It’s unfair that some people have ‘hot-shot lawyers’
It’s sometimes said that socialism guarantees that everyone will be equally poor.
The University of Maryland has taken this equality-in-deprivation approach by voting to make it easier to find students responsible for violations of the conduct code.
And the independent campus newspaper The Diamondback is carrying water for these changes by reporting on them as if it’s the Ministry of Truth in 1984.
Not only does the paper inexplicably lead with changes that will make code language “more accessible to students,” but it uncritically regurgitates the Orwellian talking points of code-change supporters.
What is substantively changing under the 72-17 Senate vote: The evidence standard is being lowered to “preponderance of the evidence” (sometimes called “50 percent plus a feather”) from “clear and convincing,” which roughly translates to 75 percent certainty; definitions for what’s prohibited have been “broadened” (no detail given by the newspaper); and no more active professional counsel allowed in proceedings.
These changes are intended to align policies on general student misconduct with policies governing sexual misconduct and academic integrity, according to Student Conduct Committee Chair Andrea Dragan. Those policies already presume accused students as guilty, and now the rest of the student body will be presumed guilty for any other allegation.
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The Diamondback does note that students who hire attorneys will now be banned from using them to “actively speak or advocate on their behalf in hearings,” which is the entire point of hiring an attorney.
But it then goes on to put the glossiest spin possible on these changes, which will create an enormous power imbalance between accused students and their prosecutors.
Can’t have a lawyer help you to any real extent in a hearing? That just means “students are able to speak for themselves,” the paper says in paraphrasing Dragan. (It’s also empowering when indigent defendants represent themselves! Not like their future’s at risk!)
Being deprived of active professional counsel also “eliminates the risk of power imbalances between students and lawyers,” she said in this paraphrase. You cannot invent a bigger steaming pile of dung.
Instead, students can be actively represented by amateurs from the Student Legal Aid Office. This is like saying you don’t even get a public defender because your mom can defend you (the exact situation in one Title IX case where a school settled after losing in court).
And here’s more Newspeak from a student bureaucrat who may be surprised to learn what an awful system this is if she’s ever accused of wrongdoing:
“This is a really good thing for the campus,” said Kiely Duffy, the director of shared governance for the SGA, who spoke at the meeting in favor of the revised code. “It really helps level the playing field for everyone … when people get to use really hot-shot lawyers, inherently, it’s unfair.”
Take a breath and read that again. No one can have competent representation because some people can’t afford it.
Did the government of Venezuela take over the University of Maryland Senate? Why not solicit pro bono help from local attorneys so everyone has minimal professional representation?
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But these changes are a step toward “equity” because … now non-native English speakers can understand exactly how they’ll be screwed!
Only one member of the Senate had the sense to call these changes what they are – a “systemic inequity” that will create “injustice” rather than mitigate it:
“When you have serious charges, that’s a point when a student’s livelihood and future are at stake,” [Institute of Applied Agriculture’s Edward] Priola said. “What they’re doing is gagging attorneys so they can’t defend their client in the active process. And the point is that many students, many of whom are basically minors, haven’t reached the age of maturity and are not able to defend themselves in a competent way.”
Priola later told Campus Reform that the only people scared of attorneys are the “students who are sitting on the board of discipline.”
In other words, the people who determine the fate of accused students don’t want to be made uncomfortable by someone who actually knows what they’re talking about.
What a pathetic display. The changes can still be vetoed by President Wallace Loh, but given his previously demonstrated enthusiasm for censorship and creation of a “hate-bias task force,” I’m not holding my breath.
CORRECTION: The original article used the wrong pronoun for Kiely Duffy. It has been fixed.
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