Student Association leaders and the Office of Student Conduct came to an agreement on proposed amendments to the rules governing the Binghamton University student body yesterday — a mere two hours before a forum to publicly announce the amendments, and less than a day before they were to be voted on by the BU Council.
Twelve students — the overwhelming majority members of BU student government — were in attendance, as well as Milton Chester and Paul Stroud of the Office of Student Conduct and Beth Riley of the University Counseling Center.
The meeting focused on three issues in particular: the definition of the term “harassment” within the Student Code of Conduct, the consequences of not accepting a federal mandate and the possibility of having two separate mechanisms for deciding student conduct cases.
The forum was scheduled after the Student Association was informed Sunday about the planned amendments to the Code of Student Conduct. The Office of Student Conduct drafted the amendments over the summer after the United States Department of Education released new federal guidelines for handling cases regarding sexual harassment, sexual discrimination and sexual violence.
The new guidelines left BU’s Code of Student Conduct out of compliance with federal regulations. The Office of Student Conduct’s proposed amendments included definitions of harassment and sexual violence and the creation of a separate grievance and appeals process for sex-based cases, as required by the federal mandate.
One amendment left the SA Executive Board and the Office of Student Conduct at loggerheads, until yesterday.
The new federal guidelines require that campus sex-based cases be decided using “preponderance of the evidence” as the standard of evidence needed for conviction. Preponderance of the evidence refers to a simple majority of the evidence, and it is a less strict standard than the “clear and convincing evidence” standard Binghamton University has used since fall 2009.
The Office of Student Conduct’s proposed amendments would have applied preponderance of the evidence to every disciplinary procedure, much to the chagrin of the SA E-Board and College Libertarians, an SA-chartered student group.
SA President Katie Howard and SA Vice President for Academic Affairs Kate Flatley had separate meetings with Brian Rose, BU vice president for student affairs, and Milton Chester, director of the Office of Student Conduct, on Tuesday. In those meetings, the SA E-Board members presented compromise solutions that they considered more “student friendly” than the amendments that Chester said were finalized last Friday.
The student leaders and University officials settled on a compromise whereby all non-sex-based cases will continue to be decided using the clear and convincing standard of evidence, while sex-based cases would return to the standard of a preponderance of the evidence, as required by the new federal law.
Chester led the forum’s discussion by reading the suggested amendments and then opened up the floor for comments and questions.
Students raised the question of whether it was possible for BU to simply ignore the new federal guidelines and what the consequences of this would be.
Flatley and other SA E-Board members agreed that it would not be possible for a public institution like BU to reject a federal mandate.
“Schools like Harvard, Yale and Columbia are private institutions with rather large endowments, so they have more leeway with the mandate,” Flatley said. “We wouldn’t be operational without state and federal aid since we are a state institution.”
Other students were concerned that the Office of Student Conduct would attempt to reinstate, as a blanket policy, preponderance of the evidence as the standard of evidence for conduct cases in the future, this week’s compromise notwithstanding.
“It bothers me that the Student Conduct Board wanted to extend this to all cases because that signals to me that the board will pursue this again next year or in the future,” said Tyler Albertario, a sophomore majoring political science and SA representative for Hinman College.
SA Assembly Speaker Andrew Howard brought up the possibility of creating two separate conduct boards with a specialized board for sex-based cases and one for all other violations.
Chester said he did not see how such a system would benefit the University or students.
“Having a specialized board doesn’t take away the issue of having two separate standards,” Chester said. “What we’ve done now is say that there is just one standard for those types of cases.”
Beth Riley, coordinator of sexual assault programs for the University Counseling Center, said she thought students at the meeting seemed well-prepared with concise and articulate arguments.
“They got to the heart of the matter and raised some very important points, both for victims as well as for cases that are non-sexually related,” she said. “I’m very excited about this change being proposed because it gives the sexual assault victims what they need, under the conduct guidelines, while maintaining what the students have suggested for other crimes.”
Riley added the vote carried importance and urgency because it is currently the “red zone” of the semester, or the period during the first few weeks of classes when there generally is an increase in the number of sexual-assault victims.
“It’s important for us to put these changes through now, so that victims have the opportunity to present their case under preponderance of evidence,” she said.
The BU Council voted on the amendments at 9:30 a.m. today. Check www.bupipedream.com for the results of the vote.