[1524] in Discussion of MIT-community interests
Re: What we may have missed
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Ray Jones)
Fri Oct 17 15:10:25 2003
Date: Fri, 17 Oct 2003 13:56:17 -0400
From: Ray Jones <thouis@MIT.EDU>
To: MIT-Talk@MIT.EDU
In-Reply-To: <uv6brsgu1xk.fsf@tenebrae.ai.mit.edu>
(Apologies to those that may receive this twice. The listserv
software bounced it automatically the first time I sent it.)
Rev Prez <revprez@mit.edu> writes:
> >And the system/discipline/response must be able to demonstrate that its
> >charges can stand scrutiny.
>
> Please elaborate. I've seen nothing that suggests the process is
> accountable to anything but itself.
It's not. The MIT disciplinary system is a Star Chamber. Defendants
are not allowed counsel, nor are the proceedings held in a manner
that even allows scrutiny by the community.
The accuser and accused are each allowed to bring in one advisor, but
this advisor is not allowed to participate in the proceedings. The
advisor must be a member of the MIT community, and must not be a
family member or a lawyer.
http://web.mit.edu/communications/hg/6.html#Heading4
The proceedings are closed and confidential. The justification given
for this confidentiality is to protect the privacy of the parties
involved. In fact, I consider it more likely that it's to protect the
Institute from criticism for unjust practices and abuses in the
system.
Sometimes, FERPA is used by administrators to justify closed hearings
(FERPA protects the privacy of students' records). This is false.
FERPA protects the records of the hearing, but does not require the
hearing itself to be closed. This is the stated policy of the
Department of Education, who enforce FERPA.
http://www.splc.org/legalresearch.asp?id=18 (page 29)
The lack of openness and accountability has been abused before. Those
interested in how the restrictions on family members and lawyers as
advisors at hearings, as well as a classic example of the sort of
abuse that can occur when administrators are not accountable to their
own procedures, I suggest perusing:
http://www.mit.edu/activities/safe/cases/mit-dershowitz/summary.html
Thouis Jones
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