Quality of Campus Justice Varies Widely

With reports of misconduct on the rise at many California colleges and universities, campus judicial systems are quietly handling thousands of cases each year ranging from plagiarism and petty larceny to physical assault and rape.

Drunken Pomona College students went joy riding in the dean’s golf cart. Chico State dorm residents were nabbed in a drug sting. A pair of UC Santa Cruz students, dubbed Bonnie and Clyde, were arrested for two armed robberies.

When students are accused of such offenses, the stakes are high because costly educations, careers and school reputations are hanging in the balance. In some cases, students hire lawyers--and one enlisted a handwriting expert--for campus disciplinary hearings.

To mete out punishments, virtually every school uses a quasi-judicial arm that convenes behind closed doors. Students and faculty who have little legal training serve as investigators, prosecutors and judges. They usually operate independent of police and courts, and seldom refer cases for criminal action.

The maximum penalty imposed by campus courts is expulsion. But records and interviews show that the quality of justice and severity of sanctions vary from case to case and place to place, raising what critics say are fundamental questions of fairness.

At some schools, throwing a punch can result in as little as counseling, while at UC Riverside a student is suspended one quarter for each blow. Penalties for date rape can be as severe as expulsion or as lenient as writing a reflective essay.

Additionally, these secretive systems deprive students and parents of information about misconduct, and sometimes crime, on campus. Of 15 public and private schools surveyed for The Times, only UC Davis and USC publicly report details of misconduct hearings, although both withhold students’ names. Only a handful routinely release statistics, and two keep none at all.

University administrators acknowledge that their judicial systems are not perfect, but they say they provide a swift means of maintaining order, ethical standards and codes of conduct. They also say the law requires them to protect the privacy of victims and perpetrators whose futures might be harmed by publicity.

“A lot of them are good students, and they panicked and made a bad decision at a hard time in their life,” said Nancy Morrison, assistant to the dean of students at Stanford University.

The federal Crime Awareness and Campus Security Act of 1990 requires campus security departments to compile and publish statistics on crime, without differentiating between students and nonstudents. There is no similar requirement for schools to reveal the extent and type of student misconduct handled internally.

As part of a six-month examination of campus judicial systems, reporters from the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism obtained previously unpublished statistics and interviewed officials. The survey found:

* Eight of 13 schools that tally misconduct cases report an increase in recent years, which officials say is part of a long-term trend.

* The number of cases at each school ranges from about a dozen to more than a thousand per year, and the vast majority of students are found culpable and disciplined.

* Cheating and alcohol or drug use were the most common offenses, and each has increased recently at half of the eight schools that broke down violations.

* Student conduct boards resolved almost 300 cases of physical assaults and threats of violence last year. In addition, they dealt with at least 16 complaints of violent sexual assault, with eight reported by UC Berkeley.

There is often a gap between the number of sexual assaults reported to campus women’s centers and the number appearing in official university crime or misconduct statistics. At UC Irvine, for instance, no rapes were reported to law enforcement in the 1998-99 school year, but the women’s support center tabulated 15.

Noting that rape is an underreported crime, university officials say student victims often are reluctant to go through the pain and stress of pursuing either a misconduct case or a criminal prosecution.

“There is no doubt that colleges are underreporting crimes, especially rape,” said J. Lance Gilmer, director of the student conduct office at UC Riverside. He said he knows of half a dozen alleged rape cases last year that were not handled by his office and did not show up in campus crime statistics.

Since the founding of America’s first colleges, campuses generally have considered misconduct an in-house affair to be quietly resolved to protect the integrity of the institutions and the privacy of students. But, across the nation, campus courts recently have come under fire for allegedly failing to protect the very people they are designed to safeguard.

A case involving the alleged rape of a female student by two football players was heard by the Virginia Tech University student conduct office several years ago. After the university reversed a one-year suspension of one player, the woman sued--and the case is now before the U.S. Supreme Court.

“It was only when these bodies started dealing with more serious crimes that people became interested,” said Mark Goodman of the Student Press Law Center in Virginia, a nonprofit group that advocates increased public disclosure of student judicial proceedings.

Little Training for School Investigators

Chico State freshman Mike Clausen was sleeping in his dorm on the morning of Nov. 14, 1996, when campus police banged on his door and ordered him to open up. Clausen was led away in handcuffs as television cameras rolled.

