School’s overview rightfully extended

Thursday, February 28, 2008 8:13 PM CST

The UW System moved this week to make some long overdue changes that would expand administrators’ ability to punish students for off-campus misconduct.

On Monday system officials unveiled proposed conduct code changes that would allow campuses to discipline students for serious or repeated violations of municipal law, for obstructing university-run activities or for damage to property.

Under the new code, if a student commits a serious criminal offense or presents a danger or threat to the health of the student body, a university could take disciplinary action up to and including suspension or expulsion.

Under current system policy, state campus administrators were largely limited to disciplining students for on-campus misconduct or for off-campus actions against other students or university employees or their property.

That created a nonsensical situation in which a student could be disciplined for an assault on another student, but face no university action if the victim was a non-student.

That absurd distinction - thankfully - would evaporate under the proposed new code.

Some students have in the past argued that this extension of campus disciplinary powers amounts to double jeopardy - that a municipality should level its punishment for infractions of law, but the university shouldn’t impose additional sanctions.

That position assumes that there is some sort of inherrent right to attend a university. There is not. Attending a college or university is a privilege and one that entails an expectation that students will abide by university rules and by the law.

The UW System’s proposed changes came in part because of recurring flare-ups between students and neighborhood groups complaining about student misbehavior in the residential area around the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. But there have been problems at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and on other campuses as well.

Universities across the state have a duty to be good neighbors to the communities that host them. That means having some control over how their students deport themselves when they are not on campus. We don’t really expect the proposed new code will result in a student being expelled for too many municipal noise violations — but it could very well send a message to students who get cited a couple of times for late-night parties to dial it down and be better neighbors.

More to the point, it will give campus administrators some new tools in keeping campuses and nearby off-campus areas safer and better places to learn.

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