University Assembly Meeting
Wednesday, November 29, 2006
4:30 — 6:00 p.m.
G10 Biotech
MINUTES

1.  I.Call To Order

Motion was made by J. Marwell to call the meeting to order at 4:35 p.m.

2.  II. Roll Call

Present: Tammy Bishop, Arnaub Chatterjee, Kate Duch, Adam Gay, Opal Hammer, Jules Marwell, Katie Whalen, Jim Glenn, Henry Granison, Leon Lawrence, Robert Kay, Ellis Loew, Randy Wayne

Absent: Ethan Russell, Rodney Orme, Yu Yu

Also present: Peggy Beach, Ari Epstein, Amy O’Donnell and many other students, staff, and faculty

3.  III. Approval of Minutes

The minutes from the meeting on Wednesday, October 25, 2006 were accepted with no amendments.

4.  IV. Business of the Day

J. Marwell displayed and read aloud the letter from President Skorton emailed to Cornell community last week charging the UA with gathering community input and submitting views and recommendations by April 1, 2007.

J. Marwell then read a motion by the UA charging the Codes and Judicial Committee with reviewing the Krause Report.

E. Loew mentioned an additional sentence had been left out of the overhead, but should be on the copies, which is that “The CJC shall, at its next meeting on Wednesday, 12/6/06, develop and approve a process to review the report including a schedule of meetings.” E. Loew proposed the motion that this sentence be included. It was seconded by H. Granison, and approved.

H. Granison then asked if the UA is only charging the CJC to look at just the Krause Report or the whole Code of Conduct. This discussion started out with the issue of an “honor code. “ Are we also asking the CJC to discuss this possibility of an honor code? Should we put it on the table?

E. Loew said this motion deals specifically with the charge given to the UA by President Skorton, which referred directly to the Krause Report, not to previous honor codes or codes of Academic Integrity deliberations. This motion has nothing to do with that. In fact, depending on the outcome of this committee, this may be a moot point because if certain parts of the report are accepted, there would be no CJC to investigate the issue. That is why the motion is framed the way that it is, directly at the President’s charge.

H. Granison then also asked that we affirm that the CJC is in the best position to look at the charge from President Skorton as opposed to the UA itself. In the past, some things have been looked at by committees, and then brought forth to the entire body. Transportation was mentioned as an example. He would like to open this up for discussion with the group.

E. Loew said that he personally thinks that the CJC is the best place, for no other reason than that there are members on the CJC who are not members of the UA, and they have special knowledge and experience with the codes. They are in a better position than the UA as a whole to handle this issue. Their report will have to come to the UA to be thoroughly discussed before it is submitted. If the CJC did not exist, we would have to form a working committee anyway, as we do not see how the entire UA could be involved given the time that we have.

R. Wayne asked that we have the CJC report to us monthly and make it a large part of our deliberations.

E. Loew stated that since they are a standing committee and they are on our agenda every meeting anyway, that is primarily what they will be working on.

J. Marwell asked if anyone had any other comments.

Visitor — will the CJC report to the JA’s office? Specifically what about point 5? When was this letter written that is presented?

J. Marwell said that communications need to be submitted by March 7th.

M. Hatch replied with November 15th.

J. Marwell then called for a vote.

Visitor — Is there a possibility that the CJC might address the time frame that was given? It seems like April 1st is a very short time frame from now. Does anyone have any concerns about the position this puts the CJC and/or the UA in? Is there any discussion about that? Will there be enough time to consider this?

R. Kay asked what time frame the visitor thought it would take.

Visitor is the Chair of the Committee to review Faculty Government. The visitor said this committee was created by the Faculty Senate at the end of 2005, and they have just issued their draft report and presented it at the November 2006 meeting of the Faculty Senate. It took that long to consider everything. Committees take a lot of time to figure out how to address issues carefully. Their committee gave a progress report in the spring. It seems like there is a predetermined schedule given by the administration on this issue. The visitor would like to hear someone address this.

