Limits Students' Power
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TcmGoodEr.Ec5tcr
Jodici&L
forms A Eeactioe
Jlie following column was written by a w-Jetir mi'i
considerable experience in the judicial aid iHricuf
jramewnrk of this campus. He prefers
un m viit' m s f r pen ma! reai ns.
remain -
Colleges
Residence
Deserve A Chance
The administration has an
obligation to the students of this
University to provide liveable
conditions lor dormitory residents.
IT the administration provided
dorm' rooms to the students on an
optional basis, and there was a
reasonable degree of choice for all
students there would be little room
to criticize the administration.
However, last spring the
administration imposed even more
stringent stipulations concerning a
student's right to choose his
residence.
Currently, all freshman and first
year transfer students are forced to
live in university approved housing.
Sophomores were scheduled to be
campused next year but may be
pardoned due to the housing
shortage.
The University exists, at least
according to the chancellor, for the
educational advancement of the
studen ts.
The educational reasons given by
the University for the limitations?
None.
In fact the University could not
even formulate a sociological or
political reason for the limitations.
The sole justification provided
for the move by the administration
was one of economics. Assistant to
the Chancellor Claiborne Jones
termed the decision "unavoidable"
due to financial problems at the
time it was made.
When an individual comes to an
educational institution to obtain a
college degree he would expect
certain academic guidelines.
However, an educational
institution has no right to impose
social regulation based on financial
considerations as prerequisites for
an academic degree.
Thus, we feel that the University
should be forced to make the
dorms livable in order to provide a
voluntary incentive for student
occupancy.
Unfortunately, the University
has been moving in the exact
opposite manner. Room rental rates
have increased and social
regulations such as limitations on
the right to entertain guests in one's
room have remained.
Two events occurred last week
which showed the administration is
not willing to give the smallest
consideration to the
of the Residence
amount of
well-bein
Colleges
Morrison residents had worked
out a "Sex Revolution Month."
Then all publicity which had been
posted for the event was destroyed
by a University employee. We don't
QJIl? Saihj (Hot qttl
7S ) ears of I'd.toriai Freedom
Tom Gooding,Editor
Rod Waldorf Managing Ed.
Mike Parnell News Editor
Rick Gray ..Associate Ed.
Harry Bryan Associate Ed.
Chris Cobbs . . . . . Sports Editor
Glenn Brank Feature Editor
Ken Ripley Nat. News Editor
Doug Jewell Business Mgr.
Frank Stewart Adv. Mgr.
doubt thai the official was
following University regulations.
However, we do feel that when a
residence college prepares an
educational seminar University
regulations prohibiting tape on
cement walls could be relegated to
a lower priority.
Another South Campus sterile
chimney received inconsiderate
treatment last week when the
University took the entire week to
repair the elevators in James
Dormitory.
A week is a long time to have to
walk eight stories to get to the
room where the university forces a
student to live.
The administration is now
looking for ways to make the
residence colleges pay for individual
acts of vandalism. This action, if
successful, could completely
deplete the pittance of a budget
available to residence colleges for
extra-curricular activities.
The administration acts are
rapidly bringing the demise of
whatever effectiveness the residence
colleges are now enjoying.
' The Judicial Reform Committee vas born of a crisis,
and was expected to serve to resolve that crisis. The
crisis centered around the question of the legitimacy of
the claim of the University to concurrent jurisdiction
with the state over certain offenses. Some eighteen
months later, the crisis committee has submitted a
report which goes, somewhat erroneously, we believe,
under the name of the Judicial Reform Committee
Report. To anyone who has had more than the most
passing acquaintance with the student judiciary at
Carolina, there can be no question that the result of this
Report if it were made binding would be reaction and
not reform.
Despite the fact that it may not be popularly
believed, there has existed on this campus since the time
I have been here a broad and influential role for students
in the formulation of judicial policy. This broad role has
largely resulted from the powers of the Student
Legislature over the jurisdiction and penalties of the
student courts, and thus, the Legislature's ability to use
surprise attact to attempt to negate or emasculate some
administration policies.
Another weapon of the advocates of students rights
has been the student courts, which have often handed
down absurdly lenient penalties for major .violations of
Draconian Administration policies, thus reducing those
policies to farces.
The Instrument of Judicial Governance effectively
annihilates the levers of power over Judicial policy
students have traditionally exercised by defining in
broad scope the appropriate institutional goals and
concerns of the University, thus binding all those who
approve the Instrument to that definition of the
University's purpose, and by placing the prerogatives of
amendment in the hands of the Committee on Student
Conduct. rf
The Instrument is predicated on the assumption that
there can and will come to Carolina a spirit of
STAPtUfif!
community governance through the cooperation of its
constituent components. Community government was
the great experiment in many universities in the bte
fifties and early sixties. Yet at university after university
attempts at community government have been
abandoned in favor of a much narrower definition of the
legitimate concerns of the university than those
proposed by the Instrument and in favor of maximal
student control over student life.
