When student leaders were frustrated with a student conduct policy’s wording, they united to rewrite the policy themselves.
Earlier this year, a previously unwritten policy that said student group leaders were to be held accountable for group members’ actions in the event of a conduct policy violation was added to the Duke Community Standard. Some students—including Duke Student Government President Pete Schork, a senior—opposed the policy’s vague wording. The policy was put on moratorium and was ultimately redrafted by a group of students.
The redrafted policy is written as, “Student group leaders most directly responsible may be held accountable for acting as an accomplice through action or negligence to the commission of prohibited acts at a group-identified event.” This language was presented to the Office of Student Conduct earlier this month.
The previous policy did not clarify that student leaders had to be directly involved in the conduct violation in order to be held responsible.
“We wanted to make sure that the language was very tight and can only be applied in a given set of situations,” said DSG executive vice president Gurdane Bhutani, a junior and member of the Office of Student Conduct Student Advisory Group. “We made it a lot more legalistic and clear.”
Stephen Bryan, associate dean of students and director of the Office of Student Conduct, said the Office of Student Conduct Student Advisory Group met twice this Fall to discuss the student leader policy. At a meeting Sept. 23, Bryan said the advisory group agreed that the intent of the policy is to hold a group leader accountable for a group member’s plan to violate or a violation of University conduct policy. This only applies if the leader is aware of the violation and if the leader does not take action. After this meeting, representatives from the Council for Collaborative Action—the association for student leaders on campus—and the Honor Council proposed clarifying language for the policy, and these proposals were discussed at a second advisory group meeting.
After discussing the original proposal, Bryan said the advisory group agreed to one slight language change in order to add clarity.
The wording for the new policy was sourced from pre-existing policy language in the Duke Community Standard guide, Schork said.
Moneta said the advisory group’s policy wording is now official.
“If the language has been agreed to, then I consider it adopted,” he said.
The accountability policy had always been exercised in practice, but administrators decided to make it official this year in order to increase transparency, Vice President for Student Affairs Larry Moneta said earlier this year. Student leaders, however, expressed concern not only on the policy’s clarity but also because discussions surrounding the policy did not involve students. CCA Chair Ollie Wilson, a senior; Honor Council Chair Nick Valilis, a senior; DSG Senior Policy Adviser Christine Larson, a junior; Schork and Bhutani were part of the group that agreed that the policy should be reworded. Schork, Bhutani and Wilson worked to reword the policy, and the CCA approved the changes, before meeting with the Office of Student Conduct.
It was especially important to include the students who would be affected by the policy in the revision process, Schork said.
“Because the policy primarily affects student leaders, we wanted to ensure that they had a real say in how the new policy would be written,” he added.
Schork said that although he and other students were disappointed in the way the policy was initially implemented, he is proud of how students were able to spearhead the policy change. He added that he hopes that a high degree of student involvement in policy changes can happen more frequently in the future.
“It is always best to make it as clear as possible to students as to how they might be held accountable for their actions,” Schork said. “We’re pleased that we were able to maintain clarity in conduct policies. This was a really collaborative opportunity.”
Get The Chronicle straight to your inbox
Signup for our weekly newsletter. Cancel at any time.