K. Whalen stated that she thought it was very important to address this during this academic year. Barbara Krause had a year to look at it and make recommendations, and we had already set ourselves up to address this issue this year. This was one of the UA’s goals — a second step in a 3 or 4 step process. A self-imposed deadline is in order.

Visitor — The first step really did not involve the UA or the CJC, but President Rawlings went right to Barbara Krause. Why did he go outside of the UA? The UA has never given the word that they wanted a report that was done outside the UA. Was this report even needed?

J. Marwell suggested that we move on from this point, and that we could call this a “progress report with summary data and recommendations”. All dates would stick unless otherwise notified. Would that be acceptable?

E. Loew said that the only thing that really matters to the CJC is the first issue. The process, for instance, of off-campus jurisdiction: if that had been raised without anything to do with eliminating the independence of the JA, it would have gone before the CJC, and any member of the campus community can put it there. If we were to have an open forum on each issue, it could take a year or more to discuss, and that has happened. We don’t want to waste the committee’s time on something that could turn out to be moot. If the UA should recommend eliminating the JA as an independent entity and moving the code away from the UA, that would make our life easy not to have to look at specifics. I am not sure that is setting a deadline, but we could consider changing the deadlines.

M. Hatch said that related to the point about bringing the honor code into the realm of the codes. We have considered bring it into the realm of the Code of Conduct. E. Loew is trying to make the point that our main issue would be the Krause Report. The CJC would not address every point, but it would address the main ones; will the system be moved to the administration, to the VP’s office and be taken away from the UA? That is the key point. We are prepared to address everything else in the Krause Report. We have been doing so for the last 10 years I have been on the committee. That is why the fast timetable is possible. What the UA needs to decide is whether the UA should have authority over the code.

A vote was then taken and the motion was passed with a vote of 11–0−3.

5.  V. Open Forum on proposed changes to Campus Code of Conduct

J. Marwell explained that each speaker would have 2 minutes to speak, and then the bell will ring when time is up. E. Loew will be timing. Please come and sit in the front row, and that will be the order of the speakers. Please state your name and your position. The UA will respond afterward.

Abby Cohen (faculty member in the College of Arts and Sciences) voiced her concern about the concept and procedural things that have been put in motion, both by former Interim President Rawlings initiating the Krause report, and by current President Skorton following the path. Also, she stated her concerns that the UA has been relegated to fact-finding as opposed to the primary body of authority, also of the working group, including the formation, the constitution, and the authority of such a group. Several important members of the senior staff have not been included in it.

R. Wayne expressed his hope that if the UA continues this discussion about the Krause Report through March that people continue to attend with their friends to state their positions. Reason should be listened to.

Elizabeth Sanders (faculty member in the Government Dept) said this process will take an extraordinary amount of time for the faculty, staff, and students who are going to care about it, and for those who are on the committee, and feels it is one of the things at Cornell that is demoralizing because we are working under the administration’s agenda. If the administration wants to take over the function of the UA and/or the CJC, than they should just state that. What is envisioned here is to move sharply away from the right model of judicial independence toward some kind of re-education model. There have been two instances where the administration has moved by itself without having the normal model of the campus code; the last one was after the protest about divestment in South Africa; the protest failed. The most recent one was after the Redbud woods protest. The motivation clearly seems to be to diminish protesting and to scare students and faculty so they will not exercise their right to criticize the administration — very autocratic. Why not just agree to look at it, and pass it on to the CJC for their consideration and say that we will abide by our constitution?

R. Wayne agrees 90%. He said he believes this report is meant to punish Red Bud people. Civil disobedience, rape, and not leaving a building during a fire drill do not belong together.

E. Loew said there has been rigorous discussions on this. There is a feeling that we should be unbiased when there is no reason to be. We know that we have the power, and that we have been worked around again. It has happened with the Campus Store, Gannett, United Religious Work, and Transportation to name a few. We can’t say that we can’t do it if we are asked, we have a responsibility to act on it whether we like it or not. The charter gives us the power.

