Editor:

In light of recent events, J-board policies have come under scrutiny and criticism. One perspective, unfortunately, has been missing from this debate: that of the convict. So as someone who was J-boarded for political reasons, I offer my perspectives on a system that functions as a tool for the college administration, where justice is all but forgotten.

The first political decision takes place when the deans decide whether to charge you at all. If you’ve done something like protest college policy, they might dig through pictures of the protest and pick out Pomona students, as they did last semester. If you’ve violated federal drug law, they’ll probably just let it go. While some may agree or disagree with specific decisions, the point remains: they are made on political grounds. What will look good or bad for the school? What are the behaviors the administration wants to discourage? Who are the students that examples should be made of? Once the administration has decided to J-board you, they all but control your destiny until the trial is over.

Dean Quinley calls you in to intimidate you into confessing. If you resist, the deans then decide whether you will be tried individually or in a group, then set the groups and times. You cannot demand an individual hearing, as some of us tried to do, nor can you demand to all be treated equally by being placed in the same group, as we requested. Instead, you may be divided along political lines - in our case, more visible campus activists were placed together in one group, participation in the specific protest notwithstanding. The administration will claim that the groupings make no difference to the panelists, but deny you the right to choose your own groups. Why can’t these simple changes be made? They say they don’t want the process to take too long!

Pomona carries the idea of a speedy hearing so far that the "fair" clause is forgotten. You’ll be called with three days notice about your J-board hearing, and told to submit all your evidence and witness lists within the next 24 hours. This could be up to a year after the event occurred, or it could be during finals week, but you still only have one day to secure witness testimony and dig up all the evidence you will use to defend yourself. Take it from me, it’s not enough time. But the administration claims it’s a hassle if things drag on! Excuse me if I’m unsympathetic. If the college is going to try students in the first place, it has to suck it up and deal with the consequences of fair judicial procedure!

But the hearings are not designed to be fair. For one thing, there’s the ridiculous office of the "community representative," a faculty member who interviews both sides and presents to J-board an "impartial" account of what happened. Though that’s clearly the panel’s job, the system is straddled with this extra filter between the panelists and the truth, a person with their own biased perspective who is treated as truth-teller rather than witness. The potential for injustice is enormous! And if the representative leans towards the defense, be prepared for what happened in my hearing: Dean Quinley accused the community representative of acting as a defense attorney, and used this to justify her own behavior as a prosecutor. Never mind that she made the exact same arguments in the hearing with a more unbiased community rep. She wanted to publicly discredit the professor’s version of the facts by calling him a defense attorney, while at the same time justifying her own aggressive approach.

And the dean IS the prosecutor. Deans represent the college, and they want you found guilty. Having a respected member of the college community go after the defendant will ALWAYS bias J-board towards a "guilty" decision, but the special relationship of the deans with J-board makes it even worse. Throughout the year, the deans function as advisors to J-board. They interpret the student code. They set the schedules. And because of the trusting relationship that develops, the influence they exert is enormous. This is not to say that J-board members are uninterested in justice or know they are being manipulated, but they are, from the moment the dean speaks to the moment she recommends a punishment. Is it any wonder that J-board delivers politically expedient verdicts?

Especially since defendants are denied that most fundamental of rights: presumption of innocence. In three of our four hearings, J-board panels were distinctly hostile to defense arguments. "We know you violated the code; why are you wasting our time?" The chair told us privately beforehand that he expected us to be found guilty. Because of J-board’s relationship with the deans, the assumption that those accused must have done something wrong, and perhaps faulty training, the burden of proof comes to rest with the defendant, the exact opposite of what the Student Code demands. Thing is, we actually weren’t guilty of one of the charges; it would have been nice if they’d cared. The only panel to acknowledge this was the one we explicitly reminded of our right: innocent until proven guilty. But why should we have to remind them? Why should students be convicted on the grounds of unverified accusations and an attitude of "we know you did it?" Is this what justice looks like?

To top it off, all J-board trials are closed by imperial fiat. While this might make sense for sexual assault cases, what happens when neither victim nor defendant wants it to be private? What if there is no victim, as in our case, and the trial is political? Couldn’t the names of witnesses, defendants, etc. just be omitted in press reports? The "privacy" rule has been manipulated into a political tool to preserve the colleges’ reputation and prevent dissent. If you only knew what went on in that room.

If you heard Dean Quinley bemoan the fact that disruptive protests "tear at the fabric of our community," that the protesters were aggressors representing a minority opinion (preserve the Bernard Field Station), only moments after having impassively shown a tape of us being brutally arrested at the College’s behest, you might not be so willing to believe the administration’s good intentions. If the press were allowed in that room, they could reveal any number of important things about judicial procedure, about the points made by prosecution and defense. It would be a check on J-board’s tendency to turn into a kangaroo court.

Is there hope for J-board? Not as it exists today - the system is too carefully crafted to stack the deck against those the colleges want punished. Powerful, unconscious social influence is pushing the panelists to deliver a rousing verdict of "What Dean Quinley says!"

Which is not to say that the system doesn’t break down from time to time–after all, it was the most heavily activist group that finally received some modicum of justice. But don’t worry, the College has got that problem covered. Check out the last section of the student code, a new addition this year: "Extraordinary Authority of the President." In cases where property, safety, or college business is threatened, the president or those he designates can impose any sanctions without judicial review. The faint hope of J-board has been removed so that activists can be suspended or expelled without trial. Imagine for a moment that G.W. Bush has the authority to execute people without trial. Send chills up your spine? Now imagine that you’ve had trouble with the administration for some reason - any reason. You get drunk one night and break a college window. And are expelled without trial.

Welcome to a liberal arts school, George Orwell style. And don’t think you’re safe, because all it takes is one false accusation, one drunken mistake. So what can we do? We need to scrap the student code; rebuild it from scratch with student rights in mind. If the Student Affairs Committee won’t do it, we need to demand it. Because a right lost to one is lost to all.

Sincerely,

Lenard Molina ‘02