Perhaps a major reason for the decline of the concept
of community government has been the realisation that
most of the campus revolution is concerned, not with
the war in Vietnam or Dow recruiters, but with narrow
parochial concerns such as visitation, drug policies, and a
microphone in Sproule Plaza.
For example, about five years ago one of the burning
issues at Northwestern University (Evanston Campus)
was parietal hours (visitation). After a continuous
student government-administration hassle, several
visitation policies, several demonstrations, and a few
"dorm-ins" the crisis was resolved. The result-any
student may visit any other student any time he damn
well pleases. Each student was permitted to promulgate
his own visitation policy. That's a far cry from the
hallowed concept of community government.
Yet through the Instrument Carolina will have the
following policy: Disciplinary probation. ..may result
from. ..violations in University-approved housing of
regulations promulgated by the appropriate
authority, (emphasis added)
That's another far cry from community government.
Translated, it means that the administration reserves the
right to promulgate its own visitation policy and to burn
the student with the gall to violate it.
In short, community government will not work
because each of the components of the University
community has its own special interests to safeguard.
Therefore, the administration is going ) leave itself
plenty of loopholes.
A second major step backwards in terms of the
control of students over their own lives is the creation of
the Supervisory panel.
In the first place, it ecms obvious that a panel with
the power to "certify"" and ""continually educate
member of sitting court has broad powers to interfere
with the autonomy of the courts. The power of this
panel to compromise the autonomy of the courts is
finally stated under that last of its powers: To adv"e
when changes in the student judicial sWcm seem
indicated.
In the second place, the Supervisory Panel K to be
half administration members. Of these three, the Dean
of the Law School and the Associate Dean of Student
Affairs both have terms within the administration, of
longer than one year, and will be continually
reappointed to terms on the panel.
Under these conditions an autocratic power-monger
like the Associate Dean of Student Affairs should have
little trouble ruling the judiciary with an iron hand.
Furthermore, let's look at the role of the Associate
Dean of Student Affairs in the "student judiciary." The
Associate Dean, in addition to being a permanent
member of the all-powerful Supervisory Panel, is a
member of the Student-Administration Board. Chairman
of the Graduate School Court, the University Hearings
Board, and the Summer School Judicial System. In
short, when he's not running the show from the
Supervisory Panel, this responsible university official is
going to meet himself coming back from court sessions.
Might this not say something about the impact of
bureaucracy upon the individual?
And finally, let us not forget that one of the framers
of the Instrument was the Associate Dean of Student
Affairs.
Perhaps it is not inaccurate to say that the Judicial
Reform Committee did accomplish a resolution of the
double jeopardy crisis. Not only is the doctrine of
double jeopardy reinstated, but the man who vetoed
that amendment to the student Constitution which
precluded student court jurisdiction in double jeopardy
cases is given his own little judicial system to play with.
Please remember who controls your life as you mark
your ballot in favor of the enactment of the Instrument
when it is brought to referendum.
Kvtf " -' AX t"7 SV ft
zz i r -c - : J i
Carl Freedman
Self-Determieatioe
Only Way To Go
23
iRI? THE.
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y- nliii wts voice
Mir tfK.3oM
ttt THE FCRfT ptMftTU!
Of
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Also FATURif)G- th&
Tony Leniz
i
4 MAKES CRACK:
Afro tir THE. OTKfcr- TEAM!
UNC TAR. HEELS
For sheer. absurdity, it's hard to beat
the controversy over the visitation policy.
I doubt whether even before in the
history of UNC so much time, energy,
and ink have been expended over an issue
of so little consequence.
Nonetheless, it is the
Administration-not those of us who
favor a policy of self-determination for
each dorm that is responsible for the
ridiculous situation.
One of the advantages of being the
establishment is that the opposition, if it
wishes to be effective must often play in
the ball park of the establishment's
choice. I think that nearly
everyone maybe, by this time, even the
Administration itself wishes that the
Administration had not decided to stake
so much on such a trivial battle; but the
fact is that they have, and, trivial or not,
thei battle must be fought.
There are, as I see it, two principal
reasons why a policy of
self-determination such as that passed by
the Student Legilsature is the only
reasonable thing to do.
The first reason is a negative one: the
Administration, quite simply, has no
business in trying to run the personal lives
of the students. This seems so self-evident
a fact that being forced to debate it is
ludicrous; but the theory of in loco
parentis dies hard, I guess, as do the fears
efen
Off
(tod eel:
TTft o
It is my certain conviction that no
man loses his freedom except through his
own weakness.
Gandhi
The David Adcock column on student
rights which appeared in Thrusday's Tar
Heel left the reader breathless for a full
two minutes after finishing the last
paragraph.
"Letting students run public schools,"
Adcock wrote, "is like allowing the
inmates to run the asylum."
Like most students, I can certainly
appreciate the comparison between the
University campus and the asylum.
And the mind's eye could easily
conjure up a picture of the University
campus and the asylum.
But the remainder of Mr. Adcock's
treatise leaves the reader convinced ihat
the author was absolutely correct in his
first sentence when he said:
Chants of student power and
academic rights are constatnly being
battled about today with little, apparent
argument of thought."
One hardly knows where to begin a
discussion of such an interesting column.