He was trapped in a drug sting orchestrated by an undercover campus police officer who had posed as a student. The officer had attended classes, bought liquor for students and had a “social relationship” with a female student. Citing the officer’s questionable behavior, the district attorney refused to prosecute Clausen and nine other students in connection with selling marijuana.

However, Chico State relied on the same flawed investigation in seeking to bar Clausen from the university for several years. He hired a lawyer and, after negotiations, accepted a one-semester suspension. “If we took it to a [campus] judicial hearing . . . basically you’re left standing there defending yourself,” said Clausen, now a senior. “It’s like David and Goliath.”

This case reflects a trend among universities. Many campus officials report an increase in student misbehavior that could rise to criminal conduct. At Chico, drug offenses steadily increased from 69 in 1995-96 to 114 last year. At UC Santa Cruz, a senior and his freshman girlfriend were expelled for robbing two local stores for “thrills”--and a judge sentenced them to prison in March.

At UC Riverside, the student judicial office has investigated gun possession, with some cases involving members of fraternities and Southern California street gangs.

“Like everyone, I used to view colleges as safe havens,” said Gilmer, the school’s student conduct chief. “I never thought about people . . . raping, assaulting or fighting. I never thought that existed here. The myth I had been living under was just that. A myth.”

Most schools do not routinely refer potentially criminal offenses by students to local police for investigation. Instead, they inform crime victims that they can press criminal charges if they wish.

“They can pursue it [an allegation] through our system,” said Sandra Rhoten, associate dean of students at Cal State Fullerton. “They [also] can pursue it through the criminal system.”

The investigation of serious misconduct, even rape, is often left to students and school officials who have little training, time and resources. They do their best: One official plays good cop-bad cop when interviewing students. To maintain the element of surprise, student investigators at another school summon fellow students for interviews without telling them whether they are witnesses or suspects.

Yet investigating some misconduct requires help from law enforcement. Two years ago, a UC Irvine freshman told campus police that a classmate had bullied him in attempts to extort money. Collaborating with student conduct officer Kelly Willis, campus police outfitted the victim with a tape recorder. After the shakedown was captured on tape, the threatening student was expelled.

Panels sometimes try to resolve serious cases that are difficult to sort out.

At Pomona College, the judicial affairs committee addressed a 1997 acquaintance rape complaint, based on the personal accounts of the alleged assailant and victim. The committee could not reach a decision on the man’s guilt, splitting 4-4 along gender lines. “It was very junior high-esque,” said Simon Morfit, a Pomona senior and friend of the plaintiff. “She was really distressed.”

Panels Usually Contain Students and Faculty

Some students jokingly call these hearings kangaroo courts. Rumor, mystery and some fear surround them. At Caltech in Pasadena, the Board of Control hears cases into the wee hours, which board members say is for convenience but which some students find intimidating.

Like criminal and civil cases, most student misconduct gets resolved through negotiation before it reaches trial. But other incidents, especially when the allegation is contested, go to a hearing. Of the schools surveyed, only Stanford, Pomona, Caltech and Pepperdine--private institutions--hold hearings on the majority of cases.

Typically, students and faculty serve on the judicial panels, although Pomona and Caltech have all-student boards. At some schools, the panel’s decisions are reviewed by a dean or another official.

A local lawyer serves as a judge at Chico State, but all except one of the 325 misconduct cases last year were resolved informally by student affairs coordinator Lizanne Leach. “Initially, I make a decision about a sanction,” she said. “If the student accepts that, then we’re finished with it.”

Members of the school panels receive little training in how to assess evidence. Most panels only study the student conduct code. At Pomona, the training consists of a day’s lecture by an attorney about using the “Socratic method” to seek truth.

“There are a lot of untrained people,” said mathematics professor Ami Radunskaya, who recently served as the nonvoting chairman of Pomona’s Student Affairs Committee. “We are not judges and don’t have a law degree.”

The campus hearings apply the same standard of proof used in civil courts: the preponderance of evidence. But judicial boards do not let lawyers argue on behalf of the students.

Although attorneys sometimes are allowed to attend hearings as advisors, their presence can hurt rather than help.

“A stupid move,” said former Stanford judicial panelist Ethan Kurzweil, referring to a student who brought his attorney yet was found guilty of cheating. “He presented a legal defense. . . . The panel was offended by it.”

Campus newspapers have long complained about lack of access to disciplinary hearings.

