This sanction is a sham

Two weeks ago, the parents of David Shick, a Georgetown student killed during an alcohol-fueled fight behind Lauinger Library in Feb. 2000, released the results of the University’s disciplinary hearing concerning his death. The “respondent,” the University adjudication system’s equivalent of a defendant, was found responsible, and was ordered to write a ten-page reflection paper and to serve a conditional suspension. After an appeal, the student’s suspension was postponed, and he was never required to serve the suspension. He graduated in May 2002.

The University’s lenient treatment of a student found responsible for the University system’s highest degree of physical assault, a student whose actions led directly to the death of another student, is appalling. A more appropriate response would have been an expulsion, or at least a suspension; both are listed in the Student Handbook as potential sanctions. A 10-page reflection paper is not. An adjudication system that could consider this the proper consequence for someone found responsible for assaulting another student is a sham that serves no conceivable purpose. Does the University consider it in everyone’s best interest to shy away from punishing students who have been found responsible? Does the University just not trust the results of its adjudication process? Is it simply too easy for students to get their sanctions appealed? Wherever the problem lies, sanctions like those handed down in the Shick case are not acceptable.

Fortunately, despite the University’s refusal to share the results of its hearings, students can still raise awareness of the adjudication process’ shortcomings. While students may not be able to discuss the particularities of their complaints, they can voice their opinions on the process. And, as events have shown, the specifics of especially egregious failings can and will be discussed publicly, if only through the persistence of people like the Shick family.

The adjudication process has demonstrated its inability to properly sanction persons that it has found responsible. The system and its standards must be reassessed. Otherwise, students might as well give up on the system.