Students who break law must go through campus judicial system

After getting arrested and spending a hard night in a cold jail cell, students still have to go through a long judicial process.\n“A fairly common response I get from students is, ‘I didn’t realize the seriousness of the situation,’” said Dick McKaig, dean of students. “When suspension and expulsion are on the line, they realize it.”\nDuring the 2006-2007 school year, 10 percent of the student body went through the campus judicial system, many of them unaware of the consequences facing them, said Pam Freeman, assistant dean of students.\n“Once students have been through the campus judicial process, they would have to be very careless to let it happen again,” Freeman said.\nWhen students break an ethics code in the IU Code of Student Rights, Responsibilities, and Conduct, whether through an arrest or an academic violation, students are eligible for punishments ranging from a reprimand to an expulsion, Freeman said.\nWhen a student is arrested, the report is sent to the Monroe County Prosecutor’s Office, said Chris Gaal, Monroe County prosecutor. The prosecutor then decides whether or not there is sufficient evidence to charge the suspect with a criminal offense.\nIllegal consumption and public intoxication are the most common offenses students commit, Gaal said. Students are also involved in other types of criminal events like battery and robbery.\nIf it is a student’s first offense for alcohol intoxication, he or she is eligible for a pre-trial diversion agreement through the prosecutor’s office. This agreement, which includes an alcohol education course, is meant to keep a criminal conviction off the student’s record. Students must pay a fee for the program and agree not to commit another criminal offense for a year. Drunk drivers are not eligible for this agreement because it’s a danger to the public, Gaal said.\n“A drinking ticket is nothing more than an arrest,” said IU Police Department Captain Jerry Minger. “It minimizes a crime by what people call it.”\nThe Office of Student Ethics and Anti-Harassment Programs also has an alternative alcohol intervention program, which is similar to the pretrial diversion agreement. \nWhen a student is arrested and breaks a student code of ethics, the Office of Student Ethics receives the police report. Students are then given a week’s notice before they must come in for a meeting with an academic counselor, Freeman said. A judicial conference is then scheduled, during which the student has a chance to present their side of the story.\n“What helps determine the sanction is if the student has done this before,” Freeman said. “Students’ attitudes can also make a difference. If a student comes in and says, ‘This is stupid and you can’t stop me,’ then the outcome will not go well.”\nFollowing the judicial conference, students may consent to the sanction made or they may request a judicial hearing in which they can provide witnesses to help them prove their case.\nIn most cases, students can be suspended when they have multiple offenses, violated alcohol codes, committed plagiarism or participated in a violent crime against someone else, such as shooting and stabbing. If a student is put on probation, it stays on his or her record for five years after graduation. Students can be expelled from IU for major drug cases, previous suspensions and falsified transcripts.\n“We expel students when we feel we don’t want someone like that to have a degree from IU,” McKaig said.\nTo see a full list of the student ethics codes, students may visit the Office of Ethics Web site at http://www.dsa.indiana.edu/ethics.html.