For this article, reporters requested access to judicial hearings at each campus. The only school to consent was Pepperdine University in Malibu, but the school would open a hearing only for relatively minor dormitory cases that ranged from excessive noise and drunkenness to being partially naked with a member of the opposite sex.

Officials at most schools refuse to even discuss cases, citing the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act. “The federal law does not want us to violate student rights to confidentiality, even to parents, attorneys or any faculty member,” said Douglas L. Zuidema, student conduct office manager at UC Berkeley.

Critics contend that schools hide behind a veil of secrecy to protect their own interests, including the institution’s reputation. “This doesn’t have as much to do with the privacy as it does with the fear that they will lose control of the [disciplinary] system if the public knows what’s going on,” said Goodman of the Student Press Law Center.

It’s not only the public that can be deprived of information. At Chico State, a male student slapped Rhiannon Clow, 23, in an art classroom in February.

A school official escorted her to the campus police to file a complaint, but the matter was handled administratively.

Clow, however, said she was not invited to the meeting at which her complaint was resolved. And she was dismayed when her attacker was readmitted to class within a week.

When she asked what punishment he received, she said, officials told her that was private but assured her there was no danger: The male student could not be near her without an instructor present.

“If I see him, it makes me feel uncomfortable,” Clow said. “I have class with him at night as well. I don’t feel they did as much as they should.”

Professor Vernon Patrick, chairman of the art department, said the school imposed “stringent conditions” to protect her but also had a duty to guard the assailant’s privacy and well-being. “We were actually concerned about him,” he said.

Punishment Can Vary Dramatically

Complicated cases routinely cross the desk of Jeanne Wilson, director of student judicial affairs at UC Davis. But she is still haunted by an acquaintance rape case several years ago.

A female student was attacked by her live-in boyfriend during an argument. She went to Wilson seeking help, but refused to bring the case before a hearing or to the police. Instead, she only wanted her boyfriend to get counseling. Wilson felt that the victim’s request tied her hands.

During a meeting with Wilson, the boyfriend admitted the rape and agreed to undergo “anger management” classes and counseling, and write a reflective essay. And he would be expelled if he had additional disciplinary offenses.

Wilson said she wonders whether she did the right thing. “I’m not saying [the outcome] is perfect,” she said. “But it may actually have been the only reasonable result for this extremely difficult case.”

In a similar case at UC Berkeley, a male student raped his ex-girlfriend in 1996 and received no punishment; the victim only wanted him checked for AIDS. But at UC Riverside, a male student was suspended for the 1998 school year for attacking his girlfriend.

UC campuses all have similar conduct codes. But, like private schools, each campus determines its own procedures and sanctions.

“A lot of policies in the university system are left up to individual campuses,” said David Birnbaum, the university counsel. The campuses “often are different in their physical settings”--some urban, others suburban.

Cheating can be punished by expulsion or almost nothing at all. Caltech, ranked No. 1 academically by U.S. News & World Report this past year, docks students points for questions on which they cheated.

At UCLA this year, a graduate student received a one-semester suspension for plagiarism. The student also was ordered to rewrite the paper or write a paper about plagiarism, and perform 300 hours of community service.

The philosophical underpinning of these panels is based as much on educational values and personal growth as exacting justice and a pound of flesh.

“We try to avoid the word ‘punishment,’ though sometimes a decision does resemble punishment,” said Caltech Dean Jean-Paul Revel. “The idea is not to rap the student’s knuckles.”

The emphasis on education, critics say, can come at the expense of fairness.

“While [education] is important, the emphasis should be on due process,” said S. Daniel Carter, vice president of Security on Campus, a nonprofit Pennsylvania watchdog group created by the parents of a female student killed at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., in the mid-1980s.

Last year Pomona’s campus court meted out one punishment widely seen as poetic justice. The Phi Delta fraternity had forced pledges to drink alcohol and set up a point system for sexual conquests and photos taken of female students in lewd positions. The penalty: The fraternity was suspended for a year and could be reinstated only if females were allowed to join. It disbanded.

Two other hazing cases at Pomona, both involving the soccer team, had startlingly different outcomes. In the first, the only person punished was a freshman who had to be rushed to the hospital for alcohol poisoning. He was barred from all events at which alcohol was served.