Eric Cheyfitz (Faculty Member from the English Department) stated he agrees with his colleagues, and also has concerns with the working group. He feels the UA should resist since they have been violated. It should not be taken out of faculty oversight. The freedom to protest peacefully is essential to academic freedom. To remove this code from faculty oversight is wrong. It is also a concern that since there is not a full complement of faculty on the UA, we are missing two members.

K. Rourke spoke up to say that the CJC is fully staffed with faculty. It is the UA that is missing a few faculty members.

E. Loew then said that getting seven faculty to join the UA is difficult. It was even discussed at one point to reduce the faculty representation to four. This discussion on the codes is good in that it is inspiring more faculty involvement.

H. Granison then said that the Krause Report did not drop from the sky — it was no surprise. The CJC has been looking at changing the campus code for years. It is important to understand that when Barbara Krause was appointed to do this, we embraced it because she had the time, and we appreciated her efforts. This agreement was made out in the open, and not behind closed doors. It may seem that way, but it is untrue.

R. Wayne said that the part about civil disobedience was a surprise.

D. Rosen said that he thought the part eliminating the JA was not a surprise.

M. Hatch said that maybe the UA was talked to, but others were not. The real problem is that the President did not give this to the UA and say that this was the report and what would you like to do with it? That didn’t happen, so what should we do about it?

J. Marwell said that if anyone would like to make a specific comment or point, please go to the feedback mechanism on the website, or make use of the comment box in the back.

Jeff fritallo(?) (Graduate student and student manager of the three North Campus coffee shops) stated he had two sets of concerns. First, he would like to know how the CJC and the working group will interact with each other. He stated that he doesn’t think that the working group represents the community. There are no students, Greeks, athletes, faculty, etc. Who will make the decision in the end? The VP for Student and Academic Services is the big boss of Campus, and she employs hundreds of students across campus. Should your big boss also be your judge? Shouldn’t your judge be an independent observer? Perhaps their boss should not be deciding whether or not they should be suspended or stay in school. In the end, does the CJC or do the Trustees have supreme authority?

K. Rourke can address the CJC, they do have students, Undergraduates and Graduates, faculty, etc.

R. Wayne asked Kim if their meetings are posted on the website.

It was answered that on the website assembly.cornell.edu is the University Assembly link, and under that is the link for Committees, and the CJC is listed under that heading with their own link.

Another suggestion that was made by M. Hatch was that if googled “Cornell CJC,” you will arrive at the correct website. That is the only thing that comes up.

Another voice said that they liked the simplicity of the statement that “your boss not be your judge.” For students that is important and also for employees, pretty much their boss is their judge also. There are parts of this university that are not covered by that fortunately.

Andy Cowan (2nd year law student) said last night the Cornell Law Student Association board voted unanimously to express its deep concern about the proposed changes in the Code. The committee will be writing a formal response. While he does not formally represent the CLSA, he would like to express that they are deeply disturbed by changes in the code that expands the University’s disciplinary power while simultaneously removing many of the procedures that protect students from false accusations and unfair sanctions. He would like to discuss a bit about the procedure for disciplinary actions under the Krause Report. She says it is appropriate, but it does not preserve fairness and due process. While he agrees it should be more like a conversation than a trial, the student can still suffer expulsion. Now, the student may remain silent, and if that is stripped, the student has to face the University alone while Cornell will have an attorney. If you lower the bar on a “preponderance” of evidence, then you will have many more cases and the chances of getting it wrong is greater. How sure do you have to be to impose a life-altering sanction on an accused student? He said for the sake of time he would skip over his comments about off campus jurisdiction and the amendment mechanism. It was not that too many students who misbehaved were “getting off.” The vast majority resolved theirs with a plea bargain. Even well intentioned administrators are prone to over-reaching, and abuse of authority can happen anywhere, including Cornell. We have a set of well thought out procedural protections in place, and he would urge this assembly to reject any changes that do not retain those protections.

