STAFF EDITORIAL: Right to privacy has limits

The rights of students who commit violent offenses should not be prioritized at the expense of student safety. College Dean Richard Beeman, who chairs the committee, sees the issue as clear-cut: the right to privacy should only be set aside when doing so will demonstrably benefit the safety of the student body. But why should the burden of proof rest on the side of student safety? Does the University not regard preserving the safety of its students as a higher priority than protecting the privacy of those not merely accused, but actually found to have committed violent or non-violent sexual offenses? Surely, the mere possibility that a policy of disclosure will increase the safety of the student body is sufficient grounds for the creation of such a policy. Why refuse students the protection afforded by knowing who on this campus has acted violently in the past -- and might do so again in the future? There is little question that embarrassment will result for those whose names are disclosed. But students who commit violent acts or sexual offenses should expect to face consequences for their actions. After all, in society at large, any supposed right to privacy is abrogated by the individual when they choose to commit a crime -- certainly, their names and offenses become a matter of public record. But Michele Goldfarb, director of the Office of Student Conduct, argues that Penn should not hold students to the same standards as society at large because "We don't serve the same purposes." Unless Penn and society disagree about the need to protect the innocent, it is difficult to imagine what substance there is to such an artificial distinction. Furthermore, even with disclosure, Penn's judicial process will remain substantively different from that of America's judicial system -- the names of the accused will not be released, only the names of those actually found to have committed offenses. This seems a more than adequate means of ensuring that students are not unnecessarily tarnished for actions they indeed did not commit. But once individuals are found responsible, it becomes much harder to justify the continued preservation of their privacy. And when doing so comes at the expense of those who have never erred, we must seriously question why the rights of the guilty would ever be prioritized over the rights of the innocent.