Editorial Walker ruling deserves closer look

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The press release and all-campus e-mail sent out by Middlebury College and President Ronald D. Liebowitz last Thursday offered a skewed view of the final ruling on the O'Neil Walker case by only referring to the decision in relation to the Judicial Appeals Board (JAB) and not the Community Judicial Board (CJB). Unfortunately, the local and national media seem to have based their coverage entirely on the press release.

The Walker case in fact proved a serious test for both the Department of Public Safety and the College's judicial process. The Campus does not retract its previously-expressed support for the process, but urges the College to address the mistakes made during the Walker decision instead of hiding behind positively-slanted media coverage.

A proactive response is especially important since many concerns unearthed in the 1994 suit Fellheimer vs. Middlebury - such as the overlap between the dean of student affairs' involvement with the judicial process and preceding investigation - were repeated in the Walker case.

The JAB's decision was ultimately upheld in the Addison Superior Court, but the Court's ruling also contained criticism of the College that is notably absent from Liebowitz's e-mail and the College's press release. The Superior Court also condemned the JAB for failing to give Walker a clear indication of the charges that had been made prior to his appeal, a critique similar to that made by the United States District Court for Vermont in the 1994 ruling.

The outcome letter Walker received stated only that he was found guilty of "behavior unbecoming to a Middlebury student," but did not explicitly explain the reasons for this verdict; he presumably learned he had been found guilty of intrusion through hearsay.

The College should be proud of its judicial process, and the CJB and JAB have made a solid effort to become more transparent through open mock trials and publishing the hearings with names removed at the end of the semester.

The possibility and perhaps necessity for improvement, however, should not be ignored. The College has exressed a willingness to discuss and tackle racism on campus since the first Walker hearing last spring. Given that Walker ultimately dropped the charges of racism toward the College, but still maintained he was treated unfairly, other responses to the case should be pursued.

Though there are obvious and inherent differences between a private college and a public court, the College Handbook states that the judicial process will endeavor to be as fair as possible. Liebowitz and the College should make good on the claim expressed in the President's recent all-campus e-mail that the College strives for fair proceedings and fulfill its promise to address issues "where flaws are found in our process."