The investigation, which is still ongoing, began after several students came forward to report that some students had continued working and shared answers on the spring final for Computer Science 70 after the exam had ended. Recent discussion regarding the incident by was sparked by a post on social news website Reddit on Saturday.

According to students and members of the teaching staff, the crowdedness and logistical difficulties of Haas Pavilion, where the exam took place, made it easier for students to cheat. Although the staff members were aware that the Math 54 class would be taking an exam at the same time, they expected the room to be able to accommodate the 1,000 students taking their exams.

However, the crowdedness forced GSIs to check identification after the exam, causing exam collection to take 15 to 20 minutes. CS 70 students also sat in the back, making it difficult to hear any announcements from the room’s single sound system.

“The Haas Pavilion was so echoey — no one could actually hear,” said Dhruv Garg, a campus junior majoring in electrical engineering and computer sciences. “(When the professor said time was up), it wasn’t clear whether her instructions were targeted towards just her class or everybody.”

According to GSI Chenyu Zhao, witnesses brought the cheating incidents to the attention of the teaching staff after the exam. Within an hour, the professor posted on the class’s forum, notifying the class of the incident and urging the class to take responsibility.

“The cheaters are going to be hurting the grades of all the honest students in the class,” Professor Sahai wrote. “They deserve no mercy or loyalty after doing such a despicable act to their fellow students.”

The electrical engineering and computer sciences department’s academic dishonesty policies recommend that cheaters be failed for the corresponding courses and that students be expelled after a repeat offense. According to the Center for Student Conduct, if students fail to resolve the incident with their professor, they will receive an alleged violation letter to either accept their sanctions or go to a hearing.

Ultimately, less than 2 percent of the class was found to be guilty. For those who confessed before grades were turned in, grades were readjusted to remove points possibly gained on an extra question. Those who still have not confessed, according to Sahai, will at least fail the class, and the university will decide the subsequent punishment. The investigation is ongoing.

Students said that the cheaters had no justification for their actions, given the professor’s helpfulness and fairness throughout the semester.

“The professor and GSIs threw homework parties, which were very helpful,” said Alex Danilychev, a campus sophomore and computer science major. “We also had extra credit opportunities throughout the semester. I could’ve easily gotten three times the extra credit I got if I wanted to.”

The students had a range of responses, varying from surprise to anger, compelling them to report anything suspicious they witnessed. According to the professor, more than 20 people came forward with reports.

“There was a positive side in that the discussion that happened afterwards generated a shared sense that something was wrong and not acceptable,” Sahai said.

Contact Mary Zhou at mzhou@dailycal.org

The post Details emerge about cheating incident in computer science course appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The bill, SB 130, states that policies implemented by campus bodies such as the Center for Student Conduct and the Title IX compliance officer strip sexual assault victims’ rights in the reporting process. The bill was passed with 12 votes in support, five against and one abstention. Two senators were absent from the vote.

SB 130 was authored by Aryle Butler and CalSERVE elections coordinator Anais LaVoie, along with CalSERVE Senators Klein Lieu, Megan Majd, and DeeJay Pepito. Pepito is running for ASUC president in the upcoming elections.

Two sexual assault victims spoke at the meeting about experiences with ineffective university policies in dealing with cases of assault.

Butler, who said she was a victim of sexual assault, spoke about inadequate campus responses to complaints of sexual harassment made by victims who have chosen to remain anonymous.

 Present at the meeting was Title IX officer Denise Oldham with the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination and student conduct specialist Erin Niebylski in the Center for Student Conduct. Both offices are specifically named in the bill as campus entities with ineffective policies.

“Our concern is that misinformation about how these cases are handled might deter students from coming forward with complaints or, at the very least, cause confusion about how these cases are handled,” Oldham said in an email after the meeting.

Lieu rebuffed implications that there were mistakes in the bill and said that the authors of the bill had it reviewed by the ASUC lawyer for any inaccuracies.

“Literally, there are over 10 documents you have to go (through) to understand sexual assault on this campus,” Lieu said at the meeting. “I think that’s egregious. I hope with this bill we can start streamlining this and start having (the policies) make sense for students.”

The bill takes issue with a number of specific UC Berkeley policies, including the campus definition of sexual assault, which the bill claims requires victims to prove they were not consenting rather than providing affirmative proof of consent.

