Justice may be blind, but it's rarely simple, even on a campus like Pomona's.

"The precepts of the law are these," declared the Institutiones of the Byzantine Emperor Justinian in 533 A.D.: "To live honestly, to injure no one, and to give every man his due." The maxim remains an underlying principle of many justice systems, including the Pomona College Student Code. But ever a work in progress, in every system of justice, is the question of how best to deal with those who break the rules.

Pomona's Student Code prohibits certain types of conduct--ranging from forgery to physical abuse--that threaten the health and safety of members of the College community or the integrity of the College's educational process or facilities. Over the years, the quest for an appropriate and educational means of enforcing those rules of conduct has led to a system in which students themselves play a vital role. Through the all-student Judiciary Council and the smaller hearing panels chosen from their number, known as Judicial Boards--or "j-boards"--students are, in certain circumstances, held accountable to their own peers.

Of course, many alleged violations don't require the scrutiny of a j-board. Every report of a Student Code violation comes first to the Office of the Dean of Students. After investigating, a dean may determine a student's responsibility and impose any sanction short of suspension or expulsion. A hearing before a j-board is generally required, however, in order to impose either of these more severe penalties. A dean may also refer cases involving lesser penalties to the j-board when the facts are in dispute. Additionally, in cases in which a dean has already imposed a lesser sanction, either the respondent, the complainant or the victim may choose to petition the Judiciary Council chair for a j-board hearing.

Once it becomes involved, the all-student j-board considers only those charges formulated by the dean. A dean also sits on every j-board panel as a nonvoting member, in order to advise the group on matters of process. Appeals go to a special panel made up of three students, also with the advice of a nonvoting dean. As the final level of appeal, the president of the College has the power to review, remand or alter a j-board's decisions under "extraordinary circumstances."

Why does Pomona place so much trust in its student representatives in matters of student justice?

"Philosophically, I think it's appropriate for students at a residential college to have ownership over community rules and values," says Associate Professor of Biology Lenny Seligman, who chairs the faculty's Student Affairs Committee, which oversees the Student Code. He notes, however, that there are also pragmatic reasons. "I think it would be unreasonable to ask members of the faculty to commit as much time and energy to this task as our students currently do," he says, adding that students are also uniquely qualified to judge other students. "Living here, they have a good sense of the context in which things occur. This could make them better able to distinguish between a well intended prank that may have gone too far and a more malicious act that is totally unacceptable."

But across the nation, campus disciplinary boards have also come under scrutiny and criticism, and Pomona's is no exception. Opinions differ even among those who have observed it in action.

"The system has worked very well," says Susan M. Deitz, program coordinator for the Office of Student Affairs, who acts as a judiciary record-keeper. She is the only non-student normally present at the closed deliberations of hearing panels, and has attended all but one hearing for the past 16 years. "The students on the panel are always very thoughtful and very thorough. They weigh everything, and they try very hard to do a very fair job. I trust them 100 percent," she says.

Frederick Sontag, Robert C. Denison Professor of Philosophy and a fraternity adviser during his half-century at Pomona, has made more appearances at judiciary hearings than any other faculty member. Sontag says he "could not agree more" that the students are responsible and take their duties seriously. "However, as a teaching institution, I think we need to be sure that they are subject to review," he says, to ensure that penalties are not too extreme.

At Pomona, as at many colleges, the days when responsibility for every aspect of student discipline was delegated to a stern dean have passed. In the range of disciplinary approaches, many schools enforce codes, in part, through panels composed of varying ratios of students, faculty and administrators. The other four undergraduate schools of The Claremont Colleges enforce regulations through systems involving various types of student-faculty boards. Of the top 10 liberal arts colleges listed in the annual U.S. News & World Report survey, at least one grants its student judiciary nearly as much responsibility as Pomona. Davidson College in North Carolina permits its all-student council to decide cases involving indefinite suspension. Appeals, however, go to a review board consisting of three faculty members and two students.

Pomona's judiciary once included direct faculty involvement in the hearing process. But after a study in 1990-91, the President's Task Force on Social Life at Pomona recommended that the panel be student-only. "The judiciary has generally worked quite well and its members have taken their duties seriously," the task force concluded, but "There is the impression that penalties for the worst offenses have not necessarily been severe enough, nor always consistent...[we think] if full responsibility is placed on students to adjudicate the misdeeds of their peers, they will respond with greater consistency and equity than under the present arrangements in which patterns of deference between faculty and students can lead to equivocation and uncertainty."

Dormitory vandalism, alcohol violations and marijuana use dominate the case lists of many disciplinary boards, including Pomona's. But around the country, a number of high-profile cases in recent years have drawn greater attention to the workings of such boards.

As at other colleges, criticism of Pomona's Judiciary Council has tended to arise in the wake of rulings that provoke strong feelings. Last fall, the resolution of one case prompted discussion of several issues: whether Pomona students should decide cases involving suspension or expulsion of their peers; whether faculty should have a direct role in disciplinary decisions and penalties; whether procedures for assisting the defense of those accused are adequate; and whether judiciary hearings and results should always be confidential.

Sontag thinks the pendulum has swung too far since the change to an all-student judiciary. "I do not believe that students should be expelling other students from college," he says. "I think students in general tend to be either too lenient or too extreme. I've seen a growth in serious punishment, with less willingness to consider any moderation. There needs to be more direct faculty involvement and review."

