Talk:Alleged Campus Safety Misconduct

A page for baseless allegation?

It seems someone else edited this article before I could type this or make my own edit (and the editing needs to be worked on a bit, in fact--it's stylistically all over the place), but what's the point of this entry? Is there some justifiable reason to document a list of unsubstantiated, baseless allegations just to have "a different spin?" "Spin" is, of course, precisely the appropriate term, it seems to me.

For starters, this entry appears to exist contrary to the code of ethics that exists for this very site (emphases are mine):

Information should be of an objective nature. Even at a college as small as Knox, there are a wide variety of opinions regarding individuals, organizations, departments, events, and Knox in general. Therefore, your opinion is just that: your opinion. For this reason, subjective statements should be excluded, or at least rewritten to refer to facts instead of mere opinions.

Edits should be made to entertain or inform, not to cause harm. This includes information accusing an individual, group, or organization of illegal activities. Even if the allegations are true, take a moment to consider what consequences might arise as a result of your posting them here. The Wiki Fire isn't an exposé. If people start getting in trouble because of things on The Wiki Fire, it will only discourage people from using it.

Additionally, the nature of these "allegations" appears to be almost wholly without merit, with no corroborating information of any kind made available, and they are listed in such a way and in such a place to give them an added weight of "fact" that they simply do not deserve based on what is presented.

On Friday, May 16, just after midnight, a campus safety officer detained two students walking in the basement of SMC and accused them of removing signs from bathroom doors and demanded to search one of their bags. When the students refused the search on the basis of their 4th amendment rights, the officer lied to them, saying that those rights did not apply on private property, and called the police.

Is there any evidence of this presented other than the author's "say-so," probably based on what he or she may have heard from a partial party (but even that is not specified)?

Late Friday, May 16, after Girl Talk, Campus Safety called the police on an intoxicated student, violating the Good Samaritan policy.

Once again, am I to accept that it is right and proper for this allegation to be here just because the author decides to present it as accurate? I hope you are aware that--in the event that Public Safety is notified to provide medical assistance to an intoxicated individual--it is entirely at the discretion of the Public Safety Building as to whether or not they will dispatch a police officer with rescue and ambulance personnel, and they do so as a matter of routine. To document a bare assertion that Campus Safety "called the police" is specious.

Additionally, even if the basic facts behind this event were true, it is a fact that this is not a violation of the Good Samaritan Policy, as is declared to be fact in this allegation. Because Knox College or its Student Senate do not enact legislation for Galesburg or the State of Illinois, their policies can have no impact on the discretion of the Galesburg Police Department to enforce laws and ordinances.

In the early morning of Sunday, May 18, a student left belongings in Founders, while computers were restarting, and Campus Safety took the liberty of searching the students personal belongings, without the student present, or consent from that student.

This seems to fall into the "O.K., and..?" category. Unattended belongings are checked for identification by any security or law enforcement agency I can recall as a matter of routine in order to return said property to the owners. But regardless of that, we're back to the core problem of this being, once again, just sort of "thrown out there" without the support of anything, not even the brief and slanted little blurb in The Knox Student about the incident to which I believe the author refers.

Wednesday afternoon, May 21, Campus security was seen and over heard referencing the use of pepper spray on a student.

This one takes the proverbial cake. "My cousin's friend knew someone who once heard that Jimmy eats kittens." Really? "Seen and over heard[sic]" by whom? Referencing the use of pepper spray how? Are we to assume that Campus Safety was chatting over tea about how much they enjoy pepper spraying students, despite the fact that I cannot recall the last person of any kind to actually be pepper sprayed by Campus Safety? What happened, and where was the "misconduct?" It's a mystery, but apparently that doesn't stop anyone from running it up the flagpole to see who salutes it, anyway.

In the end, all that is here is a bullet point list of inappropriate and wholly useless finger-pointing allegations with dubious merit, at best. It appears to be written as a "revenge" of sorts, appearing just days after some of this alleged "misconduct." The entirety of it does not conform to the code of ethics proffered by this very site, and it seems like it would find a much more suitable home on the author's blog or social networking site of choice. Who can honestly defend this as appropriate to this site?

I'm recommending this article for deletion, and I urge you to strongly consider that recommendation.

