Posted on 07/29/2013 4:05:26 AM PDT by Kaslin
The New York Times and the Huffington Post have been very critical of recent legislation by the House and Senate of the State of North Carolina. But neither of those liberal news outlets - and I use the term "news outlets" loosely - have recognized their recent attempt to restore due process in one of the most oppressive judicial systems in the country. Indeed, the UNC system is among the greatest antagonists of fairness and due process in the entire nation. Since this is a bold assertion, it demands elaboration.
Students in the UNC system are routinely brought up on charges of violating speech and conduct policies that are so vague that no one - not even the people who write and enforce the policies - understands exactly what kinds of speech and behavior they prohibit. When students are brought up on these vague charges, they are denied lawyers. Crucial evidence from investigations is often redacted prior to hearings. Verdicts resulting in suspension and expulsion of students are often decided and printed before the actual "hearings" begin. Often, after students are deprived of due process and expelled, they are ineligible for tuition refunds. It is the kind of "justice" one would expect in the Middle East or in Latin America.
After liberals ignored these problems for years, conservatives got to work last session sponsoring bills designed to address them. One of the bills, passed by the Senate in late July, authorized a legislative study of the issue, specifically to look at a student’s right to counsel in the hearing process. The other, passed by the House in May, spells out those rights. In the interests of full disclosure, I was involved in drafting that legislation.
The bill we passed in the House would allow a student to be represented during a hearing by a licensed attorney or “non-attorney advocate,” except in a case involving academic dishonesty or in front of a student honor court which is fully staffed by students. I am proud to say that the bill was sponsored by Representative John Bell who was a student of mine at UNC-Wilmington in the late 1990s.
Bell took particular interest in the issue as a result of a case involving his old fraternity, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, at UNC Wilmington. In that case, SAE officers were called into a hearing and questioned about an alcohol-related incident. Because the conduct in question was technically criminal, they asked for attorneys. UNCW officials refused to allow them counsel. When the students asked a second time, those same officials suggested that they might be violating the Seahawk Respect Compact by taking a "disrespectful" tone with their interrogators.
When I heard a tape recording of the entire exchange, I was appalled and decided to take action with the help of some attorney friends. For the record, UNCW later threw the fraternity off campus for refusing to cooperate with the investigation - in other words, for asserting their rights to due process. At that point, we decided to take the issue to the legislature.
The bill that was filed in April said a student could seek representation from an attorney “during any formal stage of any disciplinary procedure." The measure was later amended, at the UNC system’s request, to include the exceptions for academic dishonesty cases and any incident handled by a student-staffed honor court. Predictably, The UNC system is still opposed to the measure.
But Bell’s bill passed the House on May 15 by a vote of 112-1, after receiving just two minutes of floor debate. The vote was lopsided for a simple reason: everyone but the UNC administration recognized that Islamic terrorists in Gitmo have more rights to due process than college students in North Carolina. (For the record, the one representative who didn't support the measure left the session early. He didn't actually vote against it).
Presently, legal representation or assistance of a student by a lawyer in most instances “is neither required nor encouraged,” according to written UNC system policies. The only exception is when a student who faces a university administrative hearing simultaneously faces off-campus criminal charges.
When a university hears of possible criminal conduct by a student, there is an incentive to move forward without alerting the off campus authorities. By taking the matter into their own hands, they may expel a student at a hearing devoid of due process. Worse, the university may decide to hold court over a matter that the police have already investigated and decided to drop without so much as a single arrest. The latter was the case with the incident involving SAE at UNCW.
But now, that is all about to change. Put simply, our little university by the sea has ticked off the wrong legislature and the wrong representative. And the good news is that the new right to counsel bill isn't the only student rights bill to recently pass the house and head toward the senate. There's another one coming down the pipe that will not be well received by administrators with dictatorial tendencies.
That other bill will be the subject of a future column. In the meantime, I hope that other conservatives will decide to join me in the battle for campus due process. It sure is fun to be a community disorganizer promoting hope and change from the inside of an ideological echo chamber.
Update: Since the writing of this column, the North Carolina Student Administrative Equity Act has passed the Senate. It is on its way to the desk of the state’s Republican governor. The author wishes to thank all those who made this victory possible.
Sorry. I just can’t get myself worked up about a bunch of law students getting shafted when their entire core, their being, their futures are focused on becoming lawyers themselves. With the way higher education is so infested by liberals these days, nothing good will come out of a bunch of lawyers trained by them.
I am one of those people that really enjoys old TV re-runs.
The ones I love are The Rifleman (my favorite), The Lone Ranger, Leave It To Beaver and the like.
What I've noticed in The Rifleman and The Lone Ranger is a portrayal of ordinary people having a more than superficial knowledge .. or awareness .. of the (developing) laws a young nation was enacting.
I remember one Lone Ranger episode that centered on a newspaper office and publisher being targeted by bad guys for exposing the bad guys and of course, The Lone Ranger captures the bad guys and delivers 5 or 6 lines about "the freedom of the press"
And those older programs seems to have legal/political comprehension sprinkled though their writing.
Which is what this post has sparked.
What I mean is;
(P.S. .. I haven't read the TownHall article ... yet),
Lawyers sit in classes and absorb everything lawful ... You can do this, say that, and you cannot do this or say that.
Whether they actually practice law or not, they come out of an institution filled with ideas and thought processes that guide and affect their life ... their way of life ... and influence the lives around them.
So, as The Lone Ranger knows what Congress is doing, and is able to utilize the perfunctory comprehension of same by a local constabulatory or populace, adversely, we, as a populace, no longer have that comprehension and are manipulated to accept and/or agree to anarchy.
Look ar the pilgrimages and novena's to St Trayvon ... No one knows the law, cares less what it is when they learn, and foment war ... because The Lone Ranger can't muster up enough testosterone from the constabulatory to combat the anarchists.
WHY?
Everyone whom went to law school didn't really want to be a lawyer for truth, justice and the American way, but to better their own lives by learning how to game and use the system.
Some of those gamers are in public life and some get into 'journalism' and some become pres__ent
Conservative ideals are squashed on liberal campuses because the liberals hold all the power in an unchecked dictatorial system. This seems like a great step in protecting conservative voices from being sumarily squelched.
Told students years ago that such a thought was going to come to mind. Amazing that so few people ever listen to truth and reason. Awareness of impending doom usually comes way too late.
It’s a start.
Mike Adams has just created the template for tilting at the formerly unassailable monoliths -— use your state legislature.
Brilliant!
I think they took that caption from an Eagles song.
The students that Mike Adams writes about are undergrads, not law students.
“Which was done...”
Eagles... or Shakespeare... same diff.
Never, EVER vote for a lawyer for any public office!
Lawyers making laws to insert lawyers further into places where there were no lawyers. Eventually the lawyer industry will strangle all government, all commerce, all liberty- like kudzu.
Very nice.
read
I watched “IDIOCRACY” again yesterday. I am convinced that our modern society is even dumber than that movie.
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