DC Student Defense

On a Halloween twenty years ago, the actor River Phoenix died outside Johnny Depp’s The Viper Room nightclub in Los Angeles, convulsing on the sidewalk from an overdose of drugs. As recounted in a recent biography, he…

“Sally Kram, a spokeswoman for the Consortium of Universities of the Washington Metropolitan Area, said the group is working to come up with a plan on how police would handle student conduct issues off campus. She said…

Rebecca Ann Sedwick died on September 8, 2013.  She went to an abandoned cement plant and jumped from a tower.  It was a Monday morning.  A school day.  She was twelve. She was bullied online by…

I chose my college (Vassar) in part for the lack of Greek life.  My daughter factored in that too in her college choice (Smith). But a cellphone video of the 2013 Smith College Convocation filled with…

You can solve most problems – and even avoid them in the first place – and this includes student conduct violations.  The key to defending a student or diffusing a discipline code violation is clarity.  Clarity of…

Irresponsible drinking might be summed up as the philosophy of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger."  Responsible drinking – a much repeated phrase on campuses by students and universities alike – might be summed up…

The other night my 18-year old woke up crying from a nightmare.  Don’t get me wrong – she’s a tough enough kid – a competitive full-contact martial arts fighter since she was twelve.  But she’s starting…

To paraphrase the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre: First, we show up. Then we figure out what to do. Mentors help you do that. But more importantly, the act of seeking them makes us smarter about ourselves. Seeking…

Who decides who is being noisy?  DC recently amended its anti-noise laws to specify that: “It is unlawful to make an unreasonably loud noise between 10:00 p.m. and 7:00 a.m. that is likely to annoy or…

Numerous college and university student disciplinary codes don’t allow students to have a lawyer present at a student disciplinary hearing.  The colleges and universities may argue that this prohibition is allowable because their proceedings are not…