UA Codes and Judicial Committee

Current practice described by Krause Report

List of sanctions provided. Some general guidance that subsequent offenses will generally result in progressively more serious sanctions.

Proposed practice in Krause Report

List of sanctions provided. Retain guidance on progressive discipline. Adds provision that certain types of serious offenses (violence, bias motivated offenses, and any other offense that threatens educational mission, health, or safety) ordinarily will result in dismissal or significant suspension.

Immediate removal from campus and dismissal occur in the present system. I am not sure the two processes are functionally different on this point. The Krause wording could be adopted by CJC without having to make the major process and reporting changes the administration favors.

Ms. Krause has recommended that suspended students should not be able to transfer to Cornell any academic credit they may have earned elsewhere during their suspensions. I think that should go without saying.

With regard to bias-motivated offenses, I am not at all sure that making bias an aggravating factor - especially to the point of suspending or expelling a student who otherwise would have been allowed to continue at Cornell - is a good idea.

I think a much better approach, and one which would better fulfill the spirit of the Krause Report, would be to design the sanction so as to educate the student away from his/her biases (or at least away from letting them motivate him/her to assault people, destroy property or otherwise hurt others).

I’d like to address one more thing that was not in the Krause Report but I think merits discussion since we’re reconsidering sanctions anyway. We should consider emulating Harvard’s approach with regard to suspensions and expulsions.

In brief, Harvard never suspends a student for a period fixed in advance. Normally, a suspension is the last step before expulsion, so it should be designed to maximize the chance that the student uses the time off to see the error of his/her ways and begin reform.

Normally a Harvard student for whom a disciplinary or academic warning is not enough is first placed on probation, designed to help the student overcome his/her problems (eg, time management, impulsiveness, etc).

If probation does not succeed (or if the academic or behavioral failure is too severe for probation), the student is required to withdraw. A minimum but *not* a maximum period is specified, and there are certain conditions. The most interesting condition, in my opinion, requires the student to get and keep, for at least six months, a single full-time paid non-academic job, with a good recommendation from his/her supervisor.

The student would request readmission through a designated advocate, and either in May or in December the appropriate board would decide whether to readmit him/her for the following term. Readmission may come with conditions, such as a term or more of probation, consultation with University Health Services, etc.

Ordinarily, the readmission is the student’s last chance; a student who is required to withdraw a second time cannot return.

In certain cases, the student may instead be dismissed or expelled, either of which requires a concurring faculty vote. A dismissed student may only return if the faculty (not just the board) agrees, and such agreement is described as rare; an expelled student may never return under any circumstances.

My information about Harvard’s procedure comes from http://webdocs.registrar.fas.harvard.edu/ugrad_handbook/current/chapter4/ad_board.html