Additionally, the bill states that there are more resources and knowledge available for those accused of assault than for victims, as is evident on the website for the Center for Student Conduct, which “provides a flowchart for the accused to understand disciplinary processes, but does not provide information allowing survivors to understand what happens when a report is made or follow-up on their reports once submitted,” according to the bill.

More seriously, the bill claims that if the Center for Student Conduct determines there is not sufficient evidence to warrant further investigation of an assault accusation, there is no recourse or appeals process for a victim to appeal this decision.

Student Action Senator Rosemary Hua was one of several senators concerned about the language of the bill, particularly the clause stating that the ASUC holds “no confidence in the University’s current sexual assault policies and disciplinary procedures.”

“We should tell them what they’re doing wrong, but there is a fine balance — we also need to work with them,” Hua said during the meeting. Hua announced at the meeting that she herself has been a victim of sexual assault.

In a later email, Hua said senators should sit down with campus officials and start amending policies instead of condemning them. She added that she believed the bill should be sent back to committee to rework its language.

Supporters maintained that the bill was not an attack on campus bodies but instead a way to bring the ASUC into the discussion of assault on campus.

Rafi Lurie, a Student Action senator and a candidate for ASUC president in this spring’s election, said he felt that the bill should have been tabled for a week to address Hua’s concerns.

“I feel that because, as a survivor, she feels that way, out of respect to her and people on campus who feel like her, it would have been better to rework the language and then pass it so that all parties that the bill aims to address would feel comfortable with it,” Lurie said in an email.

Other Student Action senators echoed the concerns of Lurie and Hua, including Student Action Senator Mihir Deo, who said in an email that this was not a CalSERVE against Student Action issue.

“The prime reason I voted against the bill was that this bill was not clearly vetted,” Deo said. “The student advocate wasn’t even consulted about the bill, and it creates a new wing in her office. She also stated that there was miscommunication on both sides.”

CalSERVE Senator Nolan Pack spoke passionately in favor of the bill during the meeting, saying that it was the ASUC’s job to protect students.

“Though the ASUC’s legal counsel confirmed that the bill accurately reflects university policies, several senators disregarded this advice and supported the notion that there was a ‘misunderstanding,’ in spite of the fact that nobody who criticized the bill could identify or articulate the alleged misunderstanding,” Pack said in an email.

Student Action Senators Chen-Chen Huo, Lurie, Hua, Deo and Ryan Kang voted against the bill. Student Action Senator Nils Gilberston abstained, and Student Action Senators Emily Chen and Tom Seung Kyun Lee were absent from the vote. All other senators voted in support.

Ally Rondoni is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at arondoni@dailycal.org.

The post ASUC Senate votes no confidence in campus’s handling of sexual assault appeared first on The Daily Californian.

The bill, SB 130, states that policies implemented by campus bodies such as the Center for Student Conduct and the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination strip sexual assault victims of their rights in the reporting process.

The bill was authored by Aryle Butler, CalSERVE Party Chair Anais LaVoie, along with CalSERVE senators Klein Lieu, Megan Majd, and DeeJay Pepito, who is running for ASUC president in the upcoming elections.

“The reason we did the bill is we independently had negative experiences with the offices and policies,” LaVoie said. “We found ourselves without the aid of the offices to support our experience.”

Present at the meeting was Title IX Officer with the Office for the Prevention of Harassment and Discrimination Denise Oldham and Student Conduct Specialist Erin Niebylski in the Center for Student Conduct. Both offices are specifically named in the bill as campus entities with ineffective policies.

“Our concern is that misinformation about how these cases are handled might deter students from coming forward with complaints or, at the very least, cause confusion about how these cases are handled,” Oldham said in an email.

CalSERVE senator and co-author of the bill Klein Lieu rebuffed implications that there were mistakes in the bill and said that the authors of the bill had it reviewed by the ASUC lawyer for any inaccuracies.

“Literally there are over 10 documents you have to go (through) to understand sexual assault on this campus. I think that’s egregious,” Lieu said at the meeting. “I hope with this bill we can start streamlining this and start having it make sense for students.”

Student Action Senator Rosemary Hua was one of several senators concerned with the language of the bill, particularly the clause stating that the ASUC holds “no confidence in the University’s current sexual assault policies and disciplinary procedures.”

