Many fear students could now receive academic penalties for actions outside the classroom after the university passed a new code of conduct allowing the administration to invoke academic penalties for non-academic activities.
Student discontent exploded at the Valentine’s Day meeting of the Governing Council, where representative from the the Canadian Federation of Students (CFS), members of the Students’ Administrative Council (SAC) and the Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) showed up in full force to protest new provisions in the code.
“Students really felt there was something very disturbing here, something very chilling,” said student activist Elan Ohayon of the protest. Chants of “Freeze the fees! Kill the Code!” grew so loud that the meeting was moved to Croft Chapter House.
Nevertheless, GC members voted to pass the new Code of Student Conduct.
The revised code empowers the administration to invoke academic penalties for non-academic activities. A suspension or expulsion under the code, for example, will now be recorded on a student’s transcript for five years.
Ohayon worries this could create a “chilling effect” for student leaders and union members, whom Ohayon believes would be the main targets for such penalties.
Many students who have been disciplined or threatened with suspension or expulsion under the code, said Ohayon, “have historically been the most socially aware students on campus.”
During the teaching assistants’ strike of 2000, Ohayon said, some members of the T.A. union bargaining committee were charged with violating the code and threatened with disciplinary action. The administration later withdrew these threats, but Ohayon claims they affected the outcome of the strike.
SAC University Affairs Commissioner Agata Durkalec decried the lack of consultation with student groups by the University Affairs Board (UAB), which agreed to strike a special committee last year to make recommendations for revisions of the code. Durkalec said SAC and the GSU wanted to be part of this process, but their input was “ignored.”
Governing Council member David Melville called for more public consultation on the code revisions, but his motion to postpone the passing of the new code to the next GC meeting was defeated.
“We have, I believe, addressed in our meetings all of the issues brought up here,” said UAB member Ian McDonald.
A UAB report stated that Vice-Provost (Students) Ian Orchard was “confounded” by student representatives’ references to the misuse of the code, and that suspensions, expulsions and other forms of discipline under the code are extremely rare. Orchard said there was nothing implied in the revised code that would prohibit peaceful assembly and freedom of speech.
