American universities are consistently rated as the best in the world. According to US News, out of the top 25, 21 out of the 25 are American. And Georgia Tech comes in the top 10 consistently when compared to other engineering schools around the world. For my major, Tech has been number one for the last 21 years. So academically, this university and the system as a whole is not lacking.

However, there is one major flaw with most American universities: the quasi-judicial process they use to investigate violations of student conduct. In these kangaroo courts, the accused are often the subject of a witch-hunt, especially when it comes to matters of sexual or racial misconduct. Guilty until proven innocent seems to be the standard with these collegiate investigative committees.

Now I'm not saying that all campus student conduct boards are ineffective. The entire system is largely ineffective, and needs to be revamped or thrown away entirely. There does need to be a board for violations that do not break US law, such as cheating or other matters relating to academic dishonesty. However, the fault lies where universities delve into criminal activity as ''student misconduct'', such as sexual assault or hate speech.

This imitation of the judicial system where the university and its subordinates are judge, jury and executioner and the process itself is often misguided or executed poorly is largely ineffective. For matters of a criminal nature, the judicial process should be left up to the American court system, and not to the university.

Expanding on that, for matters of a quasi-criminal nature but are not strictly academic, such as incidents with student organizations, the current system should still be in place, but improved. Too often the committees play to public opinion and not actual evidence, or lack thereof. This is especially relevant to Greek organizations, as there is seemingly a bias against fraternities/sororities when it comes to these proceedings.

There are several examples of fraternities being the subject of a witch-hunt of sorts in these ''trials'' where evidence and witnesses are either misused or entirely ignored. For example, a fraternity at Tech was recently put on probation for alleged racial slurs being yelled out of their window. Now if this really were to occur, then I would completely agree with the decision. However, there is literal video evidence and several witnesses challenging the accusation.* Yet the fraternity was still deemed guilty.

To clarify: Universities absolutely have the right to have these functions and execute them however they want, I merely disagree with them and how they're executed.

* Source: http://archive.11alive.com/assetpool/documents/151...