There are similarities between a university disciplinary proceeding and a criminal proceeding. There's stark differences also. There are similarities such as there's a decision maker, just as you have a judge or a jury in a criminal case. There is either a adjudicator, a single adjudicator, or a panel of people that would make a decision regarding, in a university disciplinary hearing, say, of finding responsibility versus, say, guilt or not guilty in a criminal proceeding. There's witnesses that would appear, so that would be a similarity.
Differences would be the fact that hearsay is almost universally allowed in a university disciplinary hearing, where there's very technical rules of evidence regarding hearsay with a criminal case. Parties would testify, decision would be made. If a person is found responsible at a university disciplinary hearing, person would be sanctioned. If a person's found guilty in a criminal court, a person would be sentenced. So there's definitely similarities. There's definitely major differences. It's important that an accused party have the help of somebody who's experienced with hearings when going to a university hearing because so much is at stake.
