The PSU Code of Student Conduct and Responsibility governs the Portland State University student community. It outlines the process for students accused of violations and the potential repercussions but can be opaque and difficult to navigate.
Following the spring 2024 protests, the conduct process was initiated for students alleged to have committed violations. Students received various penalties—referred to as academic sanctions—if found responsible. PSU Vanguard spoke with PSU’s chapter of Faculty and Staff for Justice in Palestine (FSJP) about the conduct process, sanctions and their advocacy for students. FSJP has assisted with about a dozen conduct cases.
A group within FSJP advocates for students facing conduct violations and sanctions. They accompany students to meetings, advise and prepare them, help with appeals and provide support.
“Having staff and faculty as advocates meant we could remind students about rights they might have forgotten,” said Katie Cagle—a Member of FSJP and Program Assistant in the School of Social Work—who previously worked in the Office of Student Life.
The Letters
The student conduct process begins when the Office of Student Life receives an anonymous complaint or a police record from CPSO or PPB. Then, the accused student receives a letter. Once this process is initiated, a hold is placed on the student’s transcripts.
According to Colleen Carroll, a Member of FSJP and Senior Research Assistant at the School of Urban Studies and Planning, there are two types of letters. The first starts an inquiry process without listing charges. The second states that a conduct hearing will be conducted, listing charges. They inform students that the process will proceed regardless of their participation. Students have three options: decline to participate, write a statement or attend a meeting. They must respond to the Office of Student Conduct with their decision.
Molly Benitez—a Member of FSJP and Assistant Professor of Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies—noted that these letters imply their decision or their willingness to participate affects their outcome.
“If you choose not to participate or provide supporting information, it may limit my office’s ability to understand the full details of what occurred,” stated a letter provided to the Vanguard.
The Dean of Student Life Taylor Burke, disclosed that 33 people went through the conduct process and 21 were found responsible and received sanctions. It’s unclear if the process is ongoing for those who have not received sanctions.
The Meetings
There are three meetings: an investigative meeting, an evidence review and the official conduct review. The first two are optional; the second isn’t clearly communicated to students. Students can bring two people to these meetings.
“FSJP tries to meet with students before the first meeting and let them know what their rights are because there is a way in which it feels like a legal proceeding,” Benitez said. “It’s not a legal proceeding. They have the right to not talk about anything.”
In the initial meeting, the conduct officer outlines the process and questions the student. According to Benitez, they pressured students to be fully transparent, saying it was in their best interest to provide information. Students were told if they were found to have withheld or lied about details, they would face harsher sanctions. The conduct officer suggested they may be more lenient if students cooperated and disclosed their involvement or information about others.
“Something that I saw happening, from a systems perspective, was the university trying to pin down who was in charge, who was making decisions, who was doing the planning,” Cagle said. “It doesn’t seem like that’s how it was really working. The university was trying to create a structure of responsibility that didn’t actually exist.”
The next meeting is the evidence review. Students can review all evidence or documentation on their case before the conduct hearing. They must request this meeting, and conduct officers don’t communicate this right.
“We were able to clarify and support students to get access to that evidence in advance because it’s hard to respond to an allegation when you only get the evidence in the moment,” Carroll said. “We helped them know they could even ask for this.”
The final meeting is the conduct review meeting. The conduct officer will review the violations the student is accused of. Then, they will share their understanding of what happened and give the student an opportunity to provide their perspective.
FSJP prepared students for this meeting.
“Just to make sure what you were going to say and let you know what you don’t have to say, because it’s not a legal thing, you don’t have to give them anything,” Benitez said.
FSJP observed the meetings and took notes.
“In a really stressful situation like this, it’s difficult to remember details,” Carroll said. “You go through the motions, then afterward, come out and you’re like, ‘Wait, what just happened?’ Having the faculty member there to document details and help the student debrief and remember what happened helps.”
During the meeting, students can take breaks and seek advice from their advocates before responding.
“Sitting in these meetings and listening to the awful things that happened to students and the trauma that they have is devastating,” Benitez said. “Students are being physically harmed, emotionally harmed, going to the hospital for things that happened to them.”
“I think one of the hardest parts that I have heard from students is waiting for the deliberations,” Carroll said.
“Almost all the students ask, ‘How long do I have to wait?’” Carroll said. “And they say, ‘It’ll probably take a couple of weeks,’ but it’s almost always longer.”
According to Cagle, the involvement of general counsel with the conduct process was unusual and may have lengthened it.
“In my time in the Dean of Student Life Office, doing conduct stuff, I don’t recall general counsel ever being involved in a student conduct review,” Cagle said. “We heard the reason this last round of outcomes took so long had nothing to do with Claire, and was because general counsel was reviewing these cases.”