E. Loew asked if there were any comments.

R. Wayne asked that the student go back and explain what he skipped over, and that a copy of his written comments be attached to the minutes.

A. Cowan came back to the microphone and continued with his comments on off-campus jurisdiction and the proposed amendment mechanism under the Krause Report. As for off-campus jurisdiction, the report said that the expansion of off-campus jurisdiction is driven by concerns about violence and sexual assault off campus. It seems that these actions are well covered by the President’s current option of invoking “off-campus jurisdiction” for exceptionally grave misconduct. The new standards are too vague. Can the University bring internal disciplinary actions against a student for drinking too much and getting sick over Spring Break in Cancun? What if it is for drinking too much and getting sick over Spring Break in Ithaca? Does that make a difference? Should it? What about a bar fight? The proposed changes open the door wide, and don’t set any meaningful boundaries. As for the proposed amendment mechanism, the UA is currently vested with the sole opportunity to amend the code with the exception of title 2 regulations for the maintenance of public order, which may be amended by the Trustees on the advice and consent of the UA. The Krause Report proposes to remove that amendment and put it with the University Policy office that would make student, faculty and staff input optional. Cornell committed in 1969 after the Willard Straight Takeover to create a campus judicial system that was acceptable to all members of the campus community. The UA represents the community to make sure the code remains acceptable. By cutting the community out of the process, the proposed changes undercut the University’s 1969 commitment and permanently relegate students to giving advice that the University may choose to ignore.

R. Wayne said that he would like to make a comment about the Policy Committee. He said he was very influenced by the movie All the President’s Men and the quote, “Follow the money.” In this case, the Policy Committee is under the VP for Financial Affairs. I think you have to ask what is considered bad? Does it cost the University money? That is the clear and convincing evidence to me of this report.

J. Marwell asked again to have A. Cowan email his comments to the UA.

E. Loew asked about a further report.

A. Cowan said that the Cornell Law Student Association will be publishing and transmitting a report through the website soon.

Dan Brown (a faculty member from the Department of Animal Science) said he has three points. First was regarding the reach of the campus code of conduct. I think for a couple of reasons that it should embrace, within its jurisdiction, that students, faculty, employees, trustees and administrators as being subject to the Code of Conduct. This is very common in organizations starting in middle school. They are subject to the Code of Conduct, and it would give them a great deal of authority and legitimacy if President Skorton would say, “This is me, too. This is everyone,” so that everyone would aspire to high levels of ethics. There is another reason to include administrators and trustees within the code. That is that in the past, their conduct has not always been ethical and honest. As far back as the 70’s when I was a graduate student, we were still ribbed about the famous case of President Malott plagiarizing his acceptance speech in the 50’s. There have been many dangerous decisions made along the way, just the summer before last there were numerous unethical, illegal, dishonorable and dangerous decisions made by members of the administration and if it were not for the forebearance of the police and the presence of Cornell faculty in Redbud Woods, there would have been injuries and a situation that would have made the Straight Takeover forgotten. For their efforts, the faculty was arrested, which was yet another dishonorable decision by this administration. These were people who were there, softening the passions of the students who were witnessing and preventing the excesses of the administration to save them from themselves. Students were losing water faster than they were taking it in, in that hot, hot environment. Some of us were arrested carrying water to the students. We were trying to educate them on the basic physiology that was involved. This can never occur again. Of course it was thrown out by the current DA, And of course it was never brought to the JA because they knew an independent JA would have never tolerated it. I hope that is not why they want to eliminate an independent JA. That would be the first point�that the code needs to touch everyone. The second is that everyone should have equal access to call them and they should not be the administration’s troops in any sense. No one can replace an independent JA. The final point is that this body should be much more assertive when they make their recommendation, if they differ from the Krause report recommendations. Instruct the President not to go forward with a proposal that includes the Krause report.

R. Wayne asked whether he had given any thought as to whether the Cornell Peace officers should be police officers under Peter Meskill’s (the Sheriff) purview or under the President of the University’s purview.

