Code skirts law, tries to replace parents

Though you probably do not know it, you may have violated a University policy already. During Orientation or the first week of classes, you may have headed out to the nearest frat house to drink out of a freshly tapped keg of cheap beer. That, according to the University Board of Regents, is not kosher with the University's "academic community."

Your Orientation leader probably did not bring this up, but somewhere in the mountain of mail you got this past summer from the University was a copy of the Code of Student Conduct. Like most other junk mail, you probably tossed it and rightly so. The Code is the botched and misguided legacy of years of administrative hassling in students' lives, but no one in the Fleming Administration Building has figured it out yet.

Once upon a time, University students all lived in dorms. They had curfews, the sexes couldn't mingle in dorms, and the administrative doctrine in loco parentis - or "in lieu of parents" - reigned supreme over student life at the University. The administration felt that it had the obligation to take the place of students' parents, and it did so for decades without much resistance.

But then again, the Michigan Union used to be for men only, with women regaled to the likes of the League. But changing times brought changing policies. Out with the old, in with the new.

But administrators do not see it that way. The regents, despite what former President James Duderstadt might claim, still have a death grip on the age-old in loco parentis doctrine, feeling that they must help guide the University's youngsters through their formative years of adulthood.

Nine years ago, the regents created what is the now-defunct Statement of Student Rights and Responsibilities to set "high standards" for the University's "academic community." Language like this just makes you feel like you stand head and shoulders above the rest of the country, doesn't it? But the University has used this document to screw students over time and again.

The statement was just an interim policy. Now the University has implemented the full-fledged Code. (Read: This is how you will act while you are a member of our "academic community.") The regents must have felt left out because so many other universities had a student conduct code.

The Division of Student Affairs is responsible for implementing the Code. It calls for a panel of students to serve as a jury and either a faculty member or an administrator to serve as an ad-hoc judge. Students charged under the Code cannot consult with a lawyer, and in order for any witnesses to be present at the hearing, both sides must agree to it.

The logic behind this policy is that the University must push its standards higher than those in the outside world. And that's fine - as an academic community, the University should have high academic standards. But imposing higher social standards is moralistic and will only lead to making Ann Arbor that much more of a sheltered environment for students.

For years, students have protested and complained about the existence of the Code. But protests and speeches at regents' meetings have gotten nowhere. The administration would really prefer if students just shut up about this.

Last fall, two LSA students came forward to reveal the circumstances of the Code case between them, violating the secrecy agreement they both had signed. Oh, did they forget to tell you that, too? Any charges that come up under the Code are completely private because someone in the University's legal department decided it would violate the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act if they aired the dirty laundry.

So the only way any member of the student body found out about the case was for the two students to violate a written contract and come forward, which begs the question: What exactly is the University trying to hide? Is the administration so insecure in the sanity of its own policy that it wants to obfuscate all of its activities?

To borrow from Shakespeare, something is rotten in the state of the University's administration. How else could dozens and dozens of Code cases be tried each year while the University community only gets informed about the circumstances of one of them?

With different administrations come different doctrines. While former University President James Duderstadt wanted to renovate the entire campus with almost brute-force effort, as evidenced by years of constant on-campus construction, Lee Bollinger has taken a more aesthetic approach, letting his "master plan" formulate over several years.

With other sneaky dealings like under-the-table contract negotiations and oftentimes closed regent meetings, the Code was very much the brainchild of Duderstadt's administration.

Lee Bollinger, however, is a different type of animal. He's much bigger into open communication, change and other things progressive than was his predecessor. Duderstadt had his moments, but Bollinger has proven time and again that he actually lends an ear to students' voices. Perhaps, then, he'll be able to realize that students are not to keen on the Code, that it does nothing to benefit the academic and social climate on the University's campus, and that more often than not, neither side of a Code arbitration comes out content.

Thanks to the pleadings of Regent Andrea Fischer-Newman (R-Ann Arbor), the Code will come up for review in December. With any luck, Bollinger and the voice of numerous students speaking out against the Code will help sway the board and hasten the outdated policy's demise.

09-08-98