The Division for Student Affairs released the finalized Code of Student Conduct Thursday, which will take effect next month after officials added language protecting against artificial intelligence-based harassment and maintained a restored appeals process following a final community feedback period last month. 

The finalized code will take effect June 1, capping off a review process that started in spring 2025, adding language prohibiting nonconsensually distributing deepfakes and preserving prior revisions that removed restrictions on the appeals process and created an automatic review panel for students facing severe sanctions, after three community feedback periods. The final code remains largely unchanged from the most recent draft — which officials released in April — which adopted changes that came after students and faculty condemned earlier drafts as promoting administrative overreach and undermining students’ rights during conduct processes.

“We believe the final code provides a more learning-centered, procedurally-sound, and community-focused approach to student conduct policies and expectations at GW, while also prioritizing student support,” Vice President for Student Affairs and Dean of Students Colette Coleman said in a community email Thursday announcing the finalized code.

The final draft expands the “misrepresentation or providing false information” section from previous drafts to prohibit nonconsensually creating or distributing deepfakes and employing AI to cyberbully, harass or defame others.

The revised code also describes what information may be available through a student conduct records request, including the incident date, findings of responsibility and action plan items — restoring language from the existing code that was absent from previous drafts.

The University first released a revised draft of the code in November, which removed conduct review panels — which in the existing code consist of three to five students and a faculty member or administrator — and only allowed students to appeal decisions when facing suspension, expulsion or revocation of student organization status, or sanctions officials consider “severe.”

The initial draft prompted criticism from the Student Government Association Student Advocate’s Office, the SGA and faculty for expanding administrative authority and having the potential to hurt students’ rights in the conduct process.

Officials released an updated draft of the code late last month and opened a final, 10-day community feedback period. The draft proposed an automatic review panel, consisting of a student, faculty member and administrator, for students facing suspension, expulsion or revocation of student organization status, which officials maintained in the final code — though a letter obtained by The Hatchet the SAO sent to DSA asked officials to make the independent review panels larger. Officials also expanded the panels’ scope in the final code to allow them to recommend a revised action plan where they deem necessary.

The final code also maintains last month’s reinstatement of the full appeals process, allowing students to appeal any administrator-determined outcome to an administrator. Cases decided by student conduct agreements — agreed-upon resolutions between students and the University — are not eligible for appeal in the existing code or either draft. The final code also allows students to appeal on grounds of disproportionate or inappropriate educational sanctions, language that was present in the April draft but not the November one. 

The initial review came as student organizations like Students for Justice in Palestine and the Anti-Zionist Jewish Student Front — formerly known as Jewish Voice for Peace — have disaffiliated from the University following suspensions for disorderly conduct and discriminatory harassment, respectively. 

The code last underwent a comprehensive revision process during the 2018-19 academic year to remove binary pronouns, add avenues to appeal cases and clarify existing practices, after then-Director of Conflict Education and Student Accountability Christy Anthony realized the code had not undergone a major review since 1996. 

Associate Vice President and Deputy Dean of Students Rachael Stark previously told The Hatchet DSA officials began soliciting feedback from the community in spring 2025 after community members expressed “renewed interest” in the code and its applications in light of shifting University policies, though she did not comment on which ones.

Officials hired D. Stafford & Associates, a Delaware-based consulting firm founded by former GW Police Department Chief Dolores Stafford specializing in campus safety and compliance issues on college campuses, in early spring 2025 to review and suggest revisions to the code, a University spokesperson confirmed in March.

Faculty senators at their April meeting rebuked officials’ final proposed Code of Student Conduct, backing students who have criticized officials’ move to remove students from conduct panels and narrow appeal pathways and saying the changes made the process unfair for students when administrators may be biased against them, like during the pro-Palestinian encampments.

The SAO letter criticizing the initial code proposed officials include the Title IX amnesty policy — which provides amnesty for drug and alcohol violations when students report a sexual assault — but the final code only mentions the Alcohol & Other Drug Medical Amnesty Program and the Good Samaritan Statement, which do not provide amnesty to students who report sexual assault.

The letter asked officials to clarify the role of the Statement on Student Rights and Responsibilities, which is part of the existing code but set to be a separate document in the final code and previous drafts, to ensure students are aware of its protections.

The SAO also asked officials to clarify language prohibiting prescription drugs not accompanied by an authentic medical prescription to allow students to produce a prescription at a later time because it could disproportionately impact students who take multiple medications throughout the day outside the original packaging.

The SAO requested the code clearly define hosting and assisting another student in violating the code, because they are “wary” of language allowing the University to punish a student for another student’s violation. The letter asks officials to restore a list of mitigating factors, including cooperating with conduct processes, present in the existing code but absent from the updated drafts.

Language in the final draft regarding the Statement on Student Rights and Responsibilities, prescription drugs, hosting and assisting and mitigating factors remains unchanged from last month’s draft.