D. Brown answered that he did not know because he is a livestock nutritionist. They should be subject to county grand juries, the Sheriff, and perhaps the county administration. That would help them be more independent. That is way out of his portfolio.

R. Wayne said it is probably out of the President’s portfolio also.

The next speaker, Paul Sawyer, (a professor in English) said he was at Redbud Woods a few summers ago, and says that this report having anything to do with Redbud Woods is like thinking of a goldfish. Don’t think of a goldfish because this has nothing to do with that.

H. Granison says the timing of the report preceded Redbud Woods.

P. Sawyer says that it still reminds him of what happened to the students, and these changes would have meant that these students would have been suspended immediately. They could have been suspended because they were threatening to the University’s mission. And, the pool for the jury would have been appointed by them also. Krause says the preponderance of evidence is important. That standard to protect the innocent means until you are proven guilty, both the victim and the accused. This is the Ed Meese logic that anyone who is arrested is probably guilty. That this kind of a report would appear, this report done by a senior advisor to the President, is dumbfounding to me. This is not the Cornell I have ever known. I went through the Rhodes years. The changes took place in the summer of 1985, and they were reversed because they were unconstitutional. Cornell has a long history, and this is the worst of it. I hope that this report will be looked upon with contempt. They have betrayed the mission of the University. This is the “velvet glove” club, and this is not a logical argument. The best thing that David Skorton could do would be to remove this report.

Anthony West, a graduate student, answered a question that was asked earlier: the Cornell Police answer directly to Mary Beth Grant.

Mary Beth Grant stood up to say that was not true.

A. West spoke again to remind us of the context that these changes may have been made in response to the Redbud controversy. It is happening in the shadow of George W. Bush. This is a University which is a place which should defy him. This proposal chooses to follow suit in some degree. He said he is very bothered by the due process. The JA office is not independent enough.

R. Wayne agreed with the last statement, without giving an additional reason. He said that anything that goes in the opposite direction is not American.

A. West said he did not want to give his reason either. The University is going in the wrong direction because it has already dangerously completed two functions. One is that it’s function as an educational institution, and the other is it’s amateurish or half-baked attempt to play law enforcement. If we are going to have a jurisdiction where Ithaca does not have say, then it should be done properly with the full force of the Federal constitution in play. At this time, as a graduate student for example, if I had any problems with any decision made by the JA, the only option I would have would be to sue. If this happened within the city of Ithaca where I had a problem with a judge or a police officer I could sue the city. If this happens here, I would be in the unhappy position of having to sue my employer. This is not right. It differs from the right one by 180 degrees.

H. Granison asked where he went for his undergraduate studies.

A. West answered UC Berkeley.

H. Granison asked if Berkeley had given him any other constitutional rights? Would he have been in the same position there with the code? Would you also be forced to sue?

A. West answered that he had no idea because he had no reason to think of the codes or procedures at that time.

R. Wayne then noted that not one single person had spoken in favor of the Krause Report. He suggested equal time for anyone that wanted to come forward to speak in favor of it. Perhaps that is the message we should send President Skorton, that there is nobody that got this widely distributed invitation to come to this meeting that could speak in favor of the Krause Report.

The next speaker came to the podium.

Max Henderson, an undergraduate student, said he informally represents a group of about 650 undergraduate and graduate students who have come together under a group that he founded to come out specifically against the entire Krause Report. Most of his grievances weren’t even covered tonight. There is nothing in the report that is even useful. One grievance is that none of the fundamental concerns brought up by the report were even solved, or close to being solved, by the recommendations given. Most people who are at the University chose to attend this University because of it’s aspirational standards. Without being elitist, this community is, by and large, better than the average community. Judicial cases are not a huge issue here, and he says that he has friends who go to school, and they have stabbings all the time. We have the luxury that we do not have that here. The report states five cases that were especially difficult to resolve, and I don’t think that five cases merit all of the reduction of student rights that are recommended by this report. As far as the code being hard to read, there is a much easier fix than changing the independence of the JA or changing the entire structure just because our code is too complicated. As far as having a lower tolerance for violence, he agreed 100%. Certain things in the report do not make sense to him. One last issue that is very important is the right of students to appeal to a University board. He does not see how an appeal would be useful at all, or why it exists if you are handing a report to one person who then makes a yes or no decision. Krause used to be a JA, and maybe this bias is carried over to those appeals. If it just ends up in expulsion, what is the use? Other than that everything has been covered.

