On Monday, the University of Wisconsin System recommended changes to state law dealing with student misconduct. The UW System hopes to acquire feedback from the public before it officially sends the recommendations to the state Legislature and the Board of Regents in the fall. I am only too happy to comply.
While most of the revisions make sense and are necessary, a troubling new section that states when the university can punish a student’s off-campus behavior is vague and ill-defined. As it stands, this particular revision could potentially shove authority into parts of a student’s affairs where it has no business.
This committee reviewed and revised two chapters of the Wisconsin Administrative Code; the first chapter dealt with the ways in which a student can misbehave and the actions the university can use to discipline the student. The second chapter did the same with anyone, student or nonstudent, standing on university property.
Most revisions were minor editing changes meant to clarify or update. However, the major change to these chapters, and the one with which I take issue, is the addition of an entirely new section that redefines student misconduct.
This new section states that the university may punish a student for his or her actions off campus. It allows the university to punish the student’s off-campus actions if the student seriously derails the university’s progress toward fulfilling its ?teaching, research, or public service missions,? repeatedly endangers the health or safety of himself and those around him, or if his actions constitute a ?serious criminal offense, regardless of the existence or outcome of any criminal proceedings.?
The premise of the new section is sound. The university should treat its students’ misconduct differently depending on where the behavior took place. On campus, a person attending the university is identified as a student. He or she is enmeshed in classes, a schedule and other university-related activities. On campus, the university has every right to discipline a member of its system who misbehaves.
Off campus, the university’s right to punish students enters a gray area. If an attendee of a university is vacationing in Cancun or visiting home many miles away from his or her university, is he or she still considered a student in the same way as an attendee who is mired in classes and grades and is waltzing among university property? Is he or she as directly involved in the university when far away from it?
In my opinion, the university should only crack down on its students who screw up off of campus in cases where the university is affected or the student has a real danger of bringing his or her misbehavior back to campus, and leave the other offenses to the local authorities.
In this regard, the first two criteria for punishing off-campus behavior is reasonable, if slightly vague, while the third neatly brands the student with the university’s authority, no matter where the student happens to be. If the student wrongly interferes with the university’s ?mission? or repeats harmful behavior that could continue back on campus, then the university has every right to slap the long arm of the law across his or her face.
However, the possibility that the university can punish a ?serious criminal offense, regardless of the existence or outcome of any criminal proceedings? outside its doors is troubling. Obviously, if the student engages in first-degree murder, appropriate steps (like, say, expulsion?) should be taken. But how ?serious? does the crime have to be for the university to step in? Is underage drinking serious enough? The fact that the section does not elaborate on the nature of ?serious? leaves the law open to interpretation and ripe for abuse. More troubling still is the part that allows the university to punish off-campus misbehavior regardless of ?the existence or outcome of any criminal proceedings.?
The assumption that the university can make better judgments than those made by a court of law, especially if the court in question is physically closer to the off-campus offense than the university itself, is dubious at best. The university should leave the final decision of criminal offenses located outside its property to the local authorities, instead of presuming to override the government’s decision. If a student is found not guilty of a crime, the university should not press the issue.
Fits of drunken passion can lead to college students making nuisances of themselves in the surrounding college town, especially in Madison. Still, the university must be careful in the methods it uses to rein in its students before it stomps on and obliterates their rights completely.
Jack Garigliano ([email protected]) is a sophomore majoring in history and English.
