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BY MARTHA MARRAZZA

In print | Published November 10, 2005

Results of the College Judiciary Committee’s Oct. 26 hearing have led to backlash among some students. With more attention being placed on the committee, issues about Swarthmore’s judicial process are coming to light and being clarified by the administration.

According to a public letter written by Dean Bob Gross ’62, the CJC met on Oct. 26 to discuss an incident that occurred Sept. 23. On that Saturday, Trude Raizen ’08 was injured at a Sharples party when someone threw a table over the balcony and it landed on her head and back. The college brought four charges against Jacob Anguiano ’07, with Raizen joining them in the fourth charge; while he accepted the charges of under-age drinking, drunken and disorderly conduct and vandalism, he denied charges of reckless endangerment. The CJC found Anguiano guilty on all four charges and recommended that he withdraw from Swarthmore immediately.

Following policy as stated in the Student Handbook, the CJC became involved in the case after a group of deans determined that the complaint represented a major infraction of the college’s rules and regulations. Westphal worked to gather evidence and inform the two parties of preparations required for the hearing, she said.

Although there were no eyewitnesses to the table-throwing incident, people ranging from PAs to partygoers to friends of the complainant and defendant testified at the Oct. 26 hearing. Many students who testified said they were surprised by the outcome of the case, but Westphal said the CJC’s decision could not be judged using America’s judicial system as a criteria for doing so.

Alex Ryan-Bond ‘07, who testified for Anguiano in the hearing, said the CJC’s conclusions proved disturbing. “It was a pretty wham-bam affair. It’s hard to find who was really there, who really did it,” he said. “It seems to me that he should have been innocent until proven guilty. I mean, maybe it was Jacob. It’s just pure conjecture.”

Noah Cooper-Harris ‘07, whom Anguiano also called to testify in the hearing, said many witnesses left the hearing thinking that Anguiano would not be convicted on all counts. “Out of everyone who testified at the CJC, no one in there thought he would be convicted,” he said. "What’s weird is that the message from the deans and from the CJC was that the burden was on him to prove he was innocent, not on them to prove that he was guilty."

According to the Student Handbook, however, the CJC is not “bound to observe procedural or evidential rules required in a formal court of law.” Westphal further stressed the differences between Swarthmore’s judicial policies and those of the outside world.

“Whether the decision was based on inferences or circumstantial evidence, the college felt that it had a strong enough case to bring charges against the person. The student also did not contest three of the four charges. I think it’s important to know the difference between the college way of dealing with issues and the outside world’s way of dealing with issues,” Westphal said. “Everyone looks at cases based on the outside world’s standard of a person has to be guilty ‘beyond a shadow of a doubt.’ We don’t ask our witnesses to tell the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth. Decisions are made by consensus, and it doesn’t take a unanimous vote to reach a verdict. It’s really a different way of doing things. Understanding the two different systems is really important.”

A few complaints surrounding procedural aspects of the hearing arose after the CJC announced its verdict. Some students lamented that the committee, usually composed of two faculty members, two student members and one administrator, instead convened with only one student at the Oct. 26 hearing. However, CJC policy states that alternate members are available to serve on the committee if others are unable to participate in a hearing. Westphal noted that one student was unable to make the hearing because of scheduling conflicts resulting from the double postponement of the case, so the committee rightly appointed an additional faculty member to serve on the CJC.

Ryan-Bond and Cooper-Harris argued that administrators presented Anguiano with an unfair timetable, which prompted him to request a postponement of the hearing. “About a week before break, he [Anguiano] got a notice on that Monday that he had deadlines for a hearing on Wednesday,” Ryan-Bond said. “Nothing was right. Deadlines had passed, and he would have had to scramble to get witnesses and testimonies. We got him a lawyer, and the lawyer got the hearing pushed back until after break.”

A record of e-mail correspondence between Anguiano and Westphal provided by Ryan-Bond shows that Anguiano had not been notified of the CJC hearing planned for Wednesday, Oct. 5 until two days before, despite an Oct. 1 email from Westphal that assumed he had received all the materials about the details of the hearing.

Ryan-Bond helped arrange for Anguiano to consult a lawyer when issues about the timetable of the hearing arose. “We got him counsel by Tuesday [Oct. 4],” Ryan-Bond said. “We wanted to have someone official to fight for him.”

Gross pointed to the CJC policy that the accused and the complainants “shall be given a copy of these materials in sufficient time before the hearing (normally a minimum of 48 hours) to prepare their cases.”

Westphal said the hearing was postponed two times for separate reasons. “The first time, one of the parties asked for a postponement. The case was postponed the second time because Bob [Gross] broke his hand and needed surgery.”

Gross said administrators postponed the hearing after talking to the college’s lawyers. “The [accused] student wanted the opportunity to talk to his parents and to a lawyer, so we consulted with our counsel,” he said. “She thought we should extend every effort to be sure the hearing was perceived as fair.”

Ryo Akasaka ‘09, a PA at the Sharples party who testified at the hearing, found the proceedings to be formal but disconcerting. "I was surprised [at the verdict]. I wasn’t sure of all details and I hadn’t expected to see such great repercussions resulting from such an incident. If the person in question had committed that act, then I would think those consequences are logical. But I just don’t know about details. In a sense I’m surprised because of the lack of concrete information from what I had known," he said. “I found [the hearings] to be very formal, so much so that I was taken aback by the whole formality. The experience was disconcerting, that’s the best applicable word.”

Westphal echoed Atasaka’s sentiments with regards to the stressful atmosphere the CJC fosters, but she praised the overall outcome of the hearings. “The CJC hearings are extremely hard and stressful on all parties. It’s one of our least favorite jobs to do as deans,” she said. “I think that the penalty handed out is generally meant to be educational, not just punitive. The student has the option to return to school. He can come back no sooner than fall of 2006.”

Gross emphasized that the majority of cases brought before the CJC do not pertain to behavioral issues. “It’s relatively unusual for the CJC to consider behavioral violations for any offense that would result in a penalty less than probation. Usually those cases are dealt with by one of the deans,” he said. “The CJC hears cases for behavioral issues only when the possibility of suspension exists. We’ve done remarkably few of these cases, with the reason being that people tend not to do egregious stuff.”

The verdicts handed down by the CJC are respected because the college strictly adheres to its judicial policy, Gross said. “If we do what we say we’ll do, then the courts won’t interfere,” he said. “Colleges only get in trouble when they deviate from their policy. We try to make sure we are consistent with our own rules.”

Westphal touted the CJC for the role it plays in upholding college regulations. “We have to have a method to follow through on rules, and this seems like a pretty fair way,” Westphal said. “I think the CJC has been effective. In this case, the student was suspended, not expelled, and that doesn’t affect financial aid. In an outside court, the sanctions could be much worse.”

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