A student-run group at the University of Maryland that represents the concerns of students who live on campus voted down a resolution calling for a lower standard of evidence in student misconduct hearings, The Diamondback newspaper reported Thursday.
The Residence Halls Association (RHA) Senate voted 34 to 8 to reject a resolution calling for a new “preponderance of the evidence” standard to replace the current “clear and convincing” one currently in the Maryland student code of conduct.
Altering the language would have “align[ed] with Association of Student Conduct Administration recommendations as well as policies at other University System of Maryland and Big Ten institutions, according to the resolution,” The Diamondback explained.
The College Park-based institution is in middle of an extensive process of re-working its official code of student conduct, which dates back to 1980 and which one campus official lamented was “antiquated” and “legalistic,” The Diamondback reported last September.
“We want to make it more digestible by students…. To talk more about the philosophy and values of the university and that should be reflected more clearly in the code,” said the university’s Assistant Director of Student Conduct James Bond, the paper reported at the time.
Conservative and libertarian groups have been critical of the lower evidence standard, faulting the federal Department of Education under President Obama for promoting it, claiming it erodes if not outright denies accused students of due process rights. Similar concerns were raised in an open letter from law-school professors sent to the Department of Education in May 2016, the website Inside Higher Ed reported at the time.
In addition to rejecting the preponderance standard, the RHA Senate narrowly approved a resolution calling for the role of attorneys in representing accused students to be pared down to a merely advisory role, The Diamondback reported.
“This university is in a small minority of institutions that allow attorneys to fully participate as representatives in the student conduct process,” the paper noted, something that, in the words of the approved RHA resolution “causes significant delays in case resolution time and often reduces the potential for student learning from the discipline process.”
Please read our comment policy before commenting.