Every ISU student should be alarmed by the Office of Judicial Affairs’ handling of the Cuffs controversy.

By acting as both accuser and judge, director of Judicial Affairs Bethany Schuttinga and her office offend the long-standing legal principle of an independent judiciary.

In ethical terms, the Office of Judicial Affairs has failed to meet the demands of impartiality.

Set aside the specific facts in the case and whether Cuffs is innocent or guilty of the violation they have been charged with.

Instead, look at Cuffs like any other student group on campus that falls under university rules and regulations.

If any student group on campus is charged with violating university rules, that group should not be judged by the same person accusing them of the violation. This helps provide fairness and impartiality in the group’s hearing.

This is a fundamental legal principle. To illustrate this in a different way, imagine a police officer has pulled you over for speeding. You, however, believe you were following the established speed limit and challenge the ticket in court. You would not want to find that the judge in your case also happens to be the police officer who has accused you of speeding, because that officer already believes you are guilty.

Instead, you would want the police officer to have to prove his or her case to an independent judge open to hearing both sides of the case, and who is in a position that is more impartial than that of the police officer.

Every student group should be concerned about what has happened to Cuffs because any student group could be accused of violating a university rule and subjected to this same procedure.

In prosecuting a group, it could be possible for Judicial Affairs to simply get the facts in the case wrong, or, in an extreme case, to drum up false charges against an organization they would like to see disbanded.

In order to avoid miscarriages of justice — or even the appearance that justice has not been served — Judicial Affairs needs to present their case to someone other than the accuser.

In the Cuffs case, no one other than Ms. Schuttinga has ever had to make a judgment on the facts. After reading about the Nov. 10 Cuffs meeting, Ms. Schuttinga decided to investigate, which eventually led to her prosecuting and ultimately judging the guilt or innocence of the group.

Therefore, for Cuffs to have been found innocent, Ms. Schuttinga would have had to convince herself that the charges she filed were wrong. Even if Ms. Schuttinga claims impartiality — as she did in this case — it is impossible for her to meet the demands of impartiality when she has already stated her opinion in the case.

Four people can remedy this situation. Ms. Schuttinga can step aside from acting as both prosecutor and judge and begin pursuing a course of action that guarantees Cuffs a fair hearing.

Dean of Students Pete Englin or Vice President of Student Affairs Thomas Hill can intervene in some way to establish a procedure that grants Cuffs — or any future organization accused of a campus violation — due process by establishing hearings in which the prosecutor is separate from the judge.

ISU President Gregory Geoffroy should also realize that the judicial procedure established by the Office of Judicial Affairs is hardly “judicial” and see that appropriate steps are taken to guarantee fairness.

Dan Christenson

Graduate Student

Political Science

GSB Graduate Student Senator

Jason Stonerook

Graduate Student

Political Science

GSB Graduate Student Senator