UConn made me love the single sanction.
A.J. Price and Marcus Williams, two guards on the UConn men's basketball team, were involved in the theft of $11,000 worth of computers from fellow students this past summer.
According to MSNBC, "In their criminal cases, both applied for a special form of probation for first-time offenders. Williams was given 18 months of probation and must serve 400 hours of community service. Under the program, criminal charges are erased if defendants successfully complete the probation."
According to the Hartford Courant, Price later received the same sentence via the same program. Whatever this program is, it's a joke and an embarrassment for the state.
But, at least they got thrown out of school or kicked off the team, right?
Nope.
At UConn, and many other schools, the students are not held accountable to an honor code or a jury of their peers. They are not beholden to the UJC or Honor Committee. Instead, they have a university director of judicial affairs. This individual saw fit to punish Price and Williams with a mere slap on the wrist! Williams was suspended in abeyance, meaning it would take another violation of some sort to actually drop the guillotine. He attended classes this past fall but could not practice with the team. Price was actually suspended for the semester, but he can return to classes in the spring and the team over the summer. Additionally, Price lost housing and dining for three years, Williams for one.
The whole situation is disgusting. Price and Williams should have been kicked out of school. Given that UConn athletes tend to have their own housing and the victims included players on the women's basketball and track teams, it is very possible the laptops were stolen from acquaintances of the players.
Whether or not Price and Williams received special treatment from the dean because they are high profile athletes is debatable. But would any other student have been kicked out for the same offense? My sister, who attends UConn, is confident a normal student would be gone. Future expulsions of ordinary students for similar events? I doubt it; I think the dean has set a clear message for his school: Stealing is okay. Kicking out a student for a similar offense would be thoroughly hypocritical. I'm not sure which is worse -- allowing this to go on, or flaunting a double standard.
How does this relate to the University? Two ways: First, if you care about honor or student self-governance, never root for UConn again. I will personally be rooting for Marcus Williams to fizzle in the NBA.
Second, the next time you want to rail against Student Council or honor or the single sanction, take a minute to think of how lucky you are to be at a school where no dean would ever pull this because a) they couldn't get away with it and b) they believe in honor and wouldn't want to anyway. Sometimes zero tolerance is enough. The Single Sanction sends a clear message to this university.
For the record, my sister would have kicked him out of school for a year: no school, no basketball. She also said that, through her job at UConn's alumni hall, she knows that plenty of times, people refused to support the school because of the incident, although this is probably canceled out by the legions of Husky fans that could care less.
My sister was kind enough to hammer it all home for me in a recent conversation.
Me: "Does it bother you that students had absolutely no say in punishing him via a student honor system or judiciary?" Jess: "No, because his peers raise him up on a pedestal and may not have served him justice either."
Me: (stunned, because I hate it when she is right) "Do students at UConn actually like rooting for him?"
Jess: "Well, he's good and helps us win, so yeah."
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