Earlier this month, the Board of Zoning Adjustment formally required that the University agree to integrate a series of conditions into its 10-Year Campus Plan. The BZA’s controversial decision caps off almost an entire year of debate over what role this local body should have over Georgetown’s affairs.
But debate on this issue is hardly over. The University is in the process of protesting BZA actions in court, and with good reason. Its list of conditions to the University’s 10-Year Plan are not so much conditions as they are harsh penalties that infringe on student rights and interfere with existing University policy.
The BZA has ordered the University to make public the disciplinary records for off-campus students to third parties, including landlords and certain city agencies. But according to the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act of 1974, student disciplinary records are confidential. The BZA can’t rightly ask the University to break the law and, what’s more, it has no practical reason for doing so. Landlords should be worried about their students’ ability to pay rent, not their personal Georgetown history. And public authorities have no business monitoring students who attend a private University over which the District has no day-to-day control. That is, until the BZA decided to blur what seems to be a clear distinction between what’s under public and private control.
Georgetown will also be asked to notify the parents or guardians of all students who break the Student Code of Conduct. This stipulation blatantly interferes with University regulations. The Code of Conduct already has already developed a policy on this issue?namely, it allows for the notification of parents of dependent children who have committed several violations or one very serious violation. What matters is not whether this policy is the best policy; it is University policy. Georgetown students are responsible to Georgetown, not what the BZA thinks Georgetown should be doing.
The BZA has imposed a condition that requires the Office of the Registrar to keep a list of license plate numbers for all student-owned motor vehicles and also requires the University to direct students to register their vehicles in the District. Students should certainly comply with District law by registering their vehicles, but it’s not the job of a private institution to act as law enforcer. Furthermore, it’s disturbing that the BZA really thinks Georgetown should access students’ private transportation records, under the possible assumption that the University can track student movements. Georgetown’s no Big Brother, nor does it want to be.
The BZA has a specific function?to monitor and oversee building and construction that would alter the physical makeup of the city. The University has a specific function?to regulate the behavior of students pursuing a higher education at its institution. University administrators accept the BZA’s authority to monitor city construction efforts; BZA officials should accept the University’s authority over their students.
