CJC Comments: Agreed Upon Suspension and Expulsion

Current practice described in Krause Report

JA and accused may not agree to suspend or dismiss; only Hearing and Review Boards may take such action.

Proposed practice in Krause Report

Suspension and dismissal may be part of a voluntary agreement to sanctions. Office of Student Conduct must notify VP Student and Academic Services of any such agreement.

It seems innocuous, but I think that there is potential for abuse in the provision. This sounds like the equivalent of a plea bargain. The widespread abuse of the plea bargain system in criminal justice is well documented. The result of this is that innocent students could be intimidated into accepting suspension to avoid the risk of expulsion.

Imagine that you are a student wrongly accused of writing racist, threatening graffiti on school property. The community is in an uproar calling for your head. Even though you are innocent of the charges, the result of a judicial proceeding is uncertain (especially under the new standard of proof).

The Office of Student Conduct then informs you that it would allow for a 2-year suspension as part of a voluntary agreement. Otherwise, it will attempt to get you expelled from the school.

Even though you are innocent, you will most likely take the agreement, since a 2-year suspension is probably favorable to risking expulsion. The problem with this is that it allows for the school to use the fear of expulsion to intimidate students into accepting ‘voluntary’ sanctions. This shortcuts the use of the process as a means to find truth and justice.

Suspension and dismissal are the most severe penalties in both judicial approaches. I think that the dismissal and suspension will rarely be voluntarily accepted by the accused unless coercion is used. My view is based on experiences with Hearing Boards where the accused always proposes a lesser penalty than that proposed by the JA. However, we did have one instance where the accused person volunteered to leave Cornell and to never return. There is some level of coercion built into every judicial system with graduated penalties. This particular Krause proposal may be worth trying out.