| HN Mirror

> oppressive, no-mistakes, no-learning regime the college administration is creating.

Let's first acknowledge there are many competing interests in these stories. For every student who is mad about being accused of cheating, there is a student (or maybe dozens) who are worried about people cheating who cheapen the degree and educational experience for everyone. So yes, it's sad we live in a society where grades and educational records are so important, that a single black mark will limit opportunities. On the other hand, we want to make sure that the institutions of higher education are fair and rigorous in their standards. That means when students violate those standards, consequences are served. When students violate standards and consequences are not served, that's a signal the standards are not as such.

Mistakes are okay. That doesn't mean mistakes should go unpunished, and that doesn't mean punishment is oppression.

Let's consider the evidence in the article. I assume this is the strongest evidence available, because if stronger evidence is out there, I question why the author didn't include it to support her piece.

There's not much substance to this article, but I think we don't have to look at the whole thing. There are really only a few key points that cut through the noise:

  “I had young kids that were 18, 19 years old who are international asking me [Paulmeier], ‘Hey, can I talk to this attorney and tell them I drank a beer, or am I going to get my visa revoked?’ ”

Note, the piece never claims that there was no underage or unsafe drinking. The only claim actually made in the whole piece about the frat's expulsion was that it was overly harsh. Let's also remember that this isn't just any student. This is a student who took it upon himself to become the president of an organization, a position that comes with trust and responsibility, a position which has control and access to Stanford funds. This student admits "he worked closely with OCS to follow all its rules", so he knew or should have known better.

So he's guilty.

  “Any place that sets a bar so high that you have to be literally perfect to get there; and when you get here, if you don’t stay perfect, [Stanford] will punish you with every administrative resource they have for embarrassing them,”

This is where Paulmeier basically admits his guilt. His position is not "I did everything right and yet I am unfairly being held accountable for something I didn't do." Instead, it's "I made mistakes, and being held account to those mistakes is unfair." Paulmeier is framing his guilt at throwing ragers that harmed other students as he failed to be "literally perfect" because the bar is set so high. Do you get that? He feels the bar is set so high, he can't live up to the expectations of not throwing campus-sanctioned blowouts which land other students in the hospital. Paulmeier I guess just can't meet the high bar Stanford has set. It's not that he's guilty of egregiously violating campus standards. It's that the standards are so high, how could anyone reasonably be expected to adhere to them?

So if I'm going to read between the lines, my inference is that Paulmeier is the kind of person who feels that he shouldn't be held responsible for his actions, and he's trying to make it seem like Stanford is oppressing him rather than the truth: he's being held accountable for bad decisions.

In my opinion, the worst thing Stanford could do for society is to treat such people that they are above reproach. We have too many of such people at the top echelons of our society, people for whom any semblance of accountability is treated as a grave affront to all of society. We see it in politics, where just this morning in the wee hours, the former POTUS threatened "death and destruction" for being held accountable for fraud he definitely committed. We nip that behavior in the bud by punishing it when it starts in college, not by coddling it until it metastasizes into a national cancer.

So what do we do about this? Is it really a problem? Well, the lawyers have ideas:

  implementing some of Ottilie’s ideas, such as opening up a student’s ability to reach out to witnesses, could have adverse side effects, such as a greater risk of witness intimidation.

Of course the Stanford educated lawyer's plan was to implement the US judicial system inside of Stanford. That's what would be best for his clients. But what would that mean for students? Does that mean every time a student is accused of cheating, the whole class is subpoenaed to testify in front of a Stanford grand jury? Where does it end? Do students then reserve the right to appeal their cheating case to SCOTUS?

Which brings me to this whole "due process" claim. Due process doesn't mean all the process. This is the calling card of the guilty criminal; right next to "I didn't do it" is "due process wasn't followed, therefore I get away with my crimes" It's such a potent tactic because in the case where someone's rights really are being violated, you want to make sure that is corrected.

But very often it's the case that someone who is guilty will claim that if only some other process had been followed, which is the appropriate process, that the outcome would have been different. And that the outcome was negative is a reflection on the fact the process wasn't followed, and not the fact that the process found guilt. If you can delay the result by demanding more "due process", all you have to do to delay any result is to continually demand more process.

This brings me to the Meyers case. This is a tragedy. If I had to read between the lines here, it would seem that a boy was accused of assaulting/raping a girl, and he went through a process, and he was cleared. Meyers seems to have had a problem with that, and assaulted him. This is disingenuously minimized as "spilling coffee" by those looking to push an angle, but it was alleged assault and injury which was alleged. Regardless of the circumstances, at minimum an investigation must be opened when such allegations are made, and the student under investigation should be notified. I believe that would be in following with due process afforded to Meyers, and not informing her that she was under investigation would have violated her due process.

The tragedy here is that Meyers ended her life when subjected to that process. The easy thing to do is to blame Stanford as the proximal cause, but that doesn't really explain the whole situation. Frankly, being less harsh here doesn't necessarily mean Meyers doesn't end up killing herself. The situation is so complex. I could just as easily say that Meyers would be alive if her friend hadn't been raped and assaulted and the rapist let off the hook, so the blame rests with the rapist. But that's unfair too, because again, it's more complex than that.

Finally, Paulmeier wraps it up better than I could:

  Paulmeier and other students and alumni told me they’re not asking for Stanford to make it easier for students to cheat, or worse, cause harm to others. All they want is for students to have the chance to make mistakes and learn from them—and sure, allow them to let loose a bit in the process.

Actually, Paulmeier and others, especially the lawyer that was hired, is asking for exactly that. Because what they want to do is to turn routine academic issues like misbehavior and cheating into huge legal battles.

  The class coordinator’s allegation, based not on her own observation but that of an anonymous student, was the only evidence against them, Ottilie said. But all three students were charged by OCS with cheating under the university’s honor code. 

  The students knew Ottilie ran his own law practice and reached out for his counsel. Ottilie agreed to take the students’ case pro bono and worked with two other alumni lawyers on their defense—recreating seating charts and finding over a dozen witnesses who were willing to testify to their innocence.

A student sees another student cheating and tells the teacher. The teacher tries to get to the bottom of it. All of a sudden, we've got lawyers descending on the classroom doing what they do best: they want to issue subpoenas for testimony, they want to start a war room with a murder board and crack team of specialists to comb the neighborhood for witnesses, etc. None of this will make cheating less likely. All it will do is insulate cheaters. The standard of proof for cheating shouldn't be "beyond a reasonable doubt". There should be due process, but we can't turn every cheating case into a capital crime and empanel a jury for it. The entire educational system would cease to function.

Or go with the harm angle? Is Paulmeier asking for Stanford to make it easier for students to cause harm to others? Yes, emphatically he is. Because Paulmeier actually caused harm to other students. He abused his position of power and trust and authority to do that, even after he worked closely with Stanford to ensure that he wouldn't. He still did, and when he was caught, his response was not to accept responsibility, but to intone that it's the system itself that's the problem, not his behavior (although he admits his behavior has been problematic). It's not that he's wrong for his actions, it's that the system is oppressive for holding him accountable. What he wants to do is change the system so that people like him aren't held responsible when they use their position to harm others.

My opinion of this piece is that it's very one sided. At a higher level though, it's very concerning to me that some people are trying so hard to make this into a culture war controversy. These situations are very complicated, and it's a sad that they go poorly for some students. On the other hand, other students are being protected by these processes. Could they be better? Yes. Emphatically. Is the subject of this piece salty because he got called out for being an irresponsible jerk who's decisions hurt people? Yes. Does this mean Stanford is at "war" with the student? No. And that's really the bottom line.