R. Wayne asked for a copy of his comments, J. Marwell asked that he email it.

J. Glenn asked how he represents the students he mentioned.

M. Henderson said that he represents the students through a Facebook group of over 650 members, and that some of the members were present here today.

K. Duch spoke up to say that in the last week M. Henderson created this Facebook group and came up with over 650 students to be involved with this issue, and he has also made a strong showing on their position for undergraduates. She didn’t think that M. Henderson gave himself enough credit for all his hard work.

M. Henderson said that he thought his position would be somewhat controversial, and was surprised that everyone agreed with him. He said that he’d like to ask President Skorton to throw it out.

President Skorton said that he just stopped by to see how the meeting was going. He would really like to wait to see how the process works out. He asked the last speaker if it was his position to leave things the way they are or would he be willing to consider some changes? Would they have the interest or the appetite to oversee it? I am hearing two issues; not to go in the direction stated by the report, but there could be some things that we could look at.

M. Henderson said please don’t go in this direction — maybe make a few changes. He also responded that this would be no consolation to him. This branch of the government has made it clear how they feel about the changes.

E. Loew said that relative to the President’s question to the UA, looking at the Code in terms of changes suggested by the Krause Report, this is not something we need to be asked to do, it is something we are responsible to do by our charter. You weren’t here, but it was pointed out that you are out there and we are here, and all you have to do is ask. We are responsible for basically asking questions and dealing with issues that you raise. We are your representative body. One of the fears I have is that it will be taken away from us, but at least when I read the charter, that is what we are empowered to do. Simply saying, “You don’t like the Krause Report, so throw it out,” doesn’t change the fact that there may be issues in the current Code addressed by the Krause report that shouldn’t be looked at. In fact, if your 650 students read the code the way it is now and you never even saw the Krause report, you would probably come to us very upset and would come to us and want to change things.

K. Rourke said that the 5 points she raised were meant to be a guidepost to look at both the Krause report and the Code itself. With sufficient time, we could work together and see the good parts of both. She then said that she appreciated everyone coming tonight and giving feedback. Feedback from the community is good and very important. The code is important to me, and to all of us.

K. Whalen wanted to say to M. Henderson that so far the comments have been very negative and critical of the Krause Report, and that Barbara Krause has looked at this very thoroughly. Were there any positive aspects that you found in it?

M. Henderson said that he does agree with some of the goals of the Krause Report. Some positive changes could be made by sticking more closely to the fundamental issues. We could speak about this afterwards. Some examples are the fact that the code is too difficult to read, the delays in cases, a lower tolerance for violence, and more transparency to the community. Those concerns are not out of line, but I read two paragraphs on the drawbacks of the proposed changes, half a paragraph on how the proposed change would benefit the community, and then a recommendation for the proposed change. There are a couple things personally that he thinks are important. Rewriting the code to have less reliance on criminal law language would be ideal, but not at the cost of removing the rights of students. An aspirational statement added to the code may be a positive thing. That would probably solve 80% of the problem, while not axing any of the Cornell communities’ Federal rights. I have outlined some things that I think are good.