“We should tell them what they’re doing wrong, but there is a fine balance — we also need to work with them,” Hua said during the meeting.

In a later email Hua said senators should sit down with campus officials and start amending policies instead of condemning them. She added that she believed the bill should be sent back to committee to rework its language.

Supporters maintained that the bill was not an attack on campus bodies, but instead a way to bring the ASUC into the discussion of assault on campus.

Other Student Action senators echoed Hua’s concerns, including senator Mihir Deo, who said in an email that this was not a CalSERVE against Student Action issue.

“The prime reason I voted against the bill was that this bill was not clearly vetted,” Deo said. “The Student Advocate wasn’t even consulted about the bill and it creates a new wing in her office. She also stated that there was miscommunication on both sides.”

CalSERVE senator Nolan Pack spoke passionately in favor of the bill during the meeting, saying that it was the ASUC’s job to protect students.

“Though the ASUC’s legal counsel confirmed that the bill accurately reflects university policies, several senators disregarded this advice and supported the notion that there was a ‘misunderstanding,’ in spite of the fact that nobody who criticized the bill could identify or articulate the alleged misunderstanding,” Pack said in an email.

Student Action senators Chen-Chen Huo, Rafi Lurie, Rosemary Hua, Mihir Deo and Ryan Kang voted against the bill. Student Action senator Nils Gilberston abstained and Student Action senators Emily Chen and Tom Seung Kyun Lee were absent from the vote. All other senators voted in support.

Ally Rondoni is the lead student government reporter. Contact her at arondoni@dailycal.org.

The post ASUC Senate passes bill expressing no confidence in UC Berkeley sexual assault policies appeared first on The Daily Californian.

With a little over two months until an April 30 deadline to submit recommendations for restructuring the ASUC’s administrative branch, a transition team charged with the task is still collecting information, leaving many in the dark about what will happen to the ASUC Auxiliary in the future.

The Transition Planning Team — composed of student leaders and campus officials — was formed after the ASUC Senate voiced concerns over the summer that the shift in the Auxiliary’s reporting structure was moving too quickly and without student input, possibly leading to the ASUC losing autonomy from the administration. The shift moved the Auxiliary from the purview of Administration and Finance to the campus Division of Student Affairs effective July 1.

However, the transition team may recommend a complete restructuring of the Auxiliary — which is chiefly responsible for overseeing the ASUC budget and facilities — after assessing its staffing, financial stability and student needs, according to a document provided by LeNorman Strong, associate vice chancellor of student affairs for Residential and Student Service Programs, and ASUC External Affairs Vice President Joey Freeman, who are leading the team.

Though the transition team will suggest recommendations, Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande will ultimately decide whether to implement them.

In order to re-evaluate the Auxiliary, the transition team is interviewing Auxiliary employees and visiting other campuses to examine their student government business models. According to the transition team’s planning calendar, campus visits and interviews are planned to last until Feb. 24.

Neither Strong nor Freeman was able to predict what the final recommendations will be.

The transition was a significant source of contention over the summer, when the ASUC Senate put forth two strongly worded documents opposing the change.

Following a June 30 letter from the incoming and outgoing senate classes to the campus administration, a senate resolution said the change would create a conflict of interest due to the ASUC Student Advocate’s Office — which advises in matters of student conduct — becoming too closely tied to the Center for Student Conduct and Community Standards, which investigates student conduct matters and is overseen by student affairs.

“A perceived conflict of interest arises about representation and advocacy of students,” the resolution states. “This act disallows the ASUC from representing students in the most effective manner, and consequently strips the body of not only its autonomy, but also its duties.”

But ASUC Student Advocate Samar Shah said in an email that the issue of what organizational structure the Auxiliary is tied with has no influence on how his office functions.

“The organizational change has never threatened a conflict of interest and accordingly has had no influence on the operations or strategy of our office,” Shah said in the email.

Additionally, the resolution cited concerns regarding the Commercial Activities Agreement — a March 1998 agreement between the UC Board of Regents and the ASUC that created the Auxiliary. According to the agreement, the Auxiliary is limited to functions only related to the ASUC student and commercial activities.

