{"id":642,"date":"2011-01-25T09:13:52","date_gmt":"2011-01-25T14:13:52","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www3.law.harvard.edu\/journals\/hlpr\/?p=642"},"modified":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","modified_gmt":"2015-10-02T15:59:28","slug":"critics-fear-discrimination-after-change-in-north-carolina-admissions-policy","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/2011\/01\/25\/critics-fear-discrimination-after-change-in-north-carolina-admissions-policy\/","title":{"rendered":"Critics Fear Discrimination after Change in North Carolina Admissions Policy"},"content":{"rendered":"

Smita Ghosh<\/em><\/p>\n

On Jan. 22, members of the board of the North Carolina State Board of Community Colleges voted unanimously to give school officials the discretion to refuse to admit \u201cthreatening\u201d students. \u00a0Members say that\u00a0the rule<\/a>, which allows colleges to deny admission to students who present an \u201carticulable, imminent and significant threat\u201d to others, has been on the table since the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech.<\/p>\n

The rule, which\u00a0could go into effect<\/a>\u00a0in several months if it is approved by the state\u2019s rules commission, reflects the difficulty that institutions face in balancing a need for safety measures\u00a0with the rights of individual students. \u00a0School safety officials face the daunting task of preventing incidents like the Virginia Tech shooting in an era of relaxed gun control laws,\u00a0even after\u00a0<\/a>the recent tragic shooting in Arizona.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Critics say, however, that admissions officials could easily abuse the discretion they receive\u00a0under North Carolina\u2019s new policy. \u00a0In an interview, Sarah Preston of the local ACLU\u00a0noted that\u00a0<\/a>the law could be used to \u201ctarget people who are not a danger because they make people or they make administrators uncomfortable,\u201d citing people with AIDS as an example.<\/p>\n

While this type of discretionary power is rare, officials at most institutions, including North Carolina\u2019s Community Colleges,\u00a0have the right\u00a0<\/a>to suspend or expel a student from campus if they present safety concerns.<\/p>\n

The proposed rule\u00a0creates procedural safeguards for students\u2013preserving\u00a0a student\u2019s right to appeal the ruling, and requiring documentation on part of the admissions officials\u2013but gives little guidance on admissions standards.\u00a0 In other words, it remains to be seen how officials will make their decisions. \u00a0A\u00a0recent study\u00a0<\/a>of admissions officers found that, among colleges that require a criminal background check, only about half of the institutions trained their admissions employees on how to interpret results of criminal checks, or how to distinguish between various types of crimes.<\/p>\n

North Carolina\u2019s rule may also parallel the 1990s era \u201czero tolerance\u201d laws in public schools, which were designed to hinder rapidly escalating school violence, but also legitimized the targeting of non-dangerous students by overzealous school officials. \u00a0In\u00a0Stephenson v. Davenport Community School District<\/a>, district officials expelled Brianna Stephenson for having a small tattoo of a cross on her hand, using\u00a0a zero tolerance policy\u00a0prohibiting \u201cgang symbols.\u201d \u00a0The Eighth Circuit agreed with Stephenson, voiding the District\u2019s policy for its vague prohibitions. Will increased discretion in North Carolina\u2019s community colleges raise the same issues?<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Smita Ghosh On Jan. 22, members of the board of the North Carolina State Board of Community Colleges voted unanimously […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/peZQka-am","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/journals.law.harvard.edu\/lpr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}