|
« AAUP Homepage
|
Oberlin Students Expelled By President
In May Oberlin College president Nancy Dye announced that she would expel two students who had assaulted another student in his dorm room as he slept. Her decision reinstated the original ruling of a campus board responsible for hearing cases of serious offenses on campus. The board consists of three faculty members and two students. A second board had reduced the sanctions after the students, second-semester seniors, appealed, but Dye took the unusual step of invoking the right granted her by the college's bylaws to "initiate, review, or act finally" in student disciplinary matters. Another student and an Oberlin employee were also involved in the incident; all four have been charged under the criminal justice system.
Victim Jeff Harvey said that the attackers, who were football players, were apparently motivated to assault him by a humor column making fun of the football team's losing streak that he wrote for an Oberlin publication. In a statement released to the entire Oberlin community, Dye wrote that she found the attackers guilty not only of assault, but also of "harassment in the form of acts directed at the victim for the purpose of intimidating him." And because the attack was motivated by dislike of the victim's writing, she said, the attackers had also violated Oberlin's statement on freedom of speech and expression, which states that Oberlin "is devoted to free and open inquiry."
"No one at Oberlin should ever suffer threats or harm as the result of exercising the right to free speech. The college will always protect and up-hold this central value," Dye wrote.
|