Word: cois
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
...feel that the COI is a lightning rod, channeling complaints for students often to irrelevant or impartial bodies. (In the current COI case, complaints against Vice President and General Counsel Daniel Steiner '54 were referred to Steiner himself.) Moreover, we feel that the majority's proposal for a new committee reduces the legitimacy of charges that the COI is useless. The abolition of the COI would be a positive step for the rights of all members of this community. The establishment of a body as "illegitimate" as the CRR would...
...comparison of the University's response to students' complaints and its handling of official grievances reveals an unconscionable double standard. If the University is serious about giving special protection to individual rights, it ought to dissolve both the Committee on Rights and Responsibilities (CRR) and the Commission of Inquiry (COI) and replace them with a truly autonomous judiciary board holding jurisdiction over the entire Harvard community...
...judiciary body which can independently administer the full range of University punishments--except dismissal and expulsion, which require approval from the full Faculty. But students complaining of violations of their rights had no independent authority to which they could appeal. The only formal channel for their complaints was the COI, a body whose function, according to the Handbook for Students, is to "re-direct [complaints] to the appropriate agency of the Faculty of Arts and Sciences" but which has "no power to make rulings...
...individual freedoms. Rather, it has been called on by the administration to mete out discipline in cases in which students have been involved in coordinated political activities. Its role has been both to intimidate student activists and to deflect responsibility for punishing students away from University Hall. The COI's functions, on the other hand, are ambiguous at best. It has no authority either to levy sanctions or to demand redress. Moreover, it can do little even to investigate grievances. Perhaps the COI's role as a clearinghouse for complaints against the University is a bureaucratic convenience, but it also...
...problem with the current division of labor between the COI and the CRR is twofold: first, it protects the rights of some members of the community and not of others; second, it can often be invoked or restrained at the pleasure of University administrators. Establishing an independent judiciary body empowered to protect the essential rights of all members of the University remains an excellent idea. But if such a committee is to be truly impartial and independent, it must subsume the functions of both the CRR and the COI and retain its autonomy from Harvard administrators...