The more things change, the more they stay the same. Legal Services Director Paul Tanaka wrote recently that the new conduct code is more liberal than its predecessor.

The code still reserves the right to impose so-called “conduct probation” as a sanction. However, there’s nothing slightly probationary about it.

The code reads that “[A] student may be disqualified from serving as an officer of a student or campus organization or as a member of a University committee or council.”

That’s removal, not probation, and its impact is both political and punitive.

Some may recall the sanction’s most infamous moment when the Dean threatened to remove a black student leader from the student senate a few years back for the leader’s “organizing” role in an “unauthorized” protest against the naming of Catt Hall.

In response, the student senate refused to honor the sanction and vowed to retain the senator and ignore the administration.

Over the years, various deans have promised reforms of the code.

All have ignored the Joint Statement on Student Rights and Freedoms, endorsed twice by the National Association of Student Personnel Administrators and the United States Student Association.

The Statement condemns administrative interference in student organizational leadership and encourages rehabilitative judicial measures.

It’s no surprise that the sanction is still there – despite Tanaka’s seemingly conciliatory overtures to civil libertarians. New students – and student leaders – should be aware that there is very little correlation between OJA’s purportedly rehabilitative purpose and this punitive and political sanction.

More liberal Mr. Tanaka? False. David A. Cmelik

Alumnus

Cedar Rapids