But then, we've got to slarl somewhere.
In the first palcu, Adcock bases his
entire argument on the assumption that
- mentally degenerate and socially
inferior.. .therefore they have no rights.
' The "reason and argument" Mr.
' Adcock employs is, I admit, somewhat
u astounding. Nonetheless, I feel compelled
1 to mention one or two thoughts that
Come to mind.
lack; while Don Juan seduces girls and ' Some students, I admit, are not too
students want to set policy for the entire
University community.
I am reminded of Kierkegaard's
comment on learned literary men such as
Mr. Adcock.
"Like Leporello learned literary men
keep a list, but the point, is what they
enjoys himself-Leporello notes down the
time, the place, and a description of the
girl." -
Mr. Adcock, it seems, has noted all the
"in" words and phrases like a nice
mechnically-oriented son of Middle
America. But he, like Leporello, has
entirely missed the point.
Students are only asking for a voice in
the decision-making processes; not the
voice.
But then, we are forgetting the -remainder
of Mr. Adcock's statement.
It reads, in' essence, something like
this: .f
Students arc stupid.,
-Students who are stupid must be
told what to do by parents, chancellors,
governors, and. other righl-thinking .
deities.
Ji hright. But we have left home, facing the
world on our own two feet. Many of us
jT work hard at improving ourselves.
Some of us even work to help our
parents foot the. bill for tuition, fees,
books, etc. Most of us will go on to
become good citizens, and we will
" ' probably pay more taxes in our lifetime
than our parents ever dreamed of paying.
In other words, I think we are a good
investment. Perhaps the best investment
, the State of North Carolina can make.
I And almost all of us are Americna
citizens. Surely that counts for
'something. At, least it used to mean
something.
By this time, I am sure. Mr. Adcock
will have rent the calm of the campus
of "llmotionalisin!
I can reply only that this
-Students do not earn their own w.-iv is an emotional issue.
therefore students are "social inferiors." One student has already been tried by
Conclusion: Students are stupid. a faculty tribunal for violating an
: w i t h cries
IIiOliJ"ii' :
administration decree. The sentence has
been recorded on his recordprobation.
' This student can no longer be elected
to any campus office or represent the
University community in any type of
competition.
His crime? Keeping a girl in his room
beyond the Administration's decreed
time limit. .
This regulation, Mr. Adcock appears to
argue, is . within the powers of the
Administration because it owns the
dormitory buildings.
True, Mr. Adcock. But they 'do not
own the students.
Even if we assume that the
Administration is the rightful governing
body for the students at UNC, there is
still a higher principle involved.
r The Administration, by attempting to
legislate morality, has invoked the spectre
of government poking its nose into the
personal affairs of its citizens.
And, as Henry David Thoreau so
aptly phrased it:
"I think we should be men firsthand
subjects afterward. It is not desirable to
cultivate a respect for the law. so much as
for the right. The only obligation which I
have a right to 'assume, is to do at any
time what I think right.
of many North Carolina parents who
already view U.N.C, as an orgy of sex and
revolution.
Futhermore, there is another, more
positive reason for self-determination.
The main function of a university is
supposed to be to prepare students for
useful, productive lives. Certainly nothing
is more necessary for such a life than a
sense of responsibility. And what better
way .to begin instilling such a sense of
responsibility than for the Administration
to give us, the students, authority over
matters which are no concern to anyone
but us?
How else can the University claim to
be providing a mature, open
environment?
How can we be expected to be
responsible, capable adults on the day we
graduate, if the day before we were not
considered responsible enough even to
decide the hours during which we would
entertain guests?
The Administration should decide: is a
university an educational institution, or is
it one more form of the increasingly
present Big Brother?
I really don't want to pursue the
theoretical arguments of the controversy
any further. The point is this: one
student (a resident of fourth floor James,
which by an interesting coincidence
happens to be one of only three residence
units to endorse 724 visitation under
self-determination) has already been
convicted under the Administration's
antiquated and illogical policy.
The punishment dished out to
him definite probation may not sound
too intimidating, but it is nothing to b
laughed at; it could quite possibly have a
serious effect on his "ability to get a job or
to get into a graduate (especially law)
school.
It' too late to help him, but it is not
too late to try to see that no one else gets
shafted in this manner. That big visitation
meeting with some of the Trustees is
coming up soon, and it is essential thji
we make our opinions clearly heard; mo t
of the Trustees, after all, do not live n
Chapel Hill and really have no way of
knowing what we think-unless we te'i
them.
Recognizing this need' tor
communication, several sttudents at Can
Dorm (which has some claim to be the A!
Lowenstein-or, if you prefer a more
traditional vocabular, the John the
Baptist-of the self-determination
movement) are circulating a petition trut
protests the convicition under an unjust
and irrelevant policy.
Signing-this petition, which will be
presented at the visitation meeting next
week, is one way of making yourself
heardJf you want to do more, sit down
al your typewriter and write some letters:
or. if you're really ambitious, try to
persuade the other . members ot your
residence unit (if you live on campus) to
vote to reject the Administration policy.