J. Marwell said they would be interested in hearing that.

M. Henderson continued that what comes to mind immediately is the fact that it is difficult to bring to a hearing board when a serious case needs to be reviewed by the board. Maybe rethink the board: what about regular meetings instead of meetings only as needed? What about a different way of selecting the members of the board? That may be a more fitting solution. He is unclear how the board’s inability to meet necessitates a complete restructuring of the system. A few more questions to consider that have been raised from other students on the Facebook who were unable to attend;

Why should Cornell be quicker to convict “a system that is designed to protect the innocent” and why should Cornell deny rights to its “indicted” that the government grants to all whether they be murderers, sex offenders, or just petty thieves? How does the new proposed system protect the community against abuse on all levels, students, faculty and staff? What does this change and restructuring imply about the University’s faith in its students and faculty, when a couple of serious cases mandate a complete restructuring and removal of what we consider to be inalienable rights?

K. Whalen said that she understood and agrees with much of what was said, and that this forum has brought some serious problems to light that are within the Krause Report. Throughout all the Cornell community discussions, we need to involve the working group, the Assembly, the CJC, and the administration so that we can consider the positive points of the Krause Report.

M. Henderson said that he cannot speak for any student body, but amongst the students there was shock at some of the suggestions that were made.

J. Marwell stated that it was 6:00 p.m. and asked for a motion to extend the meeting time beyond 6:00 p.m. to include the next two speakers.

E. Loew made this motion.

J. Marwell asked that the next speaker step forward.

Kwame Thomison, the President of the Student Assembly representing 13,000 undergrads, first said that if you do not use a muscle, it will atrophy, and the UA is now just starting to flex it’s legislative muscles. The wrong way to build it up is to spend an hour and a half discussing something so expansive as the Krause Report and conclude that we are going to throw it out. I really appreciate the effort in creating the Facebook group�that is what we need, that is how you build up that muscle, that is how you build up the student voice. I don’t think that is enough to say, “Let’s throw out the Krause Report,” either. We need to get others, including faculty and staff, every single person’s opinion that has something to say about it, and we can’t get that in this room tonight. He hopes that no one leaves tonight with any concrete conclusions. To the law student (A. Cowan), he is in favor of the off-campus jurisdiction. Speaking as an undergraduate, he would rather have a record within campus, and have it handled in-house instead of off, so that it isn’t something more permanent. Maybe we would allow a response from them�

A. Cowan replied if a student is involved in some sort of altercation off-campus, say a bar fight, and if Cornell chooses to pursue internal disciplinary action, nothing in his understanding would preclude the city from also arresting that student, and charging them with a crime. The criminal justice system and the internal disciplinary system are separate and the Krause report proposes that we go ahead and pursue internal disciplinary actions while the criminal charges are pending for the same action. Under the current code, there is a presumption that Cornell waits in order to avoid dual punishment. Barbara Krause eliminates that presumption and says that we should go ahead and do something ourselves.

K. Thomison says a bar fight is unique, and would be difficult for Cornell to step in. Say it is something where the jurisdiction is expanded to include some off-campus incidents. The Cornell Peace officers would step in, those are the types of incidents I am thinking of rather than the police creating a record, that would be great to handle in-house.

J. Marwell asked that any other specifics be entered on the feedback mechanism on the CJC website or in the box in the back. She asked the final speaker to please step forward.

Shenglong Gao, a freshman in Applied and Engineering Physics, said that in high school, if we get in trouble, we go to the Principal and they make a decision and we have no voice. He said that at Cornell the justice system should be different, that students should have a voice. Students should not have to go against experienced lawyers. Adopting this would cost Cornell a lot, financially and academically. If students come from other countries expecting a voice, and they do not find it at Cornell, they will go somewhere else. I insisted on coming to Cornell because I was looking for something, and if we change the fundamentals, as in the Code of Conduct, that is not a good thing. No one believes in it, not students, faculty, and he does not know who would believe this is a good thing that would help Cornell.

R. Wayne responded by saying that this sounded like a warning that if we want to be considered a transnational University, we have to make sure that we don’t export our freedom and import fascism.

J. Marwell then thanked everyone for coming, and encouraged everyone to go to the feedback mechanism on the website.

6.  VI. Adjournment

Motion was made by J. Marwell to adjourn the meeting at 6:10 p.m. and was seconded by T. Bishop.