The Justice

Media Credit: Julian Agin-Liebes Director of Public Safety Ed Callahan and Waltham officials speak at the workshop last Wednesday.

The Advocates, a newly chartered club, conducted its first student workshop, called the Search and Seizure Workshop for On and Off Campus Housing, during which a panel composed of members of Brandeis Public Safety, Student Development and Conduct and Residence Life, the Waltham Police and various Brandeis clubs discussed issues germane to student search and seizure rights.

The event, which took place last Wednesday, was also hosted by the Social Justice Committee and the Office of Students' Rights Advocacy and it was co-sponsored by Students for a Sensible Drug Policy and Peers Education about Responsible Choices.

According to the event's press release, The Advocates is a newly chartered club that was "formed early last semester with the goal of arming students with specific, practical knowledge of their rights and responsibilities as students of Brandeis University and residents of Waltham, Mass."

Approximately 25 students attended the workshop, which was moderated by The Advocates founder Seth Shapiro '09. The forum was divided into two sections of similar length, one dealing with rights of students on campus and another dealing with the rights of off-campus students. The event was divided as such since "Brandeis is its own institution: It can create its own rules" that differ from Waltham and U.S. law within the bounds of its campus, said Shapiro.

Students were handed information detailing their specific rights in regards to search and seizure, both on and off campus. In addition, Shapiro took time to convey to the gathered audience some advice for students from an American Civil Liberties Union attorney with whom he had spoken earlier in the day. This advice emphasized the right to remain silent, to be aware that detention or any kind of temporary custody requires reasonable suspicion and that a recording of a specific noise complaint in most cases must be relinquished by the police within 10 days (i.e. If a student believes that the police fabricated a noise complaint, the student can ask the police to produce the evidence).

Continued...

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