Enemies of the Court: When Due Process is Overdue

Photo by Christian Duarte // UCSD Guardian
Photo by Christian Duarte // UCSD Guardian

Over the past couple of years, UCSD has been the subject of several court battles wherein its adherence to due process has been questioned by California’s legal system. Most recently, a California State Appeals Court ruled that Jonathan Dorfman, a former UCSD student, was denied due process because UCSD officials declined to identify — let alone get a testimony from — Student X, the student whose test Dorfman allegedly copied. Rather than spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on court cases that result in outside courts intervening, parties like UC Regents must invest in legal services that ensure due process and provide fair trials, for the sake of our university’s funding and our students’ futures.

The recent clearing of Jonathan Dorfman, who found himself at the center of a five-year-long series of cases after being accused of cheating on an exam and expelled, serves as the most recent breach in students’ right to due process at the hands of the Regents. In the first case, Dorfman was thought to have cheated because his answers’ resemblance to those of another student’s was statistically improbable. The issues with the charges, however, lay in the case’s rife legal ambiguity. Key in this type of case would and should have been a testimony from the student off of whom Dorfman allegedly cheated.  The UCSD Policy on Integrity of Scholarship states, “The Instructor and the Student shall have the right to present Relevant Parties and question all Relevant Parties present at the [Academic Integrity Review].” However, according to Robert Ottilie, Dorfman’s attorney, the university deemed the witness irrelevant to the case. It is still unknown whether or not the university even contacted Student X. Yet, since there was no seating chart, the only way to demonstrate that Dorfman did not cheat would have been to question the Student X.

If the inconsistencies in Dorfman’s seem familiar, they are.

UCSD also found itself at the center of national attention when a student, John Doe, initially suspended after sexual assault allegations, fought back and won. Doe was suspended for one quarter after another student, Jane Roe, accused him of sexual assault and a Student Conduct Review Panel found him guilty. When Doe appealed the decision, university provosts extended his suspension to a total of five quarters. However, at the center of the case’s contention was a lack of due process on behalf of UCSD. According to the court ruling, university officials limited Doe’s ability to challenge his accuser, allowing him to ask only nine out of the 32 questions he submitted for cross-examination. According to the LA Times, the evidence backing the university’s claims was also deemed insufficient in the Superior Court.

Issues in the Regents’ cases being what they are, the larger issue at hand is that failing to be transparent and to ensure students’ legal rights are respected comes with a price. And the price is steep.

According to Robert Ottilie, Dorfman’s attorney, the University of California spent $300,000 on the five-year case. Even worse, it could be forced to pay Dorfman’s $200,000 court fees. Given the UC system’s 2014 budget of $100.48 million devoted to Outside Counsel Expenses, cases like Dorfman’s should raise concern. As with any area in which the university is spending large amounts of money, there is a responsibility and an accountability that the Regents must have. When students’ academic standings and future are jeopardized by preventable carelessness on the side of Regents — and when millions of public education funding are at stake — there is no room for error.

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