In case you missed the front-page article, “Editor-in-Chief Suspended,” I’ll tell you what it was about: I’ve been suspended from “co-curricular activities” from March 1, 2003, until April 1, 2003.

Now, if you’re a little confused about what a co-curricular activity is, don’t feel left out, most everyone is.

But let me back up.

I, and another student, were caught by a patrolman in a stairwell that smelled of marijuana smoke. We were searched and the patrolman found a small amount of marijuana in my pocket.

According to the Student Code of Conduct, the administration had ten business days to inform me if they were going to charge me with misconduct, and then the Code outlines that a first offence would require a supervisor to verbally reprimand me.

Right from the beginning, Interim Dean Lopes had started violating procedure by taking more than ten business days to notify me. Then she fabricated a tale about how I had given an incorrect address to the officer, and that she had obtained that incorrect address from the police report. Lopes claims she had originally sent the notification to my old address and was therefore not responsible for it not reaching me in a timely manner.

But I gave no address to the officer, he had only requested my name and Social Security Number. Later inspection of the police report reveals that the report had my correct address anyway.

To further compound Lopes’ disregard for procedures, she said my punishment, “suspension from co-curricular activities for one year,” included everything outside of classes–including participating in a constitutionally protected forum for free expression, such as a newspaper. I also presumed breathing and defecating were off-limits.

I appealed to the “Discipline and Grievance Committee,” but Lopes stacked the deck there also, drafting her own work-study secretary to the committee. The whole hearing was for Lopes to prove that she could crush any Student Life employee–and the message wouldn’t have been lost on Lopes’ own secretary. So that kangaroo court rubber-stamped the punishment…

Finally, I appealed the whole mess to Chancellor Jo Ann Gora. She passed the verdict that, while there was some oddness with the Grievance Committee, she was upholding the railroading of me, but modifying the sentence to only be a prohibition from co-curricular activities for one month.

I’m assuming, since Chancellor Gora didn’t clarify, or even mention, the definition of co-curricular in any way, that she, too, intends a suspension of my civil rights, but only for a period of one month.

At first, I was impressed with Chancellor Gora. I had seen her as concerned about students. My view has changed.

I no longer wonder how a corrupt state school could manage to hire a quality employee–now I believe that this corrupt state school has probably hired another bureaucrat who has little concern for due process or civil rights. Ahh, the learning process.

With the police report revealing administrative deceit, Chancellor Gora should have, during her investigation, discovered that Interim Dean Lopes had contrived her story, fabricated documents and disregarded due process and fair treatment. Now, by either ignoring the reality of the insidious and vindictive actions of her staff, or shoddily investigating, Chancellor Gora is stained with the mark of a collaborator.

To be cooperative, I have forgone submitting payroll to Student Life for this one month, but, to be a patriot, I refuse to go quietly to the gas chamber. I refuse to abdicate my right of free expression, so I will most likely continue to participate in a constitutionally protected forum for free expression, until the fascists come and gun me down.

You can confiscate an American’s money, but you can’t steal a patriot’s rights without consent: you must pry the pen from my cold, dead hand.