Charity Harrell was the first person we interviewed, but made a lasting impression; Jonathan Lim is, in his spare time, a trained police officer in his native Singapore. What the two have in common is that we are endorsing them to be among the next University Judiciary Committee representatives from the College.
The UJC is plagued by a few issues, year-in, year-out. One of them is just a lack of clarification: In contrast to the Honor Committee, The UJC enforces the 12 Standards of Conduct, and has multiple sanctions. Getting this across to the annual wave of new students is a challenge which should not be overlooked, as Lim noted.
Both Harrell and Lim held that sanctions should be more educative rather that punitive in nature, and Lim emphasized the need for increased post-sanction support. Harrell has extensive experience as the vice-chair for first years. Lim, meanwhile, has served time as a judge, investigator and police officer, turning Law and Order into a one-man show. Early in our interrogations, the two had shown they could answer all the standard UJC questions by the book.
All of this was promising, or at least, promises. Then the Managing Board moved from good cop to bad cop to ask in detail about two concerns of ours, the first being precedent, or lack thereof. Given that the UJC operates without legal precedent, how could a consistency of sanctioning come about, we asked.
In the interest of students, Harrell and Lim disagreed with using precedent. Though violations might be similar, each UJC case is distinct by virtue of the individual students involved, and thus requires a sanction crafted which will best help those found guilty. They concluded by saying better education - for those within and out of the UJC - is always needed to bring about a helpful unity of expectations for judges and accused students alike.
Their responses were good and their platforms strong, but so were those of all candidates. Yet, more than lawyers, reporters ask tough questions, and thus our last - the toughest and holding the most weight - was about the UJC's jurisdiction concerning journalistic functions. The UJC constitution claims the body has no jurisdiction with respect to "the exercise of journalistic and editorial functions by student groups" (II.D.5). This clause was the cause of some controversy last semester. We asked the candidates for their interpretation: whether this clause is meant to protect individual students, or, more abstractly, "student groups." Because student groups cannot speak for themselves and are only ever composed of individual students, the latter would mean nothing, really.
The answers provided by these two candidates differed. But they both found the current wording vague and agreed the clause needed clarification. Lim suggested a meeting between The Cavalier Daily and the UJC to figure out what this clause means moving forward. Harrell expressed that the clause needed to be better worded in the Constitution, adding that it would not be fair to press Standard of Conduct charges against students undertaking journalistic or editorial endeavors until everyone is on the same interpretative page.
Besides showing their prudence and honesty, Harrell and Lim exhibited a willingness not only to move forward, but, more importantly for a body which does not operate with precedent, to look back on a dispute which should have been avoided. For this, they have our endorsement. And we have only their testimony, their word - the only evidence, if ever required, a newspaper can provide.
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