After 13 U of T students were charged for violating the Code of Student Conduct this the summer, much criticism has surrounded the policy.
The Code of Conduct addresses non-academic conduct on matters involving university property, including unauthorized entry or presence on campus and the use of university facilities, equipment or services. When addressing safety, discrimination and sexual assault, the policy borrows some terms from the Ontario Human Rights Code and the Criminal Code.
While U of T officials maintain the Code is an essential document for the safety of the university community, student leaders claim the Code undermines academic freedoms and can be abused to silence dissent.
Students at universities across Ontario have taken issue with their school’s behaviour codes. This semester Ryerson officially adopted their behaviour code, Policy 61, much of which mirrors the content of U of T’s code. Student unions led a campaign against the code, and their leaders frequently cite the summer arrests at U of T as reasons to be particularly worried. Meanwhile, students at the U of Ottawa ran a successful campaign against an administration-authored student code. A committee is now underway to draw up a document with student input.
Critics say the Code doesn’t list in clear terms the rights that students are entitled to. Oriel Varga, an administrative assistant at the Association of Part-time Undergraduate Students, cited graduate student protests of January 2000 outside Hart House and the 2002 protests against the Code itself when it was invoked.
Varga was one of 14 protesters arrested on charges of forcefully detaining administrators during a March 20 sit-in protest at Simcoe Hall. U of T then pressed Code of Conduct charges on those of the 14 who were students. “The Code is often used to silence student activists,” said Varga, who called them “bogus charges.” Six months after charges were laid, the protesters have yet to receive full disclosure of evidence against them.
UTSU president Sandy Hudson is among four students threatened with Code of Conduct investigations for disrupting a meeting where GC voted to increase tuition fees. “Students are subject to different rules than the faculty and administration,” said Hudson. “The university acts as though they are our parents and we their children. Students are adults and not in need of a paternalistic administration.”
Graduate Students’ Union VP external Sara Suliman echoed Hudson’s sentiments. “The code is redundant with existing criminal codes and in fact places much higher emphasis on paternalistic and hypocritical policing of student behaviour, rather than protecting the students,” she said.
Jim Delaney, director of the office of the Vice-Provost, responded that a separate set of laws benefits the university by allowing an internal procedure of dealing with offences. External bodies aren’t brought in unless absolutely necessary, he said.
U of T was quick to refer students involved in a March 20 sit-in case to Toronto police, in addition to pressing Code of Conduct charges. Gabriela Rodriguez, one of the arrested, points out that simultaneous charges are prohibited under the Code. The university eventually suspended the charges.
“The Code, like in any university, gets interpreted in different ways,” said Delaney. He pointed to Section B.2 of the Code, which states no person can do anything that “obstructs any activity organized by the University of Toronto or by any of its divisions.”
“What that’s really saying is to help protect other people’s rights,” he said. “It also addresses obstructing and disrupting university activities, but also helps protect individuals with their own rights.”
Hudson does not feel protected by the Code. “When students voiced their opposition against the rising cost of education and the rising fees of the New College residence, the code was aggressively used to silence them.”