Discussion on deletion proposal

Obviously this is going to require the weighing-in of more of the community than just me before any action is taken (Guys? Weigh in.), but I'll offer my perspective. The Wiki Fire was not created to be some innocuous toy - that should be made clear. The Wiki Fire has, as the original proposal noted, the goal of informing the community. Part of this involves cutting through the opacity of the different institutions of the college, whether it's Campus Safety or Student Senate or whatever. The purpose of this page, as I understand it, was to act as a sort of clearinghouse for concerns about Campus Safety misconduct. As the original proposal for deletion (and the related comments added to the content page) suggests, some and perhaps all of the allegations lack firm evidence. The onus of providing that evidence rests on the original posters; that they did not provide it is not surprising (given the nature of the forum and of the institutional disadvantage at which those subject to institutional sanction by law enforcement are placed with regard to evidence of misconduct) but it is also not required. I think the contributor who proposed deletion rebutted the allegations with great vigor, and that is the sort of thing that this page, in my mind, should include: not merely allegations, but a critical reflection, both on the allegations and on those against whom these things are alleged. Indeed, the Code of Ethics from which the proposer quoted does not really handle this directly; but that document, like everything else on this site, is subject to critical reflection and reform (that's the point of a wiki format). I think it's obvious that the page in discussion here needs to be more strongly disclaimed to ensure that these are taken merely as the allegations of those who post, and not as claims substantiated through TWF or Knox College administration. I think also that it should be reformatted as a discussion-like page, where there is an existing position under each allegation for rebuttal, discussion, and the like. I do not think, however, that it should be deleted, because it provides precisely the kind of forum that Knox needs on issues that are difficult to discuss within the existing institutional framework. I also think that the Code of Ethics should be revised to incorporate this type of discourse and content page and provide guidelines for its management. What does everybody else think? Camozzi 20:56, 14 June 2008 (CDT)

Re: Discussion on deletion proposal

I appreciate the thoughtful input, Camozzi; you make some worthwhile points, and I share the notion that--ideally--additional input from others would be very important, if it is forthcoming. That said, I don't think that the points you've presented so far have sufficient to change my opinion on the proposal for deletion. I hope you'll forgive any "picking apart" of your response that I commit; I'll try not to take anything unrecognizably out-of-context if I do.

I would like to start by stating I wholly agree with your recognition of this site's goal being to "inform the community," and I believe that additional transparency in the affairs of the College is a positive thing. Now, however, let me at least attempt to explain why I feel that this page, as it exists, furthers neither of these goals in any meaningful way.

It's possible--though I hold some reservations--that the intent of this page was simply to be an informative "clearinghouse for concerns about Campus Safety misconduct;" the problem with this page and any others of a similar nature is that while there may be a pretense or even genuine intent of informing others, the nature of the information presented is in the long run antithetical to that goal--even when "disclaimed"--by presenting allegations with confusing and perhaps even wildly differing merit.

When there exists a space such as this for people to air their "allegations" or grievances, and as noted there is absurdly little to no real burden on the author to provide any support or evidence whatsoever (and, as you noted and I confess to agree, it may be difficult for an author or an aggrieved party to obtain useful supporting information), I believe there's a high likelihood of two consequences counter to providing a vehicle for a more informed community:

• Legitimate allegations with merit will be diluted in value by virtue of being surrounded by a morass of ill-informed, unsupported or patently false "incidents" that will reduce their value to that of fiction, which those incidents do not deserve.
• Alternately, allegations which merit no weight will--either by proximity to supported, valid issues or simply by the power of the somewhat deceiving means in which these incidents are presented--be given a level of seriousness or credibility that they wholly do not deserve.

Your mention of "a discussion-like page, where there is an existing position under each allegation for rebuttal, discussion, and the like" is interesting, surely a step in a positive direction, and not without merit, but--while I admit I was rather surprised to see another editor taking the time to comment on the merits of the article (albeit inside of the article and with rather unfortunate formatting)--I don't foresee much continued vigorous "rebuttal" to persist into the future, and indeed, it would be difficult to find merit in demanding rebuttal for any allegation any individual decides to invent since, as you stated, "the onus of providing that evidence rests on the original posters [. . .] but it is also not required." This tends to lead to a rather fallacious notion along the lines of "no one refuted it, so it must be true." Again, this does not lead to a better informed community, I do not think, any more than distributing copies of the National Enquirer or active gossip-mongering would. Worse, the Internet provides these types of allegations, no matter how baseless and no matter even that they are deleted or altered once posted, a type of permanence that makes any potential harm they do only able to be mitigated but never undone.

Now, as this relates to issues of transparency, I'm afraid that baring a list of possible, unconfirmed, unsupported allegations really does depressingly little to shed light on the inner workings of the administration or Campus Safety. Your "discussion" method would be an improvement here, if there existed a sufficient community of contributors with actual knowledge regarding these workings making contributions to that discussion. I know I'm being somewhat cynical given the fact that two people (though with unconfirmed and therefore uncertain knowledge of the workings of those offices) have recently stepped to the plate to contribute, but I still hold some serious reservations about how likely an adequate level of that type of contribution is--and again I'll have to stress the point at the end of my last paragraph regarding the merit in defending some things which weren't required to even show supporting detail.

