The decision to file a lawsuit against Ohio University was not one that I took lightly. However, it was necessary in order to bring about much-needed change to OU’s Student Code of Conduct in an immediate fashion. In an editorial published Monday by The Post, the executive editors state that they “think both parties could’ve achieved the same goals after having a conversation rather than a lawsuit.” I could not disagree more.
Changing the Code is something that Students Defending Students has been lobbying in favor of for years; it is a mission that we have been on since our founding in 1976. Until the re-write of the Code that just happened — and that has yet to be implemented — it had not been substantially changed since the 1970s. Countless conversations have surely been had, and significant change did not materialize in a timely fashion.
The First Amendment cannot wait for the excessively slow and burdensome process of changing the Code of Conduct. Students’ right to free expression must be respected immediately, and that is what this lawsuit has accomplished: the unconstitutional parts of the Code of Conduct have been stripped away, effective right now. That change, because of how university committees function, could not have come without a lawsuit requiring it.
Student Senate, with the help of SDS, passed a resolution in the 2012-2013 school year calling for a completely rewritten Code and some major changes to the Appeals process. Two years later, a rewritten Code will go into effect. The university declined to make the changes to the Appeals process that were called for in the resolution. Because students have no official intra-institutional method to dig their heels in and fight back, there is no incentive for the administration to do more than solicit student input as anything more than a formality.
When the university responded to the Student Senate resolution, then-Director of Community Standards Ardy Gonyer said, “[i]f a review were to happen, most likely a student-involved task force would be convened.” He then explained that any changes would be subject to approval by the Review and Standards Committee, OU President Roderick McDavis and the OU Board of Trustees. Mr. Gonyer did nothing to make that review happen. It only came about when a new Director of Community Standards was hired — a move for which the university does deserve serious commendation.
In PR responses, Ohio University has repeatedly noted that rewriting the Code of Conduct had already been happening independent of this lawsuit. That is correct. However, that process was slow, with the resolution to change the Code being passed by Student Senate in Spring of 2013, “consideration” of changing the Code taking place in Fall of 2014, approval of the new Code in January of this year, and finally, implementation of it in Fall of 2015. That’s a long time, because that’s how bureaucracy works; it is inherently arduous.
There are also certain changes to the Code that will be implemented in Fall of 2015 that came about as a direct result of the lawsuit. Relying solely on student input through official means and Post-encouraged “polite conversations,” no explicit protections for First Amendment rights were to be written into the new Code. After the lawsuit was filed, those provisions were added. Simply “sitting down and talking” in order to bring that sort of change to light is, unfortunately, overly idealistic and naïve, and sometimes external remedies must be sought.
In this case, that external remedy happened to be a lawsuit. The goals of the suit — which were both accomplished — were to ensure that the new Code would be constitutional and that the Code currently in place would get changed. The monetary damages, which The Post correctly notes are only a “drop in the bucket,” are there to be punitive and serve as a warning: universities that adopt and maintain Codes of Conduct that flagrantly violate the U.S. Constitution will be punished.
Even with that, however, this suit was never about the money. This was an action to bring about immediate change, and it succeeded. In an ideal world, operating inside the university’s committees could have ensured appropriate protection of students’ First Amendment rights in the Code that will go into effect in Fall Semester. However, there is absolutely no way that the changes to the current Code could have been implemented without such drastic action as litigation.
When we as students of an institution of higher education and good citizens of the United States see a violation of the Constitution as glaring as OU’s Code was before Monday, we are morally obligated to fight back and ensure rights are respected as quickly as possible. The lawsuit made sure that happened.
Isaac Smith is the Associate Director of Students Defending Students, a plaintiff-alumnus of the Stand Up For Speech campaign, and a senior studying political science and Spanish at Ohio University.
