Professors and student organization leaders have raised concerns about the University’s Student Code of Conduct, saying it gives the University outsized power to silence political speech and punish campus dissent.
These concerns come after the Office of Student Conduct began a Level II conduct hearing against Students for Justice in Palestine at Pitt in February for students’ actions as part of a sit-in at Hillman Library in December. University members criticizing the current code said the lack of specificity in what constitutes a violation and how conduct hearings operate leaves the door open for potential abuses of power.
Since conduct hearings can bestow punishments ranging up to club termination and dismissal from Pitt, some are calling for the OSC to provide greater transparency to ensure hearings operate fairly.
“The Student Affairs definitions of prohibited and allowable behavior were vague and open-ended and were really easy to use selectively in order to target controversial speech or specific kinds of speech and action that the University was cracking down on,” Ruth Mostern, a professor of history at Pitt, said. “The idea that students would have sanctions up to and including dismissal from the University based on rules that are easy for the administration to abuse is the first step of the problem.”
Level II conduct hearings, like the one SJP went through, necessitate a more complex process as outlined in the code. Director of Student Conduct Matthew Landy said in an emailed statement to The Pitt News that conduct proceedings “serve as an educational process designed to uphold community standards.”
In Level II conduct hearings, a hearing officer reads respondents their alleged violations, makes recommended sanctions and allows respondents to choose whether they’ll accept responsibility for the alleged violations and accept the proposed sanctions, accept responsibility and challenge the sanctions or deny responsibility and challenge the sanctions.
Respondents who deny responsibility and challenge the sanctions are moved into a full hearing before a Level II Conduct Hearing Board. During the full hearing, both parties make their cases using evidence and witness questioning in front of a Level II Conduct Hearing Board.
If the Hearing Board finds the respondents responsible for committing violations, they send a list of their recorded findings and recommended sanctions to Vice Provost of Student Affairs Carla Panzella. Under the code, Panzella is allowed to modify the recommended sanctions at her discretion.
Less than one hour before their hearing, SJP’s co-presidents received a “hearing binder” from the OSC noting that they were banned from using audio or video recordings to document their hearing. While the co-presidents could take written notes, the disclosure stated they could not be shared and “must be shredded or destroyed upon conclusion of the hearing.”
The OSC added that the co-presidents must attend the virtual meeting in a private space where outsiders “cannot hear or see anything being discussed or presented” and that anyone present at the meeting must be authorized and announced ahead of time.
According to the disclosure, failure to follow these rules could result in additional code violation charges. The University did not comment on why these policies are in place.
“An incredibly chilling effect”
Professors and student organization leaders said they fear the effect that threats of sanctions could pose to free speech and civic action on campus.
Following SJP’s three-hour-long Level II conduct hearing on Feb. 4, the club’s co-presidents said they didn’t receive any updates from the University until March 18 when they received an interim suspension of registration from the Office of Student Conduct.
The March 18 letter did not provide an update on SJP’s hearing, instead saying that people acting on behalf of SJP may have “improperly engaged in communications to members of the Conduct Hearing Board” following their hearing. The interim suspension prevents SJP from organizing until the OSC completes an investigation into the communications to determine if it necessitates additional sanctions.
The letter did not cite a specific communication, and an SJP co-president said they were unsure what communication the letter was referring to.
According to the code, interim actions remain in effect “only as long as the Vice Provost for Student Affairs or their designee determines there is a need for such action or until the matter has been investigated, adjudicated or otherwise resolved in accordance with the Code.”
In an email sent by Associate Vice Provost and Dean of Students Marlin Nabors to SJP leaders, Nabors said the club’s communications “irreparably compromise the integrity and credibility of the current conduct proceeding.” Nabors added that SJP’s Feb. 4 hearing will “be vacated as null and void,” necessitating a brand new proceeding “to ensure a fair and impartial process for all.”
Before March 18, SJP’s co-presidents said the threat of a potential punishment as a result of their hearing loomed over their organizing since a sanction could have nullified their efforts.
“We’re essentially in a state of limbo now. We can’t plan any large events or seek funding out of fear that, before these events take place, we could be issued sanctions that prevent us from organizing on campus,” an SJP co-president said. “This is an incredibly chilling effect.”
In fall 2023, Pitt initiated conduct hearings for eight students after they disrupted a Board of Trustees meeting to protest against “anti-trans” speakers who came to campus in the spring. Four students with Fossil Free Pitt Coalition, a group that advocates for Pitt to divest from fossil fuels companies, were issued conduct hearings for protesting at the same meeting.
In the past year, colleges around the country have used University-run student conduct offices to discipline pro-Palestine demonstrators, affecting activism surrounding the war in Gaza.
New York University’s OSC suspended 13 students in January after they participated in a library sit-in. At UCLA, the OSC suspended two SJP groups in February following a protest. Columbia University suspended and restricted campus access to four students who engaged in a pro-Palestine sit-in. A new disciplinary office at Columbia is currently investigating students who have been critical of Israel.
At Pitt, a senior honors student was dismissed from the University and barred from campus grounds after the OSC found them in violation of the code for actions stemming from pro-Palestinian organizing, according to the Pittsburgh City Paper. An SJP co-president said three total pro-Palestinian student activists have gone through conduct hearings brought by the OSC.
An executive order signed in January by President Donald Trump opened the door for federal agencies to deport international students who engaged in “pro-jihadist protests,” as the Trump administration worded it.
