John Snyder's UDC Presentation

Note: The following analysis of the University disciplinary system was presented by John Snyder on September 9, 1997

UDC reform:

An issue that never seems to go away for the Brown ACLU is the need to reform the University Disciplinary Council-known among Brown student simply as the UDC. What is the UDC, you might ask?

Briefly, the UDC is the judicial body (made up of students and deans, operated by the Office of Student Life) responsible for hearing violations of the Non-Academic Disciplinary Code. That code is found in your student handbook, which you should be getting in your mailbox in the near future. Be sure to look at the code when you get your handbook; Brown has its own rules, and you should know them.

So why is the ACLU concerned with the UDC? Simply put, the UDC by its nature is not always a fair system. In fact, if we are to judge the UDC by its past performance, we would have to say that it is often a grossly unfair system. It has recently arrived at decisions that are, quite frankly, weird.

. Let me give you a couple examples:

Two years ago, there was a fight in a bar on Thayer Street-"Spats," the bar was called. In the course of the fight, two Brown football players badly injured two other Brown students. One of the injured students was a Chemistry grad student; the other a Brown cheerleader. The cheerleader was punched in the face by one of the football players and ended up needing reconstructive surgery.

When these two students were brought before the UDC, they denied everything and the UDC found these students "not guilty." Left without any recourse, the two victims brought charges against their attackers in Providence courts . But rather than face trial, the two students (who had adamantly denied even being in the bar that night) decided to plead "no contest." Now, a "no contest" plea is tantamount to conceding that evidence exists that would prove beyond a reasonable doubt that they had indeed committed the crime. When it became known among Brown students that these two had made this plea, we could only ask ourselves, how could the UDC find them not guilty when such evidence existed. Needless to say, this case shook the Brown community's trust in the UDC.

One might look at that outcome and conclude that the UDC is weighted in favor of defendants. But later we learned that this is not always the case. The same year that the UDC made its decision on the barroom brawl, a Brown student was brought up on sexual misconduct charges. Now, "sexual misconduct" is a vague term that the University uses to describe a wide variety of offenses, but in this case, when the University brought sexual misconduct charges, it was talking about date rape. Here's the story.

A female Brown student went out partying one night and got drunk. Exactly how drunk, no one knows. At any rate, she ended up in a friend's room at a fraternity house on Wriston Quad. She felt sick, so she laid down on the bed. In walks another fraternity member who was returning a CD. He sees the girl laying on the bed, and he asks her if she wants a glass of water. She says yes, and he gets one for her. They talk a little longer and finally he decides to head back to his room. She gets off the bed and follows him back to his room.

When they get there, she grabs him, kisses him, and starts taking his clothes off. He doesn't stop her. Soon both are naked and fooling around on the bed. She asks him to get a condom. He does. They have sex. They talk for two or three hours afterward, then they fall asleep. They wake up in the morning and she is a little fuzzy about the previous night. She asked whether they had used a condom, and he tells her that they had. They talk a little more, exchange phone numbers, and she goes back to her dorm. Three weeks later, the man receives word that he is being brought up on charges before the UDC. According to the girl, she had been too drunk to give consent, therefore she was charging him with what amounts to date rape. Despite testimony that she had initiated the sex, that she had been alert and responsive throughout, that she had willingly exchanged phone numbers the next morning, the UDC found the male student guilty and placed him on probation. The case was reviewed by a Dean, who increased the punishment to one semester suspension. The Provost then reviewed the case, reversed the conviction, but judged the male student guilty of a different offense. Meanwhile, the male student's name had been leaked to the press and his picture had been plastered on the cover of the Brown Daily Herald. Today that student walks around campus in infamy, as a sex offender, because of the UDC's judgment.

What do these cases reveal? They reveal that the UDC is grossly unpredictable. Yet the trend recently has been for the UDC to become even more informal. About a week ago it was announced that effective immediately , a student brought before the UDC no longer has the right to be represented by a faculty advocate. Nor can that student cross-examine witnesses any longer. Nor can the student appeal an unfair decision unless he can prove that important new evidence has surfaced.

The Office of Student Life, for its part, has become less forthcoming with information about these cases. Last year the UDC met to consider another case of alleged date rape. Under strange circumstances, the UDC voted not to hear this case. Now, it is customary for the Office of Student Life to produce community notification when the UDC considers a case. But in this instance, the Office of Student Life refused to produce any notification, so the campus remained ignorant of the case for several months.

The Brown ACLU is committed to reforming the UDC. We support strengthening due process guarantees. We believe that when a student's Brown career is on the line, he should at least know he's going to get a fair trial. We support expanded community notification. We believe that the system can't improve unless the community knows how it works-or more important, how it doesn't work.