“Because the full Board is no longer involved in the preliminary stages or earlier on in the process, students might feel that the deck feels loaded, even if it’s not,” Curtis said.

Daniel said he feels disadvantaged by a system that only allows him to communicate in writing with the Board members who will decide his fate, and he wishes could ”look every single one of those guys in the eye” as he pleads his innocence.

Neal wrote that although no student has successfully appealed a decision of the Board recently, the full Ad Board “often” requests more information from the subcommittee before making a decision and “sometimes” issues a different punishment than that recommended by the subcommittee.

HARVARD LAW?

Critics say that together, the uncommon standard of proof and the small interview format fail to create an atmosphere in which students are treated as innocent until proven guilty.

Daniel said he feels he is presumed guilty because he has not yet been proven innocent. He said that the Board has asked him to provide his Government 1310 notes and study guides—materials that he threw away at the end of last semester. Daniel said he is frustrated that this lost evidence seems necessary for him to clear his name.

When asked whether the Ad Board operates under a presumption of innocence, Neal wrote, “The Administrative Board simply works to understand what happened. The board seeks as much information as possible to determine how events transpired.”

But Gary Pavela, a former director of academic integrity at Syracuse University who has also consulted with other institutions on disciplinary proceedings, emphasized the importance of giving students the benefit of the doubt even in non-judicial systems.

Losick agreed. “To say that it’s solely educational is a really unsatisfying rationale for not having due process and a fair, transparent system,” Losick said. “I’d much rather be accused of something in the Middlesex Courthouse than at the Ad Board.”

Furthermore, Losick said that the Board, as part of an academic institution, should subject charges of misconduct to the same rigorous analysis required in an academic thesis.

“This is an institution of learning and discovery, where nothing matters more than the truth,” he said. “Therefore, there should be a high standard of establishing something is true.”

But to Peter F. Lake ’81, a Stetson University professor who studies higher education law, an academic setting does call for a different mindset than a courtroom.

“I think it’s essentially important these days for academic institutions to preserve what they do best and to not be hyper-legalistic,” Lake said.

Yet consequentially, Lake said, Harvard’s academic fact-finding process is ill-equipped to handle a case the size of Government 1310.

He said, “It just feels to me like someone has brought a 600-pound turkey home for Thanksgiving and the oven’s not big enough.”

—Staff writer Mercer R. Cook can be reached at mcook@college.harvard.edu.

—Staff writer Rebecca D. Robbins can be reached at rrobbins@college.harvard.edu.