“A reorganization of such significant magnitude substantially modifies the structures implemented by the … agreement,” the resolution states.

Associate Auxiliary Director Tom Spivey said he did not believe the Auxiliary had changed since the transition but did not want to speculate on the possible changes brought forward by the transition team.

Despite the senators’ concerns that the process was rushed, the reorganization was being discussed as a possibility since at least 2010, stemming from the campus cost-cutting Operational Excellence initiative.

Meeting minutes from an Oct. 6, 2010, senate meeting state that Albert Pisano — then professor and acting dean of the College of Engineering and former faculty head of the program office for the initiative — said the Auxiliary would be considered as part of the student services component of the initiative.

According to a Nov. 3, 2010, report from former ASUC Auxiliary Director Nadesan Permaul in senate minutes, Permaul said campus administrators planned to review “whether there was any synergy between the services currently offered within the Auxiliary and the potential for shared or relocated services in Student Affairs.”

At that time, there was no expectation of any change to the Auxiliary — only the consideration of the possibility, according to Permaul’s report.

Le Grande also said he had worked closely with former ASUC president Noah Stern and former Graduate Assembly president Miguel Daal before the realignment was set to begin.

Still, several senators said they feel they have been inadequately informed throughout the process.

“We have received very few concrete updates, other than the general notion that the Transition Planning Team has done very little thus far,” said CalSERVE Senator Andrew Albright in an email.

A subcommittee of senators led by Cooperative Movement Senator Elliot Goldstein was formed to assist the transition team, but its meetings were infrequent last semester due to a lack of information from the transition team, according to Goldstein.

“We weren’t meeting,” Goldstein said. “And it seemed like the (transition team) wasn’t meeting.”

Chloe Hunt is the lead student government reporter.

The post As deadline approaches, ASUC Auxiliary’s future remains unclear appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Changes made in the revised code include a stricter timeline by which to resolve cases and the hiring of an independent hearing officer who is charged with ensuring that all procedures have been followed and works independently from the Center for Student Conduct and Community Standards.

The process to revise the code was in part prompted by controversial student conduct proceedings stemming from campus protests in November 2009.

In October 2010, a task force — co-chaired by Harry Le Grande, vice chancellor for student affairs, and Bob Jacobsen, a campus physics professor and chair of the campus division of the Academic Senate — was charged with reviewing the code and making recommendations to modify and revise it.

The recommendations were approved Jun. 24 and have been implemented into the newly revised code, which was recently approved by the UC Office of the President.

“We are optimistic about (the new code),” said Associate Dean of Students Christina Gonzales. “We really want it to work.”

Gonzales said she is confident that the new conduct proceedings timeline will resolve concerns associated with the time in which charges are addressed. Under the new timeline, the center is required to notify students charged with violating the code within seven business days of when the original complaint was filed, and students are required to respond within 15 days.

“Both sides have a responsibility now,” Gonzales said.

Lee Maranto, the newly  hired independent hearing officer who is responsible for ensuring that this timeline is adhered to by both parties, said the changes will be “extremely effective” in making the conduct process clearer for those involved. A task force report explaining the recommendations said that including an officer independent from the Center for Student Conduct in the process will help in “creating more consistent interpretation and application of Code procedures.”

Maranto, who will be graduating with a law degree in May from Golden Gate University and worked in student affairs before going to law school, said he believes the position will allow the campus to fairly gauge how well the code addresses the original concerns about the conduct process.

“Before the independent position was created, the process was a lot more subjective,” he said. “Being independent will allow me to take a step back and evaluate the process pretty fairly.”

ASUC Student Advocate Samar Shah, a member of the task force, said that while he is hopeful that the the new timeline will allow more students to resolve their cases without hearings, he is still wary of the impact the code will make in resolving the issues the task force was asked to address.

“This is not the first time the code has been revised,” he said. “It is still hard to understand, and students are still unclear on the process.”

Shah said the best method to revise the code would have been to create an entirely new one more understandable and accessible for students — something that would have been impossible, since the campus code must include aspects of the UC Codes of Conduct.

However, he said he remains optimistic because of improvements he has already seen in effect.

“The conduct process is only as good as it is under the worst conditions,” Shah said. “I don’t expect it to run smoothly, but this is the first of many attempts that has actually worked.”

