In the current edition of the report, students required to appear before a hearing board for transgressions do so within their own college of study.

In the proposed amended version, students would skip that step and go directly to a university-wide hearing board whose members would not all be from the same college.

ASMSU Vice President for Student Funding Domonique Clemons said this change is necessary to ensure that all students are held to and judged by an equal set of codes.

“This will create a standard so that engineering students are held to the same one medical students are,” Clemons said.

Another proposed amendment would change the way in which students could be penalized for disruptive behavior in a class.

“Before, the punishments ranged from extreme ones like expulsion to a slap on the wrist,” Clemons said.

“Now students will have the option of disenrolling from a specific class that they are having issues with.”

The proposed option of specific disenrollment would help establish a middle ground in terms of punishments, he said.

Since the report is a document that affects both faculty and students university-wide, it first must be approved by a slew of university committees. The group of those considering the document includes the University Committee on Student Affairs and the Council of Graduate Students, ASMSU representative for the College of Social Science Evan Schrage said.

“There shouldn’t be too much overhaul on this,” Schrage said. “Everything looks like it stayed mostly the same.”

Despite the report remaining nearly constant over the years, some students aren’t exactly clear on what their rights are when it comes to misconduct on campus.

“They fill us in at AOP, but after that, as a freshman, you’re just so confused and you don’t know what’s going on,” vocal performance senior Zachary Niedzwiecki said.

“If they posted it more often online, maybe students would be more educated. But the changes they are making sound like a good idea.”

Clemons agreed, saying that it’s important for students to be aware of their rights and how to navigate the university penal code.

“It’s a comforting thing, knowing that the document gets updated every five years,” Clemons said. “The document does exist to outline the rights of students and so we have a place to go and don’t rely on administration to tell us what is going to happen.”

ASMSU held a town hall meeting on Jan. 22 to get student feedback on the amendments.

The general assembly is expected to vote on the modifications during the Feb. 7 meeting.

Clemons said the updated Academic Freedom for Students at Michigan State University should be officially revised by all parties involved by the end of this academic year.