A new Student Information Handbook is on the way. And it’s about time.

As the entire university reads of the fiasco surrounding the Beardshear Eight and the Office of Judicial Affairs, it becomes obvious that the university’s justice system needs reparations.

These students requested open hearings, but the university denied their requests. It is our impression that privacy rights belong to the students, not the university.

So it does not surprise us that when Geneva Overholser, ombudsman for The Washington Post and former editor for The Des Moines Register, tells an audience that the Daily should have been let into the hearings. She felt that Iowa State violated these students’ rights.

In addition, she felt the university was holding the closed hearings because it was more interested in secrecy, rather than the students’ privacy. “Secrecy is not the process of a free and confident democracy,” she said.

We couldn’t agree more.

It should surprise you, the students, that Iowa State, a branch of the government of the state of Iowa, works against the process of a free and confident society by denying these students their rights to open hearings. A university is supposed to help people learn how to succeed in a democratic society.

Hopefully the new handbook will look into these matters and finally clarify them.

Even Dean of Students Kathleen MacKay agreed that the judicial system needs a “complete review.”

We think it would be wise for the university to let a representative of The September 29th Movement sit on the committee which will present plans for changing the handbook.

And it would be wise for the university to rewrite the handbook so it guarantees all students who face conduct violations the right to have an open hearing if they so choose.