Word: reprimanding
(lookup in dictionary)
(lookup stats)
Dates: all
Sort By: most recent first
(reverse)
After talking to the individuals involved following an article in the Harvard Law Record, I believe that I overjudged the severity of a reprimand. To the extent that this changes some of my pre-assumptions, I felt compelled to write again...
...SCHOOL AD BOARD is up to its old tricks again. Last week, taking on the events at Lowell House, it gave second-year law student Michael T. Anderson '83-'84 an "official reprimand," a disciplinary sanction that has no immediate consequences at the Law School, but is referred to state bar associations. The board is also now investigating the actions of Jennifer Granholm, another second-year law student who testified at Anderson's hearing. Members of the ad board, as well as those of the law school administration, did not know Granholm was present at the Lowell House protest...
These decisions on the Lowell House incident are particularly abhorent. By possibly damaging a student's future job prospects, the ad board is merely sidestepping responsibility for handing out discipline. In notifying bar associations of the reprimand but not recommending it be disqualifying, the ad board is holding a threat over Anderson's head but avoiding responsibility for actually punishing...
...especially troubling, because the Administrative Board was not without alternatives. Instead of a reprimand, it could have issued a warning--a lighter sanction that would as readily have registered the Board's displeasure over the Lowell House incident, while not putting a student's career on the line. The severe, punitive nature of a reprimand seems to me completely unjustified under the circumstances, which must take into account the character and motivation of the student being disciplined...
...these reasons we applaud the decision of the Law School Administrative Board to reprimand Michael Anderson. This reprimand, which according to Anderson may damage his career, is the sort of punishment Harvard troublemakers, from 1969 to the present, have always feared the most: discipline which may jeopardize a student's future prospects...