A previously unwritten student conduct policy is raising concerns about the creation of University guidelines.
The “Duke Community Standard in Practice: A Guide for Undergraduates” now stipulates that student leaders can be held accountable for the actions of their group members. This policy is not new in practice, but this is the first year it has been officially written down in the Community Standard, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said. The recent addition of this accountability policy—an unofficial rule that has been enforced up to this point—to the Community Standard has spurred a negative response from many student leaders.
“I can definitely see how [the policy] would be appropriate in some circumstances,” said Duke Student Government President Pete Schork, a senior. “But [this issue] raises larger questions about to what extent [the Office of] Student Conduct has the ability to hold students accountable to policies that aren’t written.”
If a member violates University policy while representing a student group, the group’s leader can potentially face consequences—though each circumstance is evaluated independently, Moneta said. He added that he did not expect the policy to cause any backlash, but admitted that he implemented the policy without student contribution.
“It has always been our prerogative to extend accountability to anyone we thought was accountable—we’ve just never been transparent about it,” Moneta said. “It was never our intent to slide policy in under the door or around students.”
He noted that the policy was previously unwritten because it was considered to be “common sense,” but he decided it needed to be made known to students. It is impossible to predict every potential behavioral choice that a student could make and apply a consequence, Moneta said.
“The standard could be 10 times its current size,” he said. “There’s a portion that one should assume is guided by reason.”
Senior Ollie Wilson, chair of the Council for Collaborative Action, gathered opinions from various student leaders after learning of the accountability policy. He said the general consensus is that leaders are concerned that they will always be held responsible if a member of their group exercises poor judgment, regardless of the circumstances.
Moneta said student leaders would never be held responsible for a group member’s action if they were not involved, just as practiced before.
“I don’t have a lot of sympathy for the person who says, ‘I wouldn’t have run for office if I didn’t know I would be held accountable,’” Moneta said. “Leadership without accountability is not leadership.”
Schork said he agrees that the policy makes sense in certain cases, but the language is vague and does not fully explain the circumstances under which this rule would be applied. Student input could have prevented confusion, he added.
The official policy states, “The University reserves the right to hold elected student leaders accountable individually for violations of University expectations by members of their group for group activities.”
If the policy is written ambiguously because it depends so heavily on particular circumstances, Wilson noted, then it should not be written.
Typically, changes to student conduct originate in an ad hoc committee of various academic leaders and student representatives who meet once or twice a year, Moneta said. Discussion surrounding this policy, however, did not begin until this summer, long after the group’s Spring meeting, which Schork attended.
Junior Gurdane Bhutani, DSG executive vice president and member of the group, said he first heard of the policy earlier this month in a mass email from the Office of Student Conduct, which was sent to inform students of the change. He noted that Moneta is not required by University bylaws to go through students before enacting policy.
The lack of student consultation contributed to the backlash from student leaders.
“We objected to how this was implemented,” Schork said. “We wanted student leaders to provide feedback on the actual policy and to have the opportunity to raise objections.”
Bhutani said the student advisory group, which is made up of solely students, is meeting this Friday with Stephen Bryan, associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Conduct. Bhutani added that he expects the group will discuss this policy at the meeting.
Bryan deferred all comments to Moneta.
Moneta said he is open to consultation and possible changes to the policy’s language, adding that his office is continually trying to improve communication between students and administrators. Moneta said he will not be attending the advisory meeting Friday and expects Bryan to brief him on the results.
“There are hundreds of student advisory groups,” Moneta said. “I don’t entirely care what the specific language [of the policy] will be.... It’s a bigger issue than it deserves.”
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