This order was cited by Immigration and Customs Enforcement on March 8 to arrest Mahmoud Khalil, a Palestinian activist who recently graduated from Columbia University. ICE added they would revoke the activist’s green card, according to Khalil’s lawyer, and Trump said his arrest is the first “of many to come” against campus protesters.
Michael Goodhart, a professor of political science and gender, sexuality and women’s studies, said he worried Pitt could provide the government with OSC conduct records for students found in violation of the code at pro-Palestine demonstrations, leading to student arrests and deportations.
“That strikes me as problematic and undesirable,” Goodhart said. “There’s this additional, very real context in which very specific students could suffer quite a lot as a result of this.”
The University did not respond to requests for comment about if it would give the federal government disciplinary records for students found in violation of the Code at a pro-Palestine demonstration.
“Prosecutor, jury and executioner”
While the code lays out a broad outline of how conduct hearings are handled, few specifics are offered. Some professors and students say this leaves the process vulnerable, calling it a “violation of campus democracy.”
According to Landy’s statement to The Pitt News, the timeline and duration of conduct proceedings vary depending on a case’s complexity, the nature of potential violations and the amount of students involved, among other factors, to ensure due process. Sanctions are determined “based on circumstances of the specific case and in accordance with the guidelines in the Code of Conduct,” he said.
Professors who have been involved in students’ conduct hearings said they worry that this lack of specificity in the code creates a process that lacks transparency and accountability.
Serving in a support role for a student’s Level I conduct hearing, Goodhart said he was concerned seeing the same person present the charges, conduct the hearing and ultimately decide if the student was in violation of the code.
“No one should be prosecutor, jury and executioner,” Goodhart said. “There’s just a lack of, it seems to me, checks or accountability throughout that process.”
Professors also cited the vague wording of the code’s listed violations as cause for concern.
Goodhart singled out one which makes it a violation to not “comply with the lawful direction of a University official, or other lawful authority having just cause and acting in the performance of their duties and authority,” calling it a “very broad charge.”
“In a range of cases, precisely whether or not a University authority has just cause and is acting in the performance of their duties and authority in a legitimate and good faith way is part of what’s at issue,” Goodhart said, “and when the person bringing the charges is themselves a University official and can [effectively] say, ‘You failed to comply with the direction of this other University official,’ there’s no way to get inside that or push back against it.”
Other student organization leaders like Maxwell Wasserman, president of the Student Disability Coalition, said they worry about the effect conduct hearing rules could have on them. As president of a group that advocates for better mental and physical disability resources on campus, Wasserman said he views the hearing against SJP as a threat to his own organization’s work.
“If we dare to be rightfully angry about this state of affairs that we face, then this clearly shows that instead of listening to us, we can just be punished and forced into suspension,” Wasserman said. “It sets a precedent of targeting student organizations that are dissatisfied with the current state of affairs in any way.”
Mostern said the open-endedness of violations and the hearing process in the code leave room for Pitt to target “specific kinds of speech and action that the University was cracking down on.” Having been a part of multiple conduct hearings, including SJP’s, Mostern said she’s seen “multiple instances” of Pitt using conduct hearings to target political activity in support of Palestine.
“We are, at Pitt, trying to call for improved civic life at a time when democracy is under threat around the country,” Mostern said. “I think our University should be setting a much better example and should be helping to educate all of us and demonstrate for all of us what a robust, democratic institution could look like.”
Pushing for change
In SGB’s March 11 election, students overwhelmingly voted in favor of a referendum proposed by Wasserman to reform part of the conduct hearing process.
The question asked students if the code should “be amended to ensure that, at all Hearings, one or more students serve as additional Hearing Officers or as members of a Hearing Board.”
Over 2,700 students voted in favor of the referendum, accounting for 74.88% of the vote on Tuesday, according to SGB’s elections chair Charles Rutkowski.
Wasserman said he proposed the referendum to reform the Code because he sees conduct proceedings as being “unaccountable to the student body.”
“The principle of judgment by your peers is something that we as students should be entitled to,” Wasserman said. “We cannot have decisions about our discipline made entirely out of the hands of the student body. It is, at its core, completely unfair on principle.”
While a referendum passing doesn’t guarantee any specific policies will be enacted, Rutkowski said it gives next year’s Board insight into students’ priorities.
“If a referendum gets passed … it means the student body is interested in the proposal occurring, and SGB should work on accomplishing what the question asked,” Rutkowski said.
Marley Pinsky, next year’s SGB president, said she sees initiating reforms to the conduct process as a “significant concern.”
“It speaks to broader concerns about transparency and accountability in the review process,” Pinsky, a sophomore urban planning and politics and philosophy major, said. “This is a concern that is resonating with the student body, it’s something that needs to be addressed by Student Government Board since we’re representing the concerns of the student body, and I will definitely take that into account and take all of the action I can to respond to the concerns that people have indeed demonstrated throughout this election process.”
Goodhart said he hopes the University reflects on the process’ shortcomings and improves it for students and student organizations.
“I’m really concerned that our students get a fair and appropriate hearing regardless of what misconduct they have been alleged to have committed,” Goodhart said. “The University is keen to remind us that this is not a legal process, but it functions like a quasi-legal process and … can have serious implications for students’ ability to pursue their interests for their futures.”
Mostern said she sees the conduct hearing process’ lack of clarity as a threat to students’ ability to develop academically and as members of a university community.
“We would never stand for this in our wider civic life … but that’s the situation here on this campus,” Mostern said. “For the judicial activity at the heart of the institution to happen under such conditions of so much secrecy and lack of information is a real problem.”