The following is a guest submission from Max Weisbrod ’16, an Urban and Regional Studies major and a director at Prosperity Ithaca, a non-profit focused on cross-community initiatives.
Students probably shouldn’t keep large, dangerous blades in their singles and doubles. Yet, in the winter of 2013, Cornell University Police Department (CUPD) officers found a machete in a dorm room during a routine safety inspection. Following an investigation, former Judicial Administrator (JA) Mary Beth Grant J.D. ‘88 pushed for a suspension of the student in question.
The one hiccup was that Cornell needed him to have the machete to teach a trail-clearing course. Without all the facts, Grant’s action could have seemed reasonable –I for one don’t want my neighbors brandishing knives. But Grant knew that this machete had Cornell’s emblem etched in it, and she knew that the investigating officer did not recommend disciplinary action. Still, she attempted to get the student expelled, according to the Annual Report of the JCC 2013, pg 65.
This sort of administrative abuse is not an isolated case. Some of you might remember a dorm fire in Balch Hall three semesters ago. Following the fire, the wide-eyed freshmen girls were interrogated in much the same way that Daniel Marshall ‘15 was, and one admitted to smoking a cigarette in the dorm several hours prior. Before starting an investigation, Grant had these girls temporarily suspended, arguing that smoking a cigarette constituted an immediate threat to the safety and well-being of the community.
These freshmen girls were suspended for 4 days–kicked out of their home, deprived of their meal plans, denied access to their Cornell email, and removed from Blackboard, all in the middle of the polar vortex–before the investigation found that the incident was actually an electrical fire caused by a rented mini-fridge. A “whoops” wouldn’t suffice.
There is a complex set of issues at play here, but there are two that need immediate attention: the re-institution of term limits for the Judicial Administrator and the curtailing of temporary suspensions as a judicial practice.
The JA used to be able to serve for a maximum of two 2-year terms. However, in 2002, Mary Beth Grant recommended that the University Assembly get rid of term limits. The UA agreed, one member noting “that the group that discussed the issue could not establish the original reasons for the term limits in the position.”
Hopefully, given the above examples, those “original reasons” are clearer today than they were 13 years ago: given time, powerful administrators become numb to the strength of their actions. Mary Beth Grant is not a bad person, but over 15 years in her position has made her numb to the consequences of her actions.
The JA Office (JAO) serves an extremely important role on campus–it ensures order through compliance with the Code of Conduct. In order for that office to function properly, we need it to be led by a clear-eyed and compassionate person.
At the same time, the JAO can only function properly–and serve our community best–if its powers are suitably checked. Temporary suspensions are the most drastic unilateral action the JAO can take; the individual “is not permitted on Cornell property, her access to virtual resources such as Blackboard is terminated, her membership in clubs and extracurricular activities is revoked, she can no longer attend class or submit assignments, and her netID is disabled” as detailed in the Annual Report of the JCC 2013, pg 53). That is why it is so terrifying that, in the strictest case, the JA is given a blank check to “exercise the power at his or her own discretion” according to the University’s Code of Conduct Three.III.B.3.2. While the JA has failed to include any data on her use of temporary suspensions in her annual reports, in cases the Judicial Codes Counselor has participated in, “the JA’s use of this measure is often haphazard and premature” (Minikus, Annual Report of the JCC 2013, pg 3). Temporary suspensions should only be considered in situations in which the safety and well-being of the community are clearly threatened, and the only way we can ensure that is through full and immediate review by a panel that includes students, similar to the University Hearing Board.
Students’ rights are being trampled. Our dorm rooms can be searched without warrants, and our status as students can be terminated on a whim. All of this is happening against the backdrop of administrators’ attempts to bleed away the last bits of student oversight over the Code of Conduct. It is vitally important to students’ fair treatment that the UA does not give up control over Policy 6.4 in the upcoming months. We need to pay attention, and we need to make sure our representatives take action.
