Group criticizes judicial draft

The First Amendment Task Force issued its suggestions for a revised judicial charter Tuesday. The student free speech group advocated many changes to the draft released for comment three weeks ago by Provost Stanley Chodorow. The Task Force proposal consists of 33 changes to Chodorow's draft. It was written by Task Force President and College senior Eric Tienou, College senior and Daily Pennsylvanian columnist Mike Nadel and College junior Chris Kirby, who is not a member of the Task Force. Tienou said he intends to meet with Chodorow to discuss the draft when the provost returns October 10 from a trip to Italy. The Task Force has also sent copies of its proposed amendments to members of the University Council, Faculty Senate and Undergraduate Assembly, as well as to College senior Wilton Levine, who chaired a student committee that advised Chodorow on the proposal. Members of the UA also proposed amendments to the charter at their meeting late last month. Tienou said the Task Force had four major points to address with the revisions. One flaw that the group identified in Chodorow's draft was that while the administration is involved in the judicial system, the provost is not directly responsible for enough of the process. "We want to ultimately make the provost accountable for the whole system," Tienou said. "Just the provost, not his designee." Ironically, much of the criticism from students and faculty of Chodorow's draft has centered around the provost's active role in the proposed system. But Tienou said by shifting the administrative responsibility from the provost's subordinates to the provost, the system's integrity will be more easily maintained. Another area of concern for the Task Force was reducing the adversarial nature of the charter proposal, Tienou said. To that end, the group proposed that students who are accused of disciplinary violations should be allowed to let their advisors speak for them during disciplinary hearings. "The provost's draft did not allow advisors to speak at hearings except for a brief closing statement," Nadel said in his footnote to the proposed change. "No student should be required to defend himself against a University prosecutor -- likely an attorney -- without help. This change is absolutely critical." The draft would also allow students' advisors to serve as attorneys. This differs from Chodorow's proposal. Other changes to the system would allow for more student involvement in overseeing the judicial process. The Task Force was formed in September 1993 by former UA representative Dan Schorr, a 1994 College graduate. Nadel and Tienou were among the group's founding members. Since its inception, the Task Force has been active in judicial reform. Last spring Schorr pledged to release a draft for a new judicial charter shortly after Chodorow presented his first proposal to University Council. But this week's revision represents the first proposal authored by the Task Force.