UA Codes and Judicial Committee

Working Group and CJC Leadership Meeting
B12 Day Hall
Tuesday, December 5, 2006

Present: Peggy Beach, Thomas Bruce, Ari Epstein, Mary Beth Grant, Martin Hatch, Kathleen Rourke, Susan Murphy, Susan Powers, Charles Walcott

Meeting began at 9:36am.

M. Hatch said CJC would be meeting the following day. He presented a draft Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) concerning process for action on the Krause Report. The MOU was meant to be a backbone for CJC discussions.

K. Rourke said she and M. Hatch want to make sure there was agreement on process. All present agreed with items a and b.

S. Murphy said, concerning item “c”, that one might infer that the President’s charge to B. Krause was a delegation permitted by the UA Charter.

M. Hatch said that we needn’t debate here the legal question of whether the President’s charge to B. Krause was what was meant by the term “delegation” in the UA charter. The memo that is under discussion is saying that the current system in place will manage the report.

T. Bruce asked what process was planned.

K. Rourke said the March 7 deadline does not give a lot of time. CJC will look at broader questions and recommendations. There will not be time for in-depth review.

S. Murphy said that by looking at details of suggested changes, and interviewing many stakeholders, B. Krause has given a different frame in which to look at the code. It puts the onus on CJC to review.

M. Hatch said that many of the issues touched on in the report are hot-button issues like the right to remain silent, right to an attorney, etc. It’s impossible to give proper attention to those issues in that time-frame. It is important to follow the appropriate deliberative and legislative process.

S. Murphy said legislative authority means direct recommendation to the President. The report has been available since May 15. K. Rourke said that assemblies leadership and the chair of the code and judicial committee held back on public and committee discussion of the report until last month because it was not released to the public, and it was not clear clear what action, if any, the new president would be interested in taking.

T. Bruce said that the schedule for review puts burdens on everyone. He wanted to know more about what CJC will address. K. Rourke said CJC cannot weigh every issue by March 7th, but can only address larger questions. M. B. Grant said there is a familiar dilemma of not wanting to lose momentum versus not wanting to change too quickly. M. Hatch said the key question at this meeting was whether there was anything in the MOU that the Working Group disagreed with.

S. Murphy said that her suggestion might be controversial. If the community comes to NO consensus, the way you wrote suggests you have no change to the code. She said she didn’t know that the group wanted to bind the President from recommending changes to the Board of Trustees (BOT) in the absence of community consensus. This would be only in the case that the CJC CANNOT make to recommendations with respect to changes.

M. Hatch asked S. Murphy what she meant by a community consensus. She said, yes, it’s seldom possible to get a community consensus, but what mattered was whether any changes to the code would be forthcoming. M. Hatch said that, based on his 10 years experience on the CJC, he can’t imagine that the CJC will propose no changes in the code to the UA. In fact, during those 10 years, the CJC had presented many resolutions for changes in the code to the UA and the UA had passed some of them and sent them on to the presidents. M.Hatch said that, if the whole process of review of the code (based on the Krause report recommendations) happens, and no proposed changes come to the president from the CJC and the UA, then he supposed that the President could go to the Board of Trustees and say that things were not moving forward to his satisfaction, and he recommended taking action that bypassed the UA.

C. Walcott said problem with item “c” in the memorandum is with the word “sole”: the President and certainly the Board of Trustees have authority to act, but the UA is the appropriate venue under current legislation.

M. Hatch proposed a change to item “c”, adding “barring unilateral Presidential or trustee action” after “the UA is”. C. Walcott proposed an alternative: replace “sole” with “appropriate”. This was adoped by consensus.

T. Bruce proposed another change to item “d” that the last word “confirmation” be replaced with “action”. The change was adopted by consensus.

M. Hatch said the agenda for tomorrow’s CJC meeting would include discussion of independence of the campus judicial system and UA/CJC role in oversight. CJC planned to set up a website for discussion. (note- The preliminary site has been set up at: http://assembly.cornell.edu/KrauseReportComments)

T. Bruce said he is very open to providing support in communications with broader campus, however the CJC feels it should be done.

M. Hatch said it is important that CJC and the UA not be driven by the non-assemblies portion of the administration.

T. Bruce said he would assist at the behest of CJC. M. Hatch said the agenda for CJC would also include consideration of which ad-hoc, ex-officio members might be added.

K. Rourke said that the CJC was already representative of all sectors of the campus community, and that it was the responsibility and right of the voting members on the CJC to fact the task of considering the code and judicial system. She thinks, at this point, that additional members, albeit non-voting ones, may not be necessary.

T. Bruce said he was open to any level of participation, but that he wanted to collaborate closely and to know in advance a schedule of any meetings where working group participation was desired, for logistical preparation. Meeting ended at 10:15am.