In response to the recent claims of racially-motivated incidents involving Penn Police, the Undergraduate Assembly has passed a resolution to urge the administration to create a forum for students where they can voice their complaints.
The resolution asks the administration to establish a Community Review Board to serve as an avenue for appeals outside of internal police procedure.
"The goal of the review board is to bring more transparency, participation and confidence to the complaint review process by bringing the community together to analyze complaint appeals," said UA Chairwoman Dana Hork, a College senior.
College senior Dimitri Dube, whose open dissent concerning his treatment by police on Jan. 19 has been a topic of University-wide discussion, attended one of the UA's meetings, and that visit spurred the UA proposal.
Dube has claimed that Penn Police stopped him on Jan. 19, at least partly because of his race.
"Dimitri attended a UA meeting and explained an idea he had for a community review board," said UA Vice Chairman Jed Gross, a College junior. "We basically took that idea and went with it."
The University of California at Berkeley's current review board is being used as the model for this resolution. Berkley's process, which has been in place since 1990, is thought to be applicable to Penn because of similarities in the schools' urban setting and police-student interactions.
The proposed system would provide a board comprised of "members of the student body, University faculty, administrators, community residents, as well as members of the [University of Pennsylvania Police Department]," according to the UA's proposal.
Hork stressed that the work of this group is not meant to replace the reviews conducted by the police department itself, but would rather follow a police investigation at times when the student feels another look at the situation is necessary.
In addition to developing this new system of review, the UA resolution addressed the need for students to be well-informed of the procedures set up to file complaints against University Police.
One proposed solution is to present the option of the Review Board to students during New Student Orientation along with the currently implemented security and police presentation.
Despite the detailed proposal for the board and its advertisement to students, the UA has a number of stumbling blocks on the road to the proposal's actualization.
Currently, the University has a contract with the police officers union which prohibits the formation of any external review procedure.
To counter this obstacle, the UA is urging the University to renegotiate its contract, as well as calling for the relevant parties to "immediately begin work... as soon as collective bargaining issues are resolved," the UA's proposal states.
The UA is hoping that the weight of their new resolution -- only about two of its magnitude are issued each year -- will put pressure on the University and the Penn Police to implement the proposal.
In addition, the UA believes that the presentation of these ideas in collaboration with other student groups, including the United Minorities Council, the Asian Pacific Student Coalition, the Latino Coalition and the Black Student League, will send a message to the involved parties that this is an important student issue.
The community review board "is only not feasible if the Police Department is unwilling to put in an effort on their end," said UA Treasurer Seth Schreiberg, a College junior.
Although it was initiated as a direct result of the concerns of minority students, the review board will serve as a resource for the entire student body.
