Non-academic discipline at Queen’s is a peer-administered system that involves students passing judgment on other students for committing offences. These offences can range in severity from disturbance of the peace up to offences akin to vandalism and assault.
Most of you at this point will be asking “Why should I care?” and for the vast majority of you, this system will be outside your experiences at Queen’s. Since 1898, this system has been run by the student government, and by all accounts, has worked well as a restorative, transparent process that has ensured fair treatment for those accused of violating the Queen’s Code of Conduct. The process is accountable to AMS Assembly, and decisions can be appealed to the University Student Appeals Board (USAB ).
Unknown to most of you, the system now faces a crisis. Not a crisis of justice, but a crisis of PR. Surrounding the events of Homecoming, many violations of the Code of Conduct were reported. Normally, the AMS handles the cases that are defined under its jurisdiction and even handles cases in a parallel, but not substitutable fashion to Canadian criminal or civil courts. This has worked well in the past, and ensures that those responsible face punishment, whether it is a fine up to $500 or, at its most serious, suspension or expulsion. Homecoming is presenting the system with a challenge because there are those in the administration who are looking for immediate action and results at the cost of this student-directed process. You should care about our system of discipline because the administration is talking about removing a process that has been in place for over a century and taking matters into their own hands to unilaterally cast judgment on those accused of wrongdoing. While this plays very well to the angry citizens’ groups and the media, the administration’s proposal to bypass the judicial process carries with it dangerous consequences. They wish to remove the due process of the AMS, and give the authority straight to an administration that currently has no investigatory capacity, no due process and no mechanism of appeal should there be any procedural problems. In fact, they don’t even have procedural safeguards in place to be violated.
While there are serious consequences to the events on Aberdeen, student discipline should not be one of its casualties. A student discipline process enshrines the principle of peers judging peers. We’re all students, generally away from home, and all understand what it means to be a student at Queen’s. This sympathy and understanding gives those on the Judicial Committee the insight and authority to say when a fellow student has acted with poor judgment and has tarnished the reputation of Queen’s University. The Judicial Committee doesn’t make decisions to satisfy the media, but makes them based on what is fair and just. A system of justice should reflect a level of integrity a university administration more concerned with their image in the Whig-Standard than process and fairness could not provide. That is why I would hope that before any drastic action to curtail the discipline process is taken, the system be given a chance to once again prove why it has survived into its third century.
All final editorial decisions are made by the Editor(s)-in-Chief and/or the Managing Editor. Authors should not be contacted, targeted, or harassed under any circumstances. If you have any grievances with this article, please direct your comments to journal_editors@ams.queensu.ca.