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Comment by vsnf | Hacker News Reader

I dunno, Universities can often behave like soviets. I was pushed through a university kangaroo court at Northeastern where they tried to (falsely) pin a charge of destruction of the university wifi network on me. They were threatening suspension and expulsion, I had to go to numerous hearings attended by high ranking university officials, and was definitely told that writing a letter of apology would incline the university to lighten my punishment.

I fought my way tooth and nail out of the situation and was exonerated, but I can imagine a hundred reasons why any given student in a similar situation would capitulate.

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I know a couple of people who were dubiously accused of network related shenanigans at college, and yeah - you are heavily pushed into confessing to something, there’s no due process, fuck all burden of proof, etc.

Truth doesn’t matter in university disciplinary matters - only finding someone (not the university) to blame.

I remember watching a news magazine (may have been 60 Minutes -long time ago), that talked about how universities handle sexual assault allegations.

They have their own police force, and the segment was about how they would often keep regular cops frozen out of the investigations, and just wanted to "hush things up," often at the expense of the victims.

It’s the same with theft, normal assault, fraud, normal criminal behaviour, etc.

Universities often want to keep it “in house” and deal with it through internal disciplinary actions - as opposed to bringing in the law enforcement and public scrutiny.

This exists outside the US too - and doesn’t require a campus police force.

In the university a friend went to, such matters (theft from accommodations, etc) were dealt with through the deans office, and calling the cops was heavily discouraged by the university.

This system has pros and cons, but when it’s to do with more serious matters (actual assault, sexual assault, etc) the real authorities should be brought in instead of some bizarre victim silencing and due process lacking internal system.

Sometimes, universities just disseminate this information to their students, too.

Somebody hit to our vehicle (owned by a government institution) and tried to ran away into their university, but failed. We had to call the police (since that's a government institution vehicle), and university security guards came and told the driver "if something like this happens again, just try harder to enter university premises, we can help you".

We politely told the guards that this is a government owned van, and we need to call the police, anyway. They frowned very visibly to this fact.

The driver was also very sad about not being able to outrun us.

This was not in US.

> This was not in US.

If it was, I’d have just let them get away, and called the cops anyway.

They would be charged with leaving the scene of an accident (hit and run). The campus rent-a-cops would not be able to do a thing.

Same would have happened if the driver have managed to run away, but lucky for them, they failed. Otherwise, it'd be much bigger fine for them.

I was a student on one of those university boards. I highly recommend hiring a lawyer at the first hint of an issue.

My university wanted people to accept "responsibility" which students took as responsibility for their actions, not for what they were being pinned for.

Of course the students are going to take responsibility for their actions thinking that will help, and then the University does whatever with its mind already made up.

One student had trace amounts of drugs on some paraphernalia. Student didn't show up to their board hearing, so got the default suspension. Could have stayed and brought a lawyer for less than what the semester cost (instead of receiving Incompletes/Fails) and won. Oh well.

> I had to go to numerous hearings attended by high ranking university officials, and was definitely told that writing a letter of apology would incline the university to lighten my punishment.

This reminds me of the police telling people that writing out a confession will get them a lighter punishment.

> Universities can often behave like soviets

https://paulgraham.com/saynotes.html note 10 for the rescue

Yes this happened to me too, but the rounds of applause I get on Internet forums makes it all worth it!

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