Amruta Trivedi is the lead academics and administration reporter.

The post UC Berkeley to implement revised code of student conduct appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Changes to the code come after more than a year of review and were prompted at least in part by protests during the 2009-10 academic year, including the November 2009 Wheeler Hall occupation.

Recommendations for the changes were made by a task force comprised of students, faculty and staff and led by Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Harry Le Grande and Bob Jacobsen, a professor of physics and chair of the campus division of the Academic Senate.

According to a post on UC Berkeley News Center, under the revised code, students facing allegations of violating the code will be notified within seven days after a complaint is received by the campus Center for Student Conduct.

Additionally, an independent hearing officer was hired to ensure the new code is followed, according to the post. The officer is charged with presiding over all student conduct hearings, among other duties.

Full story to follow.

J.D. Morris is the university news editor.

The post Revised student conduct code approved appeared first on The Daily Californian.

Imagine the following scenario: a UC Berkeley administrator doesn’t care for a particular student group -— say, the Cal Students for Liberty — and decides to pursue trumped-up disciplinary charges against the organization’s active members. The university official even goes so far as to submit false evidence against our young libertarians.

After threatening the students’ academic futures for over a year, the university finally affords them a formal hearing, but thankfully an independent adjudicatory panel sees through the charade. Meanwhile, though, the students have suffered real harm: their grades have dropped, they’ve spent countless hours missing work while fighting to save their educational future and their names have been dragged through the mud. Certainly the university’s grievance procedure — which exists to provide relief for students who are the victims of inappropriate applications of university policy — offers some remedy for these exonerated students, right? Wrong.

That was the position announced Sept. 14 by university officials, who issued an initial ruling rejecting parts of a formal grievance filed by graduate student Aakash Desai. Mr. Desai was active in the anti-austerity movement that exploded in Fall 2009, and received disciplinary charges stemming from campus protests.

Despite regulations requiring that formal disciplinary hearings be held within 45 days, university officials waited 14 months to convene a tribunal, offering Mr. Desai no explanation for the unprecedented delay. When he finally received his day in court, Mr. Desai alleges that Jeff Woods, the assistant director for the Center for Student Conduct, engaged in gross misconduct: knowingly withholding exculpatory information, submitting plagiarized police reports into evidence and affirmatively lying to the hearing panel to bolster the university’s case.

In the end, after eight hours of hearings, it took the three-judge panel (chaired with commendable even-handedness by EECS professor Ron Fearing) just 18 minutes of deliberation to clear Mr. Desai on all charges. Mr. Desai filed his grievance shortly after the verdict.

Most troubling about the university’s announcement — aside from the ironic fact that it was authored by Sheila O’Rourke, an administrator in the university’s Division of Equity & Inclusion — is that it presumes Mr. Desai’s factual allegations are entirely true.

The university didn’t find that there was no discrimination based on political belief in Mr. Desai’s case, nor that university officials actually testified truthfully, nor that the grievance was untimely. Rather, the university explained that Mr. Desai simply failed to allege “facts which, if true, would constitute a violation of law or University policy.”

This is something one might expect from a Berkeley official in 1963 but not 2011. It’s a position that should be repugnant to everyone in the university community, regardless of their political affiliation.

For those who have been following Berkeley’s disciplinary proceedings against student activists — which have garnered repeated condemnations by the American Civil Liberties Union — last week’s endorsement of discrimination and harassment will come as little surprise.

Ms. O’Rourke’s ruling is stunning not so much for the novelty of the policy announced but for the bluntness with which it endorses the on-the-ground reality that student activists have encountered for the past two years. The quiet (and long overdue) departure this summer of Susan Trageser, former head of the Student Conduct office, seemed a promising indication that the university was prepared to turn a new leaf. But Ms. O’Rourke’s tortured defense of Jeff Woods comes as a sobering reminder: the university continues to disregard the basic rights of students engaged in political activity on campus.

If university officials expect to be seen as honest brokers and have credibility with their students, they should reverse Ms. O’Rourke’s position on Mr. Desai’s grievance and take action against those responsible for violating students’ basic rights.

Thomas Frampton is a third year student at Berkeley Law and co-founder of the Campus Rights Project at UC Berkeley.

The post What are rights without remedies? appeared first on The Daily Californian.