Proposed amendments to the Code of Student Conduct at Binghamton University would bring BU into compliance with new federal guidelines on the prevention and prosecution of sexual harassment, violence and discrimination, University officials say. The amendments would also reduce the burden of proof required for conviction in all Student Conduct Board disciplinary proceedings.

The amendments were released to Student Association leaders on Sunday and to Pipe Dream yesterday. There will be an open forum to discuss the changes at 7 p.m. Thursday in room 124 in the Old University Union. Milton Chester, assistant dean of students and director of the Office of Student Conduct who has been in charge of the amendment process thus far, will host the forum.

The BU Council — which is responsible for reviewing plans for the improvement of the University, among other duties — will vote on the amendments at 9:30 a.m. Friday during its regular monthly meeting. If the Council votes to approve, the changes will go into effect immediately. The meeting, like all Council meetings, is open to the public.

Nine of Council’s 10 members are appointed by the governor of New York, and the other member must be an undergraduate or graduate student elected in a campus-wide vote. There is currently no student representative on the Council.

Chester said the proposed amendments were drafted over the summer by the Office of Student Conduct and were finalized last Friday before being recommended to Brian Rose, BU vice president for student affairs, and the BU Council. Chester said he consulted colleagues at other SUNY schools and Rose during the process of crafting the new amendments.

Neither Rose nor members of the Council were available for comment yesterday night.

The changes were unable to be included in a review of the Code of Student Conduct that usually takes place in May, according to Chester. He said he hopes that Thursday’s forum will allow for ample student input.

“I want to consult with students … to kind of get their perspective, get their feel,” Chester said.

Kate Flatley, Student Association vice president for academic affairs — who acts as an advocate for undergraduate students with both the BU administration and faculty — said that there has been not enough student involvement in the process, notwithstanding Thursday’s forum.

“There are committees for everything, and there are student spots on all those committees, so I don’t understand why a change like this could go forward without consultation with [the SA] or some other student delegation,” Flatley said.

Chester and Flatley will meet today to discuss the changes to the Code of Student Conduct.

DEAR COLLEAGUE LETTER

The amendments were prompted by an April 4 “Dear Colleague” letter distributed nationally by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The letter includes data on sexual harassment and violence in education, and provides “remedies that schools and the [Office for Civil Rights] may use to end such conduct, prevent its recurrence and address its effects.”

The 19-page document cites Title IX of the Education Amendments of 1972, which prohibited discrimination on the basis of sex in education programs or activities operated by recipients of federal financial assistance.

Both K-12 and secondary education schools are compelled to comply with Title IX guidelines, which now officially include the new interpretation of the law in the “Dear Colleague” letter.

The main requirements of the letter mandate that BU specifically defines and bans sexual harassment, appoints a Title IX coordinator — a point-person for sexual harassment, discrimination and sexual violence grievances — and reorganize procedures for processing Title IX violations.

The Office of Student Conduct’s seven proposed amendments cite the letter directly. They include specific definitions of harassment and sexual violence for the Code of Student Conduct, stipulations for the handling and appeal of Title IX cases on campus and a new standard of evidence for deciding Title IX, and all other, cases at BU.

Chester said the document detailing the amendments will be posted on the Office of Student Conduct’s website.

NEW STANDARD OF EVIDENCE

The “Dear Colleague” letter dictates that “a preponderance of the evidence” be used as the standard of evidence in cases involving alleged sexual discrimination. This standard — defined in the letter as “more likely than not that sexual harassment or violence occurred” — is a less strict standard than the “clear and convincing information” burden of proof that the BU Office of Student Conduct has used since the beginning of the fall 2009 semester.

The proposed amendments to the Code of Student Conduct would not only apply the “preponderance of the evidence” standard to Title IX cases, as mandated by the U.S. Department of Education’s letter, but to all cases of student conduct at the University.

Chester said he did not think the move was a “major change,” but he called it necessary, even if it was not required by federal law.

“In talking with my staff, we just felt it would be confusing to have two different standards in the process,” Chester said. “You know, you have clear and convincing for everything else and preponderance for [sexual crimes]. Let’s say you have a sexual assault or a rape case, that also deals with alcohol or some other issues, and so now the board is trying to decide one thing in preponderance and another thing in clear and convincing.”

Flatley disagreed.

“I think that, with respect to the preponderance of evidence it doesn’t have to be applied to all student conduct cases,” she said. “I think it only has to be applied — obviously, via the mandate — to the sexual assault cases.”

HISTORY OF PREPONDERANCE

The University switched from the “preponderance of the evidence” burden of proof to the “clear and convincing” burden after a comprehensive review of the Code of Student Conduct that took place between fall 2008 and spring 2009.

A committee of two Judicial Affairs staff members, two Residential Life staff members, two resident assistants, one member of BU’s New York State University Police and one representative from the SA were charged with overhauling the code. The office of Judicial Affairs is now called the Office of Student Conduct.

Peter Spaet, the SA VPAA during the year of the review, was the SA representative on the committee. He said yesterday that the change of standards of evidence was one of the major legacies of the committee’s work.

“It was one of the more significant changes,” Spaet said. “I don’t think it was especially controversial at the time. By the end at least, the committee was close to consensus.”