Student-conduct administrators around the country are hailing restorative justice as the next big thing. A blend of mediation and restitution, it seeks to resolve a conflict by identifying the harms caused and devising, with suggestions from both victims and offenders, an agreement to repair them. That approach to discipline grabs campus officials…

Conduct officers have been moving away from the legalistic disciplinary systems that colleges built in the latter half of the 20th century on the belief that they'd lose lawsuits without them. Confident now that judges won't expect those systems to conform to the rules of criminal procedure, colleges are making hearings less like trials, and more…

Teachers are all, in varying degrees, personally vulnerable for three reasons: (1) it is their job to demand difficult tasks of people and judge the results in ways that can have consequences for their future; (2) they cannot pursue disciplinary action within a college unless they are willing to accept the possibility of personal retaliation by…

In their efforts to manage the college environment, many higher-education institutions have deployed complex systems of student discipline--often in the form of legalistic codes of conduct. Paradoxically, says the author, major challenges involving students on campuses appear to be getting worse: high-risk alcohol/drug use persists; student…

Describes how, in the past three months, the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) has put more bite into penalties imposed on colleges that violate rules. Explores what is behind the pattern. (EV)

Using the case of Tony Cole at the University of Georgia, explores how colleges are struggling with a variety of problems that arise when athletes are accused of crimes or have criminal pasts. (EV)

A federal district judge ruled that a state university may not discipline students by infringing on their right to freedom of speech based on an activity's perceived offensive content. The case involved a George Mason University (Virginia) fraternity contest that the administration felt was racist. (MSE)

Discusses results of and university responses to a 1998 amendment to the Higher Education Act that allows schools to inform parents any time a student under 21 violates drug or alcohol laws. Research findings indicate a drop in the recidivism rate from notification policies, but many universities continue to shy away from alerting parents. (EV)

Discusses how Columbia University is rethinking its judicial code after being embarrassed over criticism led by the Foundation for Individual Rights in Education (FIRE), a civil liberties group with a flair for public relations. (EV)

Colleges and universities have refuted Secretary of Education William J. Bennett's charges that they are not combatting drug abuse on campus. Another study has found that college policies concerning alcohol abuse have not been supported by adequate abuse-prevention programs. (MSE)

A growing number of college students report that campus judicial systems are more concerned with political correctness than with fairness, or that the systems are unfair regardless of the discipline issue, and complain about the secrecy of proceedings. Shift from a paternalistic discipline policy to a legalistic one is seen. (MSE)

Discusses how a plagiarism scandal has again "mired" the University of Virginia's fabled judicial system in "trauma" and lawsuits, while some systems that are less well known, such as that of Georgia Tech, may be functioning more effectively. (EV)

Describes Ohio Wesleyan and Duke universities' new guidelines for an age-old problem: sexual relationships between instructors and students. (EV)

A well-established market in prewritten research papers violates the ethical standards of every college, but it persists because selling papers is not illegal and the cost and difficulty of prosecuting a student suspected of submitting a purchased paper is prohibitive. (MSE)

The American Association of University Professors has voted to add four institutions to its list of 47 censured colleges and universities, remove the University of Maryland from the list when its Board of Regents adopts procedures to safeguard academic freedom and tenure, and re-examine Northwestern University's case. (MSE)