AAUP FACT SHEET ON BARNARD STUDENT DISCIPLINE
BARNARD STUDENT DISCIPLINE DENIES DUE PROCESS
AAUP emphasizes the necessity of due process for any disciplinary hearings, laid out in the Joint Statement of the Rights and Freedoms of Students. According to the document, disciplinary proceedings should only come after the preferred educational means of addressing issues of student conduct such as “example, guidance, counseling, and admonition,” and “proper procedural safeguards should be observed to protect the student from the unfair imposition of serious penalties,” which the document outlines. The integrity of these procedures is essential to maintaining academic freedom and freedom of expression that help institutions “exist for the transmission of knowledge, the pursuit of truth, the development of students, and the general well-being of society.” As the following facts show, Barnard College has egregiously failed to provide any safeguards to its students by passing illegitimate policies about student protests and then denying due process to the students it criminalizes and punishes under these policies. It has also turned the issue of disciplinary proceedings from an educational process conducted by the college to one that is subject to interference by politics, policing and the law.
The disciplinary process placed students on interim suspension and punished them without any hearing or due process. Students were:
● placed under interim suspension and immediately evicted or put under effective house arrest, being instructed to remain in their dorm rooms on threat of eviction.
● immediately denied access to their meal plans.
● unable to easily access medical care. Some students needed to leave their dorms to access medical care, and faculty intervention was required for them to be allowed to return to their dorms. Some students who sought medical care were not able to return to their dorms at all. As a result, some students were forced to choose between medical care and housing.
● allowed fifteen minutes to retrieve their belongings under the supervision of a CARES staff member if they had been suspended and evicted
● denied entry to dorms through the use of flyers posted at entry desks that featured sensitive information about students such as their photos, numbers of disciplinary incidents, and their schedules (the school had not informed students of many of the disciplinary “incidents” and so students could not contest or appeal these secret charges). The photos of students remained at dorm entrances even after some of the interim suspensions were lifted, making it difficult for students to return to their dorms.
● left uncertain if they could work during interim suspension and some students were denied access to their jobs and income in some cases.
● not informed about the status of their financial aid or the potential consequences that either a disciplinary finding or an alternative agreement with the college would bring.
● asked to write an essay if they accepted an alternative resolution to be judged by the same college administrators who are punishing them, an instance not of education but of compelled speech.
The stated reason for disciplining students is a failure to follow the rules, and yet Barnard has capriciously changed the rules at will and sometimes without notice. The college:
● changed the rules arbitrarily and repeatedly.
● posted new rules and procedures without informing faculty or students.
● did not make the specific meaning and parameters of interim suspension clear to students or faculty.
● sent notices from the Dean’s office to faculty that students on interim suspension could not attend class on Zoom; days later, the Provost’s office sent an email to faculty that suspended students could attend class on Zoom (with no acknowledgement of the change).
● failed to provide necessary information about schoolwork; students did not know if they were allowed to continue submitting work on Courseworks and feared doing so would constitute another violation. Even faculty members could not get this question clarified for days.
The disciplinary process was applied chaotically throughout. The college:
● capriciously changed the times for disciplinary hearings, obfuscated the reasons for these changes, and was slow to clarify the schedule for hearings, interfering with the ability of students to leave New York and of faculty supporters to accompany them to hearings.
● failed to ensure access to dorms, working IDs, and even final exams after interim suspensions were lifted, requiring faculty intervention to correct this administrative oversight.
● failed to make arrangements for access to campus for students facing disciplinary hearings so that they were blocked at the gates until faculty intervened.
The disciplinary process has been enacted as an extension of police action on campus. The college:
● used arrest records as the basis of interim suspensions and attendant eviction, even though NYC dropped most charges; the college did not presume the innocence of our students in the judicial process and instead punished them immediately.
● admitted to using security footage, surveilling students’ social media posts, and using information from administrators to identify the students at protests deemed “unauthorized” through policy changes made solely by the administration without input from faculty or students. The expansiveness of this surveillance was matched only by its incompetence. Some of the students brought up on disciplinary charges were not even at these demonstrations or in places where the college claimed they were present.
● threatened to expel students involved in protests although expulsion has not been used in response to past protests at Barnard or Columbia.
The disciplinary process offers students fewer rights than the criminal legal system and even Columbia University’s own student disciplinary action. The college:
● denied students the right to legal representation in proceedings that Barnard admits are subject to subpoena and could put students in legal jeopardy.
● revised the Student Code of Conduct without consultation or informing the faculty or students. The previous version allowed for students to have access to legal representation during conduct hearings that addressed alleged violations involving both college discipline and criminal law. Students can now only be assisted by a support person of their choice “so long as the support person is a member of the Barnard community, not otherwise involved in the incident, and not a practicing attorney.”
● forbids students from sharing conduct files or any evidence used by Barnard with their legal counsel.
● refuses to provide information in advance regarding the evidence to be used in a conduct hearing, so students are unable to prepare properly for the hearing.
● denies students a presumption of innocence, leaving students in the position of needing to provide evidence that they did not engage in misconduct. (The current Barnard Student Code of Conduct contains no statement that students are presumed “not responsible.”) In no legal context is the accused placed in the position of trying to prove their innocence rather than depending on a presumption of innocence.
● refuses to offer a recording or transcript of conduct hearings to ensure fair treatment, prepare for an appeal, or to hold the hearing officer accountable for their conduct during the hearing.
● appoints the same office that conducted the original hearing to hear any appeals, making those appeals virtually meaningless.
Note: While the AAUP does not have official numbers of students disciplined, the following represents a rough estimate gathered through accounts by AAUP members: