New Judicial Charter may govern students come fall

Fox Chapel High School '93 Pittsburgh, Pa. The University General Counsel's Office is spending the summer codifying a new Student Judicial Charter, developed to change the way justice is served on campus. The revised Charter -- characterized by its high degree of student involvement -- was written by a student committee during the past year in the wake of the 1993 "water buffalo" case. In late 1992, then-freshman Eden Jacobowitz was accused of racial harassment after he called five black sorority sisters making noise outside of his window "water buffalo." The women eventually dropped their racial harassment case against Jacobowitz, but the incident highlighted what many perceived as flaws in the existing judicial code. First released to the University community for comment in January, the new Charter created a mediation center and standing Student Judicial Council to resolve cases. In February, University Council -- a body of students, faculty and staff that convenes once a month to advise and update the president and provost -- remanded the newly proposed, less legalistic charter to the Committee for Judicial Reform. Council criticized the charter as lacking in due process, since it did not include an explicit presumption of innocence and would not have allowed students' advisers to speak on their behalf at a hearing. But Provost Stanley Chodorow said the charter is not intended to create a court of law or an adversarial situation for student complainants and respondents. He believes the less-confrontational system now under consideration will be able to determine the truth of accusations of misconduct. However, despite Chodorow's assurances, a student group known as the First Amendment Task Force said it will release an alternate Judicial Charter in the fall. The group plans to incorporate provisions that would permit student defendants to call and cross-examine witnesses during judicial proceedings and to request that their hearings be open to the public. During the February Council meeting, University President Judith Rodin complained that the charter was still too vague for Council to offer a valid opinion on its implementation, and asked members of the Student Judicial Reform Committee to bring a "simple, straightforward, much more well-articulated document" back to Council for further discussion. That discussion is expected to occur early this fall. However, as a result of these delays the charter will not be implemented by September 1 -- the date committee members had targeted so that members of the Class of 1999 would begin their University careers under the new system. Consensus was reached on many issues this spring, including who may serve as advisers -- now any member of the University community -- and whether complainants may participate in hearings. A lingering disagreement between Chodorow and Student Judicial Reform Committee members centers on whether the hearing board's finding would be a final decision or a recommendation to Chodorow. Before the charter can begin impacting students facing judicial action, Chodorow, Student Judicial Reform Committee members and the deans of the University's schools must approve the draft prepared by the General Counsel's office.

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