April 21, 2009)

By Sam Clegg
Thursday, October 2, 2008 12:00 a.m.

4 Vote 0 Votes

Heavens! What are we to do? Crime has been running rampant in the city of Madison and beyond, shaking the foundations of civil society to its core. Whether an unsuspecting pack of Orbit gum is spirited off without any compensation or the rogue ass-grabber-turned-sexual assaulter makes off successfully with his ill-begotten feeling of arousal in hand, the boys in blue seem woefully inept at coming to the rescue. And with current university policy, Saturday night’s arrested criminal could be back among the masses as Monday morning’s average student.

But if the University of Wisconsin System Board of Regents has its way, the prospective crook can look forward to a visit from a dour-faced administrator notifying him that he has been expelled for his crimes. And the board, in its benevolent urge to quell the violence, is at last dispensing with one of the most aggravating obstacles standing in the way of a peaceful campus — accountability.

When they pass a series of updates to the UW System’s student misconduct policy, the regents will give administrators an expanded power to discipline students for crimes off campus. Additionally, students will not be entitled to legal representation during their hearing.

To emphasize the dire climate amid which the slew of new regulation is expected to take place, UW System spokesperson David Giroux made an astounding departure from the bureaucratese that normally characterizes such dialogues, arguing that if students want a campus that is safe, they should support the new measures. Of course it is strikingly easy to understand how support for updating a single code should serve as a litmus test to prove one’s entire devotion to safety. After all, the policy comes with such bonus goodies as giving students no right to be represented by a lawyer, despite the fact that they are being judged and potentially expelled by a horde of administrators with the collective judicial experience of water buffalo. And the average student’s crimes, insofar as they are committed off campus, are clearly the realm of an interventionist university — not the police we hire to solve those crimes or the judges we expect to punish them.

Simply put, we can all agree that instead of putting our potential killer or muggers in jail, we prefer that they are sternly warned not to grab their next chicken sandwich at Gordon Commons … or else.

Giroux’s efforts to simplify the issue are commendable — and most of us do want a safe university. I would venture to say that all of us do. That is why, every time a violent crime is committed off campus, we hope and pray that in conjunction with the proverbial doughnut-cramming glutton, we can now rely on an all-powerful administrator to arbitrarily deal justice to the next anonymous mugger lurking in the shadows.

If only that self-righteous “civil liberties” crowd would keep their condescending traps shut.

Professor Donald Downs, president of the Committee for Academic Freedom and Rights, has raised an unconscionable furor over the policy, arguing that an adversarial process should provide students with the rights of an adversarial justice system. In particular, Downs’ incomprehensible whining focuses on the fact students cannot be represented by lawyers at the hearings. Where does this guy get off?

It goes without saying that Giroux nailed it on the head — anybody who believes that students should be extended a semblance of legal protection must unequivocally hate safety.

As for Downs and the 30 professors of his “committee,” one can safely conclude they have clearly never experienced the thrilling sense of liberation that comes from knowing the university can shred any semblance of rights in order to ensure that justice is done. Shame on you, Professor Downs and company. Shame on you for trying to make the assassination of our rights out to be more than what it is — a bureaucratic affair.

If you do not support “safety,” please email the Board of Regents at: board@uwsa.edu or call them at: (608) 262-2324.

Sam Clegg (sclegg@badgerherald.com) is a sophomore majoring in economics and French.

4 Comments | Leave a comment

Anonymous | October 2, 2008 3:17 AM | Reply
IP hash: 1fd674ab

how does this idiot still have a column?

Anonymous | October 2, 2008 10:02 AM | Reply
IP hash: 706b4f30

This “idiot” is making a valid point about a policy change that will significantly affect students. I will admit the column is written in a very opaque ‘trying to be Stephen Colbert’ manner, but it breaks down to this:

If you get drunk on Saturday night at Wandos and get in a fight and are charged with battery, for example, the university could bring you up on misconduct charges and expel you from the university. You would face an expulsion hearing without the assistance of an attorney despite the fact that the hearing is likely one of the biggest and most important moments of your life up until then.

This is another example of the university system disregarding the fact that students are adults with rights. Under current policy UW has the right to notify your parents if you get too drunk on the weekends or drink in the dorms. They have expanded this to include any behavior that they see as “dangerous” like walking bare-foot (i’m not kidding, this has actually happened). Students are adults and the university is treating them like children simply because they pay tuition.