There are many wonderful things we can, and often do, say about Middlebury students. Our academic knowledge is vast and expanding everyday; our athletes are disciplined and talented, and our teams nearly always competitive; and on the weekends, we know how to cut loose and have a good time. But there is a darker side to Middlebury students that neither the administration nor the students themselves like to openly discuss: sometimes we break the rules. Sometimes, we even get caught. Typically open discussion ends where College discipline begins, and for many good reasons. An individual’s indiscretions are certainly no one’s business but their own, and you would rarely find someone willing to discuss his or her “record” outside of a close group of friends.
But this week, we at The Campus have justice on the mind. Coming off the heels of the Justice Symposium, in which we spent a week going to lectures and discussions that cast a critical eye on the American criminal justice system, it seems like an especially appropriate time to give Middlebury’s system of justice the same treatment.
Though it is far from openly discussed, it is certainly no secret that many people, students and deans alike, feel frustrated by the way rules are enforced and discipline is decided on Middlebury campus. The easy answer to this is to say these feelings result from individuals who dislike the way the system has worked out for them, and that such complaints are laden with personal bias and are not legitimate reasons for reform. The harder answer is to ask the question: how will we ever determine legitimacy if no one is willing to talk about it? The Student Handbook available on the College website states that the “College’s policies and regulations…are always open to review,” so we say, “Let’s review.”
On the editorial board, one major point of contention was the issue of disciplinary discretion. The perfect system would toe the line between two equally important values: first, the knowledge that our actions will be judged without bias, by people with some knowledge of our character, and not without consideration of the context under which a citation was written; and second, that we have some prior knowledge of the punishments likely to result from any potential infraction. The language in the Handbook suggests that its writers considered the need for such a balance, but was it achieved, either on paper or in practice? The lack of discussion on campus makes it impossible to know.
The first step to generating the type of dialogue we would like to see is far from revolutionary: go online and read the Student Handbook. We guarantee you will find something about the College’s disciplinary policy that you were previously unaware of, that you have seen handled differently in real life, and/or that you really think should be changed. We are lucky to have such an easily accessible and extensively detailed Handbook to help guide our behavior. If the best way to not get in trouble is to not break the rules, then the second best way is to know the rules as well as possible. The College has made this process as easy for us as they could, and it is no one’s responsibility but our own if we fail to understand the code of conduct on campus.
The second step is a little bit tougher. We need to break free from the social taboo that keeps us from voicing concerns when we have them. Maybe your frustration stems from the fact that you got caught and you do not like it — but maybe it stems from something else, something systematic that deserves critical attention and potentially reform. Maybe your frustration is silently mirrored by hundreds of others, all ready to keep that feeling inside until graduation wipes it from the record and leaves it for a new student to inherit. Who knows — you could be the one to spark the change we are all waiting for. It all begins when we drop our pretenses and start talking to each other.
Editorial
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