Guilty Until Proven Innocent

Employees of the Texas A&M University System were alarmed last week to discover a new regulation that allows them to be fired after an arrest, whether it results in a conviction or not. The rule requires employees to report arrests immediately, which, they fear, could result in a range of workplace punishments or firing. Criminal background checks may now be done on any employee at any time, and persons who have had first- or second-degree felony convictions may not be hired at all without a waiver. The new rule applies equally to all system employees, from landscape workers to professors, and includes graduate assistants and student workers as well.

Employees are rightly concerned that the new rule does away with due process. While everyone prefers that all workers be of the highest moral fiber, people make mistakes. Those who pay the penalty for their crimes should be regarded as rehabilitated until they prove otherwise. The number of death-row inmates cleared by DNA evidence ought to prove that an arrest is not a guarantee of wrong-doing.

Denying employment to those who have been convicted and served their time punishes them twice and may cause them to seek less-than-legal ways to earn their daily bread. Studies have shown that as people obtain more years of formal education, they become less likely to engage in criminal behavior or return to prison. Since virtually all graduate students work at the universities where they study, this rule closes a door in the faces of many who could become contributing members of an academic community and tax-paying members of society.

Since all employees are subject to criminal background checks at any time, those who have learned from their mistakes could find themselves out of work if they displease the wrong person. Professors whose political views do not sit well with administrators could find the rule used against them in a witch hunt. Perhaps even worse, some could find themselves out of work after years of employment because a misguided supervisor simply did not want to work with felons, however old and irrelevant their records.

Administrators claim that the new regulation will make campuses "safe while putting all employees on an equal footing. The [Texas State] Legislature is set to take up this issue in its next session, and [the A&M System] is simply trying to get ahead of the curve (The Eagle)." Some suggested that the same standards be applied to students. Administrators would not rule out the possibility of future rules requiring students to pass similar background standards.

The Fifth and Fourteenth amendments to the U.S. Constitution clearly state that no person may be deprived of life, liberty or property without due process, nor be forced to testify against him- or herself. Here, an entity, an arm of the state, requires those accused of crimes to report the accusation, then permits them to be deprived of livelihood without waiting for the outcome of the trial. This rule ought to be challenged as unconstitutional on these grounds.

As the executive branch of the U.S. government increases its powers through tools like the USA PATRIOT Act, it becomes increasingly easy to run afoul of the law. Any rule that compounds the penalties for alleged wrongdoing, without requiring the government to prove its case before allowing sanctions is alarming.

The practice of criminal law in the United States is based on a presumption of innocence, which is why those accused of crimes are put on trial. If the United States government must prove beyond reasonable doubt that an accused person committed a crime, should not employers be required to afford the same protection?