Two nights ago, the University Judiciary Committee threw out charges against Cavalier Daily Editor-in-Chief Jason Ally because "the exercise of journalistic and editorial functions by student groups" is exempt from the body's jurisdiction. This decision was consistent with how the body's constitution has been interpreted since at least 1985, when a faculty-led panel failed in its attempt to grant the UJC authority to hear cases dealing with student media organizations.
Yet this week's ruling casts a pall of uncertainty upon The Cavalier Daily and other student groups because it establishes that jurisdiction decisions can be settled in UJC trial settings, which are not bound by precedent. Therefore, future UJC charges stemming from "the exercise of journalistic and editorial functions by student groups" could find their way into the hands of trial panels that may choose to reinterpret the body's jurisdiction limits. This is wholly unacceptable since jurisdiction is a matter that is specified in the UJC's constitution, which is only supposed to be changed through referenda voted upon by the student body. The UJC's present procedure instead allows five-member panels to enact de facto constitutional amendments by claiming jurisdiction in trial scenarios.
Such a mangled process would seem to justify intervention from the University administrators who exercise final review upon student-led judicial proceedings. Yet those individuals say their hands are tied by the Board of Visitors, which apparently has decreed that the system of student self-governance must run its course before the administration can become involved. There is good reason to doubt this claim, but regardless of its merit the Board must explicitly reaffirm the University administration's authority to hear jurisdiction appeals before UJC cases go to trial. Otherwise, the body's constitution will be reduced to an ever-changing assortment of provisions whose meaning no longer will be established by the student body as a whole, an outcome that would undermine the very system of student self-governance that the Board and the administration hope to preserve.
At present, the administration's ability to intervene in pre-trial UJC proceedings is ill-defined. On the one hand, the UJC website states, "While the Judiciary Committee is a student run [sic], all decisions of the UJC are subject to review by the Vice President for Student Affairs." Yet the administration also claims it cannot review jurisdiction decisions made by the UJC prior to trial.
If this is true, then it would be possible for the UJC to accept a case alleging a violation of the University's Sexual Misconduct Policy, which solely falls within the purview of the University Sexual Misconduct Board, a mixed panel comprising students, faculty and staff appointed by the vice president for student affairs. It stands to reason, however, that the administration would never allow such a potentially damaging misinterpretation of jurisdiction and would instead short-circuit the student self-governance process.
Thus, it should not have hesitated to intervene in a similar manner when the UJC initially ignored its constitutional exemption of "journalistic and editorial functions." Although this mistake may seem less serious, it amounts to a violation of the First Amendment right to freedom of the press since it allows independent, student-run media organizations such as The Cavalier Daily to be caught up in the UJC's confidentiality rules. This, in effect, subjects those media organizations to unconstitutional prior restraint.
Moreover, the policy that the UJC embraced in the case against The Cavalier Daily allows for any future jurisdiction questions to be settled in trial. If the administration cannot clarify jurisdiction matters prior to that stage, however, then limitations provided in the constitution are effectively meaningless since they can be altered by any trial panel. This wrests the constitutional amendment process from the student body, doing grave harm to the principle of student self-governance.
Therefore, the Board must act swiftly to reassure the administration that it may step in to preserve the constancy of the UJC constitution. It can do so by allowing students to appeal matters of jurisdiction to the vice president for student affairs or the Judicial Review Board in a pre-trial phase. Either the vice president for student affairs or the JRB can offer a clear and binding decision about the jurisdiction question that will prevent unnecessary cases from going to trial and preserve the student body's sole right to amend the UJC constitution. Although students hopefully will not have to use this appellate process frequently, its existence is absolutely essential to ensuring that student self-governance does not become a system administered by the few without the consent of the many.
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