Claire Araujo was in charge of conduct cases for all sanctions issued following the protests. She recently quit. Burke is now overseeing conduct cases until the position is filled.
“I strongly believe the delay that general counsel caused in getting these findings and sanctions out there unnecessarily contributed to additional hardship and stress to the students who have been waiting for this to be resolved since May,” Cagle said.
The Evidence
Aaron Roussell, a Member of the FSJP and Associate Professor of Sociology, claimed that the conduct process operates on a presumption of guilt. Benitez and Cagle corroborated this.
“It’s really hard to prove a negative,” said Cagle.
Roussell noted that the standard of evidence in conduct hearings is the preponderance of the evidence. Unlike burden of proof—which requires proving guilt beyond a reasonable doubt—preponderance of the evidence requires proving guilt is more likely than not.
“It’s a low standard,” Roussell said.
The Office of Student Life gathered police reports from CPSO and PPB, security footage, badge access records, social media, anonymous reports and more. Verifying the sources of the anonymous reports is difficult—anyone can submit one.
“In the cases that I’ve been involved in, it’s almost always been a CPSO report, even if the student wasn’t arrested and isn’t facing charges,” Carroll said. “CPSO is providing a lot of the evidence.”
While police reports were crucial for gathering evidence, reports indicate that body camera footage was rarely, if ever, used. Both CPSO and PPB wear them.
Students requested body camera footage to corroborate their claims of inaccuracies in police reports.
“They have a police report, what the police say happened, but no body cam footage,” Benitez said. “How can you hold these conduct reviews for students if you don’t have all of the data or proof? The police report is like, ‘We were really nice to the student, we were helping them get up, and the student pushed us, and was violent.’ And the students are like, ‘Get the body cam footage, because that will prove we weren’t doing anything, that it’s actually the police that were pushing us around.”
According to Cagle, CPSO reports included security camera stills. According to Benitez, an email was sent after the board of trustees’ protest encouraging faculty to identify students from the footage.
Cagle and Benitez also identified Instagram and news cameras as evidentiary sources in the conduct process. In one reported instance, a student’s Instagram activity that was critical of PSU and supportive of the protests was questioned.
The Violations
Charges against students include brandishing a weapon, obstruction, blocking pathways, disruptive behavior, unauthorized entry, endangering the campus community and collusion.
“Section V – Conduct Prohibited by Portland State University details the kinds of violations that may be attributed to a student,” stated Burke, in an email to PSU Vanguard. “When there is sufficient information to suggest that a policy violation has occurred, the conduct office investigates, conducts interviews, and engages the student in an administrative review of the concerns. Section VII of the Code outlines the student conduct procedures. If a student is found responsible for a policy violation, one or more sanctions are assigned. Section X of the Code shares information on sanctions.”
“In some of the students’ letters, they’re being charged with 13 counts of some very wild stuff. That is, I think, meant to scare them. There’s stuff about violence and harming people,” Benitez said.
According to Benitez, students have been held responsible for violations at an event without evidence of their involvement. They’re liable for any violation that occurred at protests they attended.
“It’s really about figuring out they were there. It’s not really about anything they actually did; evidently, the only thing they need is proof that they were there physically,” Benitez said. “They can be found guilty by association.”
According to Benitez, there are ongoing court cases from the protests, though most have pleaded out. For students dealing with them, engaging with the conduct process is a liability.
“The court could get information from student conduct hearings,” Benitez said. “Lawyers have told some of our students that ‘You should not be participating in this while you’re dealing with court because it could be used against you,’ but that’s not going to stop the school from moving forward with their conduct case.”
When asked why students are found responsible for things that the court system did not, Burke emphasized the disconnect between the conduct review and legal processes.
“University administrative review is not tied to the outcome of any criminal process,” Burke stated. “The conduct review is an administrative process conducted by PSU and should not be confused with legal processes. Refer to sections III and IV of the Code.”
The Sanctions
After the conduct review process, students receive their judgment: responsible or not responsible. If found responsible, that letter issues their sanctions.
Once sanctions are issued, students have 10 days to appeal on limited grounds.
“This is where it mirrors the trial structure—factual inaccuracy is not a thing that you can challenge,” Roussell said. “Much like a trial court, if you appeal, you’re not appealing on factual grounds. They’re deciding on matters of law. Process can be part of that, but the actual finding is done at the lower court level. It’s not clear that an actual finding of fact error would generate a successful appeal or an appeal at all.”
According to Carroll, students are exhausted by this point in the process. Some feel the university has created conditions where an appeal is meaningless.
The FSJP knows of one case in which a student successfully appealed.
“Their sanctions weren’t eliminated entirely but were ameliorated a little bit so it was less impactful,” Cagle said.
