Amid controversy surrounding the University’s handling of sexual assault cases, state legislators have proposed a bill that could conflict with UNC’s student-run Honor Court’s mission.
Earlier this month, Rep. John Bell, R-Craven, filed House Bill 843, which would grant students the right to hire a professional lawyer to represent them in cases of disciplinary misconduct.
Currently, students are allowed to be represented by only their peers. When a criminal case is concurrent with an Honor Court case, licensed attorneys are permitted to accompany students — but they can only confer with students and cannot address the panel.
The bill proposes that any student or student organization charged with misconduct at an institution has the right to be represented by an attorney during the case.
“The bill simply provides language guaranteeing that students would be able to have formal legal representation during any formal disciplinary procedure,” said Rep. Jason Saine, R-Lincoln, one of the bill’s sponsors, in an email.
“I feel it is important that students be empowered to have representation in order to protect their rights and reputations,” Saine said.
The bill has received bipartisan support, but student leaders in the University’s honor system have expressed concern about the measure.
Nathan Tilley, a chairman of the Honor Court, said that attorneys are not part of the current honor system because it is not their specialty.
“Attorneys are not trained like the counsels in our system are, so they have less experience and knowledge of our specific procedures — those aspects of our process that might not directly resemble general legal proceedings,” Tilley said in an email.
