MSU should allow students to attend jury duty

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Go to class and break the law, or skip class and risk failing? That’s the worry of some students who are summoned for jury duty during the semester.

According to current MSU College of Law attendance policies, a student cannot miss more than two weeks of class, regardless of the excuse, including a legal obligation such as jury duty. So if a student was summoned for jury duty and the court case lasted more than two weeks, that student would not receive credit for an entire semester of work.

Last week, Rep. Mark Meadows, D-East Lansing, introduced a revised bill in the Michigan Legislature that would allow college students to postpone jury duty until after the school year. The amendment would be an addition to a bill that already allows high school students the same right.

The bill would give “a full-time student enrolled in and attending a college, community college, or university” the ability to “postpone the person’s term of service until the end of the school year.” Currently, citizens can delay their jury duty and reschedule within a 30-day period. Although it’s not a bad idea, it might be easier and quicker for universities to implement such policies, rather than the state Legislature.

The MSU College of Law is a separate entity from MSU and follows guidelines from the American Bar Association. MSU does not have a universal attendance policy. Because MSU lacks a standard policy, many students are left unaware of how jury duty will affect their class standing. Currently, attendance policies are at the professors’ discretion — so a professor can allow a student miss every class, or none.

Students should not have to worry whether their academic standing is in jeopardy for fulfilling a civic duty. Sitting on a jury shouldn’t be something for which students are punished. The university has a policy excusing employees on days they have to serve jury duty, so why not students?

When a criminal goes to trial, he or she is supposed to be judged by a jury of their peers. As students, a major section of our peers could be taken away if students are excused from filling their roles as jurors.

It should be the university’s responsibility to come up with a policy that includes students serving jury duty. In the resulting attendance policy, there should be a clause excusing students who are fulfilling their duty as citizens.

Meadows’ attempt is commendable, but he and the state Legislature shouldn’t be the ones responsible for excusing students from a legal obligation. MSU should take the initiative and not force the Legislature to solve the problem.

Leaving the policy changes to the universities in the state would offer several advantages over the state government. The changes could be implemented much more swiftly than waiting for any bills to be passed and each university could tailor the policies to fit its student body. Having the universities take their own approach toward jury duty also would allow more flexibility in changing the rules regarding students missing classes to abide by the law.

Being summoned for jury duty is a commitment that every citizen is responsible to fulfill. Students shouldn’t have to break the law just to pass a class.

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