Last, and possibly least (so I will only cover this matter in a sentence or two), I would note that opening the door for "allegation" pages indeed opens that door pretty wide. When others start showing up regarding various other groups, if they indeed do, will they all be considered valid to an informed community or will a line have to be drawn somewhere?

What I believe would be of benefit to the community of users who access this site, and would fulfill both of these goals adequately, is something I admit is almost entirely different. What this article and this site does not do is provide anyone with information about the processes involved in handling a grievance or perceived misconduct by Campus Safety (or, by extension, some of the other administrative offices). The community could be well served, I think, by having access to details on what they can do--what steps to take and in what order when confronted with an incident in which they feel they or another were somehow mishandled. I would imagine that there are a number of people in the Knox Community who, not knowing what they can do to achieve a redress of grievances would possibly resign in defeat before starting, resorting to typing their complaint on an internet page as a form of "tit for tat," which I've argued is neither informative to the community nor useful to resolve their potentially very legitimate concern (or to allay an ill-informed concern). If, along with this, this site wanted to provide information very well documented, well-supported incidents of misconduct, I would concede that it is not inappropriate to do so. I will, of course, admit that this kind of thing would be extraordinarily rare due to--as you duly noted--aggrieved parties can often be in a disadvantaged position with regard to providing genuine support for their allegations; so, this would likely only apply to any cases which develop that would escalate to garnering quite a bit of real attention at the time anyway. The advantage is, though, that these incidents--if or when they emerge--will have real credibility and real strength, and they can include follow-up on the steps taken to attempt to rectify those issues.

That would sit far better with me; what do you think?

(Note: Sorry for the length and any redundancy, confusion, or failures in my editing. I'm going to admit that while I apparently write at length, I'm no writer and that I don't really intend to review this now that I've worn myself out writing it--okay, not much, anyway).

Re:Re:

It is perhaps true that, if this page continues to exist, there will be allegations of differing levels of merit. I will grant, even, that it may be difficult to tell meritorious from not if there is not sufficient analysis of the allegations. But we might draw a parallel to the Campus Safety Log in this instance. Dozens of notes describe things that students are alleged to have done, and these are published weekly. To look at the CSL every week, and look at the number of alleged actions may, in fact, be detrimental to people's opinions of the student body in the long run. It may keep prospective students from coming here. It could do all these things. Moreover, what is written in the CSL consists largely of allegations - there is no evidence provided to support what Campus Safety tells us happened, and so it is impossible for the community to tell which are true and which are not. Having been myself wrongfully cited by Campus Safety, I am well aware that I am not in a position to tell TKS to retract the particular incident report after it has already been printed.

This page, on the other hand, offers opportunity for rebuttal and discussion in an egalitarian framework. It may be that Campus Safety feels insecure having its actions put under such a light as this, inadequate though the light may be, but it is nonetheless a light. In fact, I would say that the rebuttals that you, Relatively Obscure, have written, shed a significant amount of light on the Campus Safety process. We could take, for instance, the bathroom-sign incident. Faced with two students who refused to surrender their Fourth Amendment rights against search without probable cause, the Campus Safety officer opted to create an artificial probable cause by accusing the students of stealing bathroom signs to the police, who could then, from their mind, have sufficient cause to arrest the students. Campus Safety by itself had no such power, and the GPD may well have had a hard time justifying probable cause without Campus Safety making the allegations.

Perhaps this is an overly negative portrayal limited to a particular incident, but it is in fact a particular incident that warrants attention. At the moment, the only reliable forum for students to discuss the actions of Campus Safety is The Wiki Fire, and I for one want to see TWF continue to give students a forum to discuss their concerns. Campus Safety and the administration have had no problem published our supposed transgressions regularly; while the fact that Campus Safety is a smaller and more cohesive organization than the wider student body may intensify the effect of any allegations made, I think there is no reason that we should not critically examine - indeed, there seem to be reasons why we should examine - our relationship with Campus Safety and the details of the institutional power structures and procedures that define that relationship.

Now, as you have said, there is not enough information about Campus Safety's procedures available, and that may well weaken any arguments made one way or another about Campus Safety conduct. I, for one, would love to see all that information posted on The Wiki Fire; if there are any governing documents for Campus Safety conduct, I would be more than happy to take personal charge of formatting and posting them in this public forum. I am assuming, by the nature of your contributions, that you are either a member of Campus Safety or very closely affiliated therewith, so I imagine it will not be difficult for you to provide these documents and data. Camozzi 22:11, 15 June 2008 (CDT)