University of Virginia Library

Wasting An Afternoon

The issue that refuses to die though it may
in the end dispatch all of us from boredom
was the central topic of discussion at the
Board of Visitors' Student Affairs and
Athletics Committee last Friday. It goes
under the various appellations of "Standards
of Conduct," "Code of Conduct," "Rights
and Accountabilities," and even something
about George III and the rights of man.

Of course the story all began last summer
when the Board and the Administration
decided that the existing non-codified
standards of conduct used by the Judiciary
Committee were so vague as to render them
unconstitutional. This decision was reached
after the acquittals of all but one "defendant"
in Judiciary cases resulting from last Spring's
student strike. The Board considered the
consultation of two students in framing the
measures adequate student representation
for such a matter. The students disagreed.

The Student Council's "Code of Conduct"
committee convinced the Board to make all
of the changes they requested in the Code last
October. It seemed to us that the Board, in
approving these changes, had implicitly agreed
with the principle of student self discipline,
both in legislation and adjudication.

That was the end of the controversy until
the Union of University Students succeeded
in having a petition condemning the Code
signed by the required 500 students. In the
resulting referendum, when only a meager
number of students voted (perhaps hoping
that the issue would vanish from inaction),
the Student Council was forced to draw up
new proposals because of its binding
referendum rule.

The final product was presented to the
Board committee Friday. Confusion reigned.
The students, Council President Kevin
Mannix, Vice-President Hugh Antrim, Law
Councilman Mike Cohen, Judiciary Chairman
Ron Tweel, and Bob Strand had two
complicated proposals for the Board. One was
the specific rules and rights of students and
the other was a philosophical rationalization
for student self-regulation. Members of the
Board had not seen either of them prior to
the Friday meeting, nor did they understand
the relation between the two. As we can piece
together, since we are not allowed to attend
the meetings and must rely on student
recollections, this was the start of a long
afternoon.

Even more confusion was added to the
proceedings by the ignorance of the Board,
the Administration, and the students of the
proper procedure for presenting and
implementing such proposals. The coup de
grace came when the students discovered that
Vice President Alan Williams was not in a
position to represent the President as the final
Administrative check-point. The students all
had assumed that he had been speaking for
the President all during the formulation
meetings. As a result of all this fog, the Board
postponed any action on the Code or the idea
of student self-regulation and rule-making
until their April meeting.

May we admonish all three parties to
attempt to prepare themselves and
communicate the necessary information to
each other prior to a meeting of this sort.
Undoubtedly, Board members are wondering
about Student Council's capability to exercise
responsibility; the students must be asking
themselves, if the Board does not know the
proper procedure, then who does; and some
Administrators should be spending more time
talking to each other on their particular
duties. Certainly Friday's meeting produced
some positive results (i.e. hardback books for
Newcomb Hall Bookstore), but
the considerable time spent on the Code of
Conduct question was not an efficient use of
the Board's scarcity of meeting time.