UC remands newly proposed judicial reform

Calls for more due process University Council voted overwhelmingly yesterday to return the proposed Student Judicial Charter to the Student Judicial Reform Committee for revisions aimed at explicitly protecting respondents' rights. The vote followed prolonged debate between Council members over the character and purpose of the proposed system. It also focused on presumption of innocence, role of advisers and right of appeal. Before discussion began, Provost Stanley Chodorow acknowledged the assistance of College senior Beth Hirschfelder and College juniors Ashley Magids and Wilton Levine -- each of whom chaired an SJRC working group -- in writing the draft document. Chodorow also clarified his views about the importance of fairness in the revised judicial system, in response to yesterday's editorial in The Daily Pennsylvanian. Hirschfelder then told Council members that the presumption of innocence in the Charter is "a given," and opened the floor to comments and questions about the roles of accused students and advisers in hearings. The Charter now states that respondents would be able to reply to questions from the hearing board but not address the board directly or call and cross-examine witnesses. Advisers could not speak during judicial proceedings. Emeritus Finance Professor Morris Mendelson was the first to respond to Hirschfelder. "[Under the proposed system], the accused can't ask questions," he said. "I think that every person in a judicial system needs to be able to ask questions." College junior and Undergraduate Assembly member Eden Jacobowitz agreed, adding that he feels a student's adviser should also be able to ask questions on the student's behalf. But Hirschfelder said allowing respondents to speak may cause the hearing board "to take on the role of prosecutor," leading to adversarial judicial proceedings and making it more difficult to determine the truth. Chodorow also said the revised Charter does not try to create a court of law. "As a matter of principle, this is not a legal system," he said. "It is the institution that is acting and seeks to find the truth." Chodorow added that he thinks the new system will reveal the truth as well as or better than an adversarial system. But College senior and Undergraduate Assembly member Dan Schorr, who chairs the First Amendment Task Force, assailed the draft Charter as "totally flawed" and "inherently confrontational." Jacobowitz then read portions of a letter criticizing the revised system from History Professor Alan Kors, who served as his adviser during the 1993 "water buffalo" case. Schorr asked Council to pass a resolution rejecting the principles of the revised Charter and creating a new judicial reform committee "that reflects the minutes of this meeting" to reconsider the applicable issues and write another document. "If the principles aren't those that this Council wants, we have to send it back," he said. Echoing sentiments expressed by Hirschfelder and Magids, Graduate Student Associations Council President Bronwyn Beistle said "the thought of sending [the Charter] back fills me with despair and dread." However, Beistle -- an English graduate student who is also GSAC representative to the Graduate and Professional Student Assembly -- added that she shares the concerns raised by other Council members. Following a suggestion by College junior and UA member Lance Rogers that representatives from Council be added to the SJRC to rework the Charter, Mathematics Professor Gerald Porter proposed that the Charter be remanded to the SJRC with discussion from Council. After this substitute motion was accepted, University President Judith Rodin requested that SJRC members bring a "simple, straightforward ?much more well-articulated document" back to Council for further discussion next month. While Chodorow declined to comment on Council's actions, Hirschfelder said they did not surprise her. "We hadn't brought them a final document anyway -- we were planning on taking and using their opinions to continue to make changes to the document," she said. "Substantively, I think we heard things we haven't heard in the past." Magids said the process of judicial reform has taught her that compromise is crucial to achieving change. "I think that the system we're proposing is better than the one that exists, it is definitely a fair system," she said. "We've learned through this long process that it's not possible to just jump from A to Z and we've jumped as far as we realistically can to get a new system in effect next fall," Magids added. Levine said he also remains optimistic that the new Charter will be implemented next fall, and is still hoping for additional feedback from members of the community "to create a fair yet effective judicial system that seeks to find the truth."

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