A University Disciplinary Council hearing will be held [tomorrow] to adjudicate charges against eight members of Students for a Democratic Society. It will be the first time such a hearing has been held in at least four years.
The eight SDS members are facing disciplinary action following the group's protest of a Corporation meeting in University Hall on Oct. 18. Members of the group tried to enter the building - which was to remain closed during the meeting - to speak with members of the Corporation. But they met resistance from Department of Public Safety officers and University personnel, who officials say were injured during the encounter.
The students face the most severe level of disciplinary action, which can result in separation from the University. They were able to choose to have their case heard by either a UDC panel consisting of students, faculty and administrators or a hearing before a single administrative officer.
Carly Devlin '09, an SDS member who has been charged, said the students chose a UDC hearing because "we thought it would be a more democratic process." She added that members are more comfortable with a hearing in front of a group that includes some of their peers, rather than one administrator.
The issue has generated letters pro and con in the student daily, and sparked the following response from supporters of the students in question:
On October 18th, students attempted to enter University Hall and take part in a meeting of the Brown Corporation. This action occurred in the context of an eight-month campaign to make the Corporation a more democratic, accountable, and transparent institution. For months, students had written letters, signed petitions, talked to Trustees, rallied outside meetings--all without response from the university's highest governing body. The response finally came after the October meeting, but instead of letting us in, the Corporation is trying to throw us out. They would rather expel students than let us have a say in the decisions that affect our education.
We believe that decisions at our school should be made by those who are most affected by them. We don't think that a closed group of 50 people who only come to campus a couple times a year should be deciding how much this school costs or the way that it spends money. We don't believe that a group of people who are mostly rich old white men should have complete control over the functioning of this university. We've seen what happens when these decisions are left up to a privileged few:
-our tuition balloons at twice the rate of inflation every year so that it is now more than the median family income in the US;
-we waste money on useless projects such as the construction of The Walk and the institution of Banner;
-we displace our neighbors, such as the working-class Cape Verdean community in Fox Point, through irresponsible expansion;
-we see police brutality against students of color and a system that ignores, trivializes, and villifies survivors of sexual assault;
-we end up with an inaccessible university, one that excludes students of color, undocumented students, and students from working-class families.
Our university doesn't have to be this way! We can do better. Without democracy, students will always be left appealing to the Corporation' s better judgement to institute changes that we know are just and necessary. But if we have power over the decisions that affect us as students, then we can create the Brown that we want.
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