Ann Quinley, vice president and dean of students maintains that during a comparable period, the serious penalties handed down by the all-student board have actually been less harsh than those imposed by the preceding panel made up of faculty and students. From 1980 until the change in 1991, she reports, the faculty-student judiciary handed down nine suspensions and three expulsions. From 1991 until today, the all-student judiciary has imposed seven suspensions and no expulsions. (One case that originally ended in expulsion was later reconsidered and changed to suspension.)

And though they have no direct control over the outcome of individual hearings, the faculty do have influence over the process. The Student Affairs Committee of the faculty, consisting of five faculty members and five students, is responsible for oversight of the Student Code and the Judiciary Council, including approval of amendments to the code. Every fall, according to Matthew Taylor, dean of campus life, every student receives an application to join the council. New applicants are interviewed and appointed by the three Judiciary Council chairs (Chairs for the next year are selected each spring by the Student Affairs Committee) and three representatives of the Associated Students of Pomona College Senate. Members are selected based on written and oral responses to questions, including questions regarding a hypothetical case. The code also calls for a "broadly representative" council. Quinley says efforts are made to balance the membership's racial and gender representation.

After new members are selected to join each year's returnees, the 35 members and three chairs undergo training, with the assistance of an attorney. When a j-board case commences, an eight-member hearing panel is appointed by the Judiciary Council's chair or associate chair. The panel must, at the start of the hearing, include at least three women and three men. At least five votes are required to find a respondent responsible for a code violation or to impose a sanction.

At hearings, witnesses are not sworn in, and may be questioned by any member of the panel (including the nonvoting dean), the victim, the respondent, and a "community representative." According to the code, the community representative, chosen by the dean of students, "shall interview those with knowledge of the situation, review relevant documents and present an unbiased view of the alleged violation of the Student Code to the Judiciary Council." The standard of proof is that evidence of a violation must be "clear and convincing."

Respondents are free to have an adviser from within the Pomona community present at the hearing, or under certain circumstances an attorney, though neither adviser nor attorney can question witnesses or argue a case.

Recently, the process has stirred sometimes-heated discussion among faculty, administrators and in The Student Life newspaper.

William P. Banks, a professor of psychology who has taught at Pomona since 1969, believes the system should be overhauled. "I think it is obvious that the j-board is constituted in a way that leaves it open to causing terrible injustices," he says. "It definitely needs to be restructured entirely." Student judicial panels, he says, "are notoriously Draconian in their penalties, and notoriously uninterested in the niceties of admissible evidence." The absence of an actively assisted defense, Banks says, combined with the influence the community representative can bring to bear, makes it all too possible to sway the result. An adversarial approach is one of the most cherished tenets of Anglo-American law, he notes.

"These are not trials; they are hearings," Taylor says in response. "We deal only with the College's rules and procedures." That also applies to another concern some have expressed: that in serious cases, a student may be charged with a crime and at the same time face a College judiciary hearing over the same alleged conduct. Double jeopardy is prohibited in the court system, Sontag points out. When such cases have occurred, "I've usually seen that the courts have been more moderate," he adds.

Proponents of the current system, however, insist the College, as a private residential community, has not only the right but the responsibility to enforce its own regulations. And student self-governance, they say, is one of the most cherished tenets of the Pomona community.

Although opinions differ on how the campus judiciary should be structured, there is consensus that the role of advisers should be carefully examined. Although respondents are guaranteed the right to bring an adviser to the hearing, in the past some students have failed to make arrangements for one. In one case, a student later said that he was unable to find an adviser to accompany him. The Student Affairs Committee this spring was expected to consider whether there should be additional procedures to guarantee that respondents appear with an adviser.

Confidentiality of judiciary proceedings is another contentious issue. Many schools, including Pomona, specifically limit disclosure of information related to disciplinary proceedings. "The advantage of confidentiality is that it protects students who are charged and not found responsible, and those who are found responsible as well," says Taylor. "There is really no reason to identify people" and potentially harm reputations, he says, especially when most violations do not constitute serious crimes and few respondents are repeat offenders.

Still, the confidentiality requirement has not precluded extensive local press coverage of some cases. The code's confidentiality provision applies to hearing panel members but not to complainants, respondents or victims. "The j-board has always been at a PR disadvantage," says Jeffrey McKenna '00, a former Judiciary Council chair who is now a student at the Stanford University School of Law. "The respondents are free to talk about the proceedings, but the board members and even the deans are not allowed to divulge information that could clarify a situation."

Some Pomona faculty have suggested increasing the use of mediation and reducing adjudication as a means of resolving conflicts. Pomona deans often informally mediate disputes, but the Student Code's formal mediation provision is not used frequently. At Swarthmore College in Pennsylvania, which has strongly promoted a mediation program, there were high hopes for success. But Tedd Goundi, associate dean for student life, says, "Its usefulness has been so-so. As far as our judicial system is concerned, we don't save a lot of cases or time from having mediation as an option."

Banks, in the meantime, continues to challenge the fairness of Pomona's current system. "What does the college stand for if it uses a flawed judicial system like this?" he said in an e-mail message last fall. "Is there a similar j-board for faculty? Is it possible that students are second-class citizens who do not deserve the full trappings of due process?"

For his part, however, Taylor says the system is effective and should be maintained, with continuing review and adjustment as needed. "The student judiciary serves an educational purpose," he says, "and it is in line with what I believe is best--the student community setting, by and large, the standards for their peers. Students do drive the hearing process. And as long as I'm in this business, I'm going to treat them as adults."

--Mark Wood