An underage student living on campus throws a party in her dorm room. Her friends bring alcohol and eventually a resident assistant shows up. The student gets in trouble even though she didn’t bring the alcohol and she wasn’t drinking.
Since the student was under 21, she violated the University housing policy by having alcohol in her room. The housing policy and the student code of conduct go hand-in-hand, according to the Student Judicial Board.
This was a scene acted out by Georgia State’s LEAD team, a group of student leaders on campus that provides leadership programs for fellow students. On Nov. 11, the team partnered with the Student Judicial Board to present their program Behind Closed Doors II in the University Center.
The program showcased different legal issues the Student Judicial Board deals with daily and advised students on what they can do if they ever face a similar situation.
“We act out scenarios that are commonly seen by the Student Judicial Board, and they will be telling students how they would handle things such as underage drinking, sexual consent, social media threats and domestic violence,” Magi Weefur, sophomore LEAD team member, said.
Next up was a student pledging a fake sorority and doing personal things for the members in that sorority.
Haddy Sohna, chief justice of the SJB, read out from the Student Code of Conduct all of the acts that would fall under hazing, including things like forcing or requiring the consumption of alcohol, food or any other substance onto pledges.
Also noted are yelling or harassing people in a lined formation, road trips (dropping someone off and leaving them there to find their way back home), causing someone to have fewer than six hours of sleep per night and various other activities.
The Judicial Board told students that it is not only just fraternities and sororities that do this but also clubs and organizations.
Social media threats also gets brought before the Board.
If a student decides to write something on Twitter, Facebook or any other website that can be seen by the public, it is a violation of the student code of conduct and can potentially put a student on probation or get them kicked out of student housing.
Rape cases do not go to the Student Judicial Board, but to Sexual Misconduct Board.
The Sexual Misconduct Board is made up of five faculty members from the Senate Committees on Student Discipline and Student Life and Development, five students from the Student Judicial Board and three staff from the Staff Council.
Even though the Student Judicial Board does not handle these cases, they discuss the lines of consent and the changing consent level once a student is under the influence of alcohol.
Assistant Dean of Students Jaray Gillespie deals with these cases often and discussed drinking and their consent as well as what “effective consent” means.
“A lot of the times many of us are programmed through television and movies and family to give someone something to drink to loosen them up,” Gillespie said. “But you have now impaired that person and it makes it hard for them to make a rational decision.”
Junior sociology major Ajahn Richard enjoyed the program and thought they should have it more often.
“I thought the program was very informative and very knowledgeable. They broke down the Student Code of Conduct, which messes a lot of people up, so I thought it was a very good program,” Richard said.
Gillespie believed that the goal of the program was to get students to start thinking about decision making and how it relates to the Student Code of Conduct.
“It’s giving students real life scenarios, and figuring out how they would respond to them and what they would do differently, making sure they understand what’s in the code and how not to violate the code,” Gillespie said.