Students received sanctions for various reasons and protests, not just the library protest. The FSJP published fairly standard sanctions, which include fines, fees, yearlong suspension, community service and reflection letters. Those who have graduated have their transcripts withheld.
“The conduct officer reviews the responsible finding(s) and determines the sanctions in accordance with the Code, Section X,” Burke said.
“Some letters came very quickly after the infraction supposedly happened, and in other cases, they have taken a really long time to come,” Carroll said.
The latest wave of sanctions was issued on Oct. 16, week three of the fall 2024 term. According to Cagle, seven students received them at this time.
Besides disrupting students’ academic careers, suspension affects financial aid, housing and more.
“Students who got their sanctions before the start of the term were able to figure out their next steps more easily,” Cagle said.
“What happens to their tuition if they’ve already registered and started classes?” Carroll asked. “Why did it take so long? Why wait until fall term started?”
The transcript hold instituted at the start of the conduct process will last until the sanctions end—which for most students is in August 2025.
“We have students whose academic careers are impacted and students whose professional careers are impacted,” Cagle said.
The essay and volunteer hour sanctions ask students to reflect on their actions and consider alternative methods to engage in protest and help people.
“As a teacher of community organizing, these students weren’t impulsive,” Carrell said. “This isn’t a question of their decision-making ability; in fact, they’re showing a strong ability to make collective decisions. These aren’t students who are unaware of the multiple ways to be involved.”
However, according to Carroll, the real issues lie in suspensions and fines.
“Things that punish students educationally, I manifestly disagree with,” Carroll said. “To me, that is just antithetical to the entire purpose of having a university.”
Carroll authored a petition to PSU—asking the university to reconsider punishment that denies students access to education—pointing out the disconnect between PSU’s stated values and actions, such as its program providing educational opportunities to people with criminal records.
“We’re saying a criminal record shouldn’t bar you from educational opportunities,” Carroll said. “Please partake in our reentry program. But we will bar students from educational opportunities because they are implicated in either the court system or a code of conduct process.”
Carroll’s petition states, “At the arraignments held on May 3, the prosecution requested that everyone be barred from PSU campus. The judge categorically denied this request, specifically because students should not be barred from classes nor campus, disagreeing with prosecutors that removing the right to access education was warranted.”
“The PSU Code of Student Conduct and Responsibility outlines the administrative process by which student conduct concerns are reviewed,” Burke stated. “Section III – General Statement of Authority requires conduct to review all reports of alleged violations of the code. The conduct review process is an administrative process, rather than a legal process. The university has responsibility and authority to review student conduct concerns and outlines this in Section IV – Jurisdiction.”
“The suspension and withholding of degrees is a yearlong sanction, but the impact is much more than a year long,” Benitez said. “It’s impacting students’ ability to apply for grad school. It’s impacting their ability to get higher-paying jobs. All of that will have huge ripple effects in their lives.”
“There’s been punitive use of fees and fines,” Carroll said. “There are various approaches to sanctions that we could take—I think that things like essay writing and requiring volunteer hours are on a paternalistic tip, and we can talk about that, but it’s materially different than fining students $5,000.”
“The university is proud of the critical legal scholarship that my colleagues and I have done—we clearly state that fees and fines are a special form of punishment,” Carroll said. “Fees and fines are often what prevent people from expunging their record and can exacerbate housing insecurity and poverty. They’re unnecessary, for the school to use them as a way to punish students—I find it pretty upsetting. At the state level, activists and organizers are pushing to remove fees and fines in our civil and criminal courts, and I would make that same push here. Sanctions that can exacerbate housing stability and poverty and sanctions that prevent people from pursuing education are antithetical to what a public university should stand for.”
When asked how sanctions such as suspensions and withholding transcripts reflect PSU’s values, Burke directed this inquiry to the General Policy section in the Code of Conduct.
“The University supports the right of all people to live and learn in a safe and respectful environment that promotes excellence in instruction, research, and public service,” Burke stated. “The Code of Student Conduct and Responsibility is designed to protect the freedoms, fundamental rights, and responsibilities of those in the PSU community. Students are expected to conduct themselves in a manner consistent with these principles. (Code – General Policy).”
At the June 3 faculty senate meeting, PSU President Ann Cudd commented on the protests.
“Words, slogans and epithets, while protected by the First Amendment, will not bring about a ceasefire in Gaza, but they can poison our community,” said Cudd.
Others see protest as important and sanctions for and repression of protest on campus to be at odds with PSU’s values.
“I find it antithetical to PSU’s motto: let knowledge serve the city,” Benitez said. “At one of Ann Cudd’s senate meetings, she said something like, ‘Nothing we do is going to change what happens in the Middle East.’ We literally sit here every day and teach students they can change the world, that they have the power to do things. And then she gets up as the PSU President and says, ‘Nothing you do will change things.’”
