CJC Comments: Oversight of Codes and Judicial System

Current practice under the present code

“Public order” provisions require Board of Trustee approval. Other parts of the Code may be amended by the University Assembly with approval of the President. The Codes & Judicial Committee of the UA deliberates on recommendations for Code changes from the community. The CJC presents the results of their deliberations to the UA who either sends it back to committee or on to the President for approval.

Proposed practice described in Krause Report

“Public order” provisions require Board of Trustee approval. Otherwise, because disciplinary function is under the student affairs umbrella, Conduct Code and Student Disciplinary System are adopted as University policy according to University Policy 4.1 (Formulation and Issuance of University Policies). Community input, especially student input, should be sought through this process.

The Krause Report proposal looks preferable, however, I believe the President should sign off on any Code change to be sure (s)he is aqutely aware of policy changes.

It looks to me like a needless power grab, and it seems it would lesson accountability - that is, there would be less direct pressure to ensure that the code remain just and reasonable.

Furthermore, the code shouldn’t have to change often enough for this to be a problem. The basic issues and moralities involved don’t change all that quickly with time, and to say otherwise is to be held suspect of trivialising certain guarantees and important, established elements of a fair system.

As an RA, several of my residents have been sent to the JA’s office, some in response to bias related incidents. However, a semester after being documented, these residents still have not spoken with the JA. Considering that the JA is a seperate entity and is not governed by a specific board, who will enforce whether or not they are doing their job? Obviously they are not functioning as efficiently as possible.

The current judicial process is not really “independent” since there is continual oversight from the CJC and the UA. The current process reports to the community through these commitees. The Krause proposal is to have it as a function of the university administration. The university administration reports only to the Trustees and the Trustees report only to themselves. So the Krause proposals remove community input from the process.

I will only say here that I strongly favor the continued independence of the Cornell judicial system, and I believe the oversight should therefore stay the way it is.

For my thoughts in more detail on that, please see my comments under “Independence of Judicial Process”.