Clarity needed in policy

Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta has certainly shown his affinity for the United States Constitution, as evidenced by the Sept. 17 Constitution Day email blast. His respect for the ideals underlying this kind of document, however, remains questionable. Some recent changes made to the Duke Community Standard reveal that the rule of law may not extend to Duke students as clearly as it does to U.S. citizens.

At the beginning of this year, the Office of Student Conduct unilaterally changed its policy regarding the accountability of student groups in violation of the Duke Community Standard. The new policy specifically indicates that student leaders may be held accountable for the actions of their student groups during group activities.

But, in a Sept. 14 email, Larry Moneta denied that a change in practice actually took place and claimed that student leaders have always had this liability. In fact, Moneta noted that the practice of holding student leaders accountable for group actions has been carried out on “many past occasions,” although he was unable to disclose the specific cases because of FERPA protections.

A close look at the 2010-2011 Duke Community Standard shows that—despite reserving many broad powers for the Office of Student Conduct—it contained no policy that makes elected leaders individually responsible for the misdeeds of their groups before the 2011-2012 academic year. In fact, the opposite is true­—the 2010-2011 Community Standard indicates that student groups collectively bore the burden of responsibility, with no mention made of the liability of student leaders.

We infer that, in an act of the utmost high-handedness, the Office of Student Conduct has enforced a policy for many years that has only now made an appearance in the Community Standard. Student conduct policies cannot be formulated to account for every individual case, but the question of accountability seems to us an obvious point that ought to be addressed in writing. By punishing student leaders for the crimes of their groups without having this policy on the books, the Office of Student Conduct has flagrantly disrespected students’ rights to the procedure of written law.

Additionally, we find only regression in the Office of Student Conduct refusal to consult students prior to implementing this policy. Last year’s positive addition of two students to the student conduct approval committee seems like window dressing when the administration seems to refuse to confer with them before releasing new policies. Although we understand that the Office of Student Conduct is under no direct obligation to solicit student opinion on policymaking, for the administration to ignore a channel for student involvement that it created only one short year ago rings of duplicity.

Including student input in this policy from the start may have prevented much of the current backlash. Students could have clarified some of the ambiguities mentioned in our Sept. 13 editorial and made the content of the policy more palatable.

Placing a moratorium on this new rule could limit the future damages of this ambiguous policy. But the Office of Student Conduct was wrong to enforce this rule before writing it into existence. The administration has a responsibility to students to clearly enumerate the policies by which it expects them to abide—we certainly deserve that much. ?