In the second, eight players were punished for forcing rookies to down shots of liquor, shave their heads and dress in diapers. The veteran players were put on probation and required to meet with substance abuse counselors and to plan two alcohol workshops.

“The problem with the system is that there are discrepancies in the sanctions,” said Andrew Knuckle, a senior and panelist at Pomona. “We can handle cases like cheating, but for more serious cases . . . we need more direction.”

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Cases Handled by Student Conduct Offices

Misconduct reports at many California colleges and universities have risen in recent years, according to a survey for The Times. Statistics for the 1998-99 school year, below, show that the number of cases handled by campus judicial systems varies widely. It does not necessarily follow that schools with the most cases have the most misbehavior. The number is influenced by various factors, including school size, standards of conduct, the school’s vigilance and reporting methods. For example, alcohol and drug violations at schools such as Stanford and Caltech often are handled and tallied by residential offices separate from campus judicial systems. Here are some categories of violations

*

School Caltech*

Enrollment: 901

Cases: 24

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 27

Cheating: 21

Alcohol violations: 0

Drug violations: 0

Violent sexual assaults: 0

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 0

*

Chico State

Enrollment: 14,983

Cases: 325

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 22

Cheating: 29

Alcohol violations: 103

Drug violations: 114

Violent sexual assaults: 0

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 25

*

Cal State Fullerton

Enrollment: 25,613

Cases: na

Number of cases per 1,000 students: na

Cheating: na

Alcohol violations: na

Drug violations: na

Violent sexual assaults: na

Physical assaults/threats of violence: na

*

Pepperdine*

Enrollment: 3,035

Cases: 241

Number of cases per 1,000 students:

Cheating: 79

Alcohol violations: 1

Drug violations:

Violent sexual assaults: na

Physical assaults/threats of violence: na

*

Pomona College*

Enrollment: 1,453

Cases: 15

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 10

Cheating:na

Alcohol violations: 6

Drug violations: 0

Violent sexual assaults: 2

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 0

*

Stanford

Enrollment: 14,144

Cases: 27

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 2

Cheating: 27

Alcohol violations: 0

Drug violations: 0

Violent sexual assaults: 0

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 0 *

UC Berkeley

Enrollment: 31,011

Cases: 496

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 16

Cheating: 148

Alcohol violations: 72

Drug violations: 15

Violent sexual assaults: 8

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 126

*

UC Davis

Enrollment: 24,866

Cases: 1,037

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 42

Cheating: 421

Alcohol violations: 154

Drug violations: 33

Violent sexual assaults: na

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 41

*

UC Irvine+

Enrollment: 16,654

Cases: 200

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 12

Cheating: 68

Alcohol violations: 21

Drug violations: 14

Violent sexual assaults: 1

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 5

*

UCLA

Enrollment: 30,500

Cases: na

Number of cases per 1,000 students: na

Cheating: na

Alcohol violations: na

Drug violations: na

Violent sexual assaults: na

Physical assaults/threats of violence: na *

UC Riverside

Enrollment: 10,602

Cases: 269

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 25

Cheating: 131

Alcohol violations: 8

Drug violations: 10

Violent sexual assaults: 0

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 36

*

UC San Diego

Enrollment: 19,370

Cases: 1,854

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 96

Cheating: 73

Alcohol violations: 762

Drug violations: 48

Violent sexual assaults: na

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 53

*

UC Santa Barbara

Enrollment: 19,363

Cases: 87

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 5

Cheating: 13

Alcohol violations: 0

Drug violations: 0

Violent sexual assaults: 0

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 1

*

UC Santa Cruz

Enrollment: 10,981

Cases: 580

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 53

Cheating: 11

Alcohol violations: 166

Drug violations: 16

Violent sexual assaults: 2

Physical assaults/threats of violence: 11

*

USC

Enrollment: 25,000

Cases: 753

Number of cases per 1,000 students: 30

Cheating: 145

Alcohol violations: 137

Drug violations: 37

Violent sexual assaults: 4

Physical assaults/threats of violence: na

*

Notes: UCLA and Cal State Fullerton officials say they keep no statistics and declined to compile them; “na” means data not available.

* Undergraduate only.

Includes violations at dorms.

+ 1997-98

Source: Individual schools

Compiled by: Reporters at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism

*

This article was reported and written by Chris Jenkins, Abbi Kaplan, Sam Kennedy and Marian Liu for a UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism course taught by Times projects editor Tim Reiterman.