In my meeting with the Counselor, I informed him and the "RA's" (Residential Assistants), that I would fight to run a clean Court come Hell or high water. We knew things might get messy, but they gave me of their firm support.
Court was in session once a week, and for the first couple of weeks my plan was to watch and see how they operated. The building had open dormitory-style rooms with many bunk beds and private "Honor Rooms" on the upper floors for the officers and senior students. The day before court was "bribe day" where the students that had been written up, would pay money to have their judgments reduced. They also had the option of paying even more cash to ensure a verdict of not guilty.
If you were broke, you were completely fucked.
Besides greenbacks, the other currency on campus were cigarettes and I kid you not, *Little Debbie* Oatmeal Cakes. There was also a brisk business in selling single cigarettes to students who couldn't afford to buy a whole pack.
Bribe day
So the line for bribes would snake out of the honor rooms like little dollar bills with legs attached. Of course, cakes and cigs weren't the only things accepted for payment. The dorms were separated into all female buildings, or like mine, all male. For the truly unfortunate without money or goods available to trade for votes, there was one Justice who was willing to make a very special deal. If the student was really good-looking, he'd meet them at the door in a pair of itty bitty candy-apple red bikini shorts. Through the crack, the room REEKED of sex. The door would close, and everyone would hear the sounds of services being rendered...
So you can see the mess I was dealing with here.
I felt so sorry for these kids as the little money we were paid every two weeks was intended for us to get personal items in town. To have to hand that over to corrupt dorm officers was completely absurd.
On court day, the gang invited me to their well-appointed room. There, they had every available amenity. Turns out, being dirty paid very well indeed. They explained to me how things were gonna be. The students would pay in advance, with an amount given to receive either a warning all the way up to complete exoneration. The money would be split among all the justices, with everyone getting an equal share. Once the funds were received, the students names were put on a list with the amount they gave and the verdict purchased.
And who was that list entrusted to?
Me, the Secretary. You know, the guy who handled all of the court's paperwork.
That was their big mistake...
These guys had no concern for how this rotten system affected these impoverished students. Many of them with no hope for college and here as a last resort or due to a court order. I tried to appeal to any shred of decency these guys might have had to no avail. They all expressed complete disdain for the poor students who had to pay them. However for the ones who couldn't afford to buy a vote, "justice" was swift and very vindictive. Satisfied that these soul-sucking vampires had not even a small resivoir of compassion, I resolved to bring them all down.
Court day
Throngs of kids gathered in the hall outside of the courtroom on Court Day. We all had to pass this gauntlet of students. I'll never forget the cheers that erupted for me and the pats on the back as I went to attend my first session. Many of them knew me and everyone on campus knew that I was an honest guy.
For some reason, my character seemed to stand out and made me a curiosity, as if being honest were something to wonder at.
If people like me are rare, then something's wrong with the world.
I'd told a few trustworthy people what I was about to do, and warned them that these guys wouldn't go down without a fight. Things were about to get messy and justice would not be quick, but I would fight on consequences be damned!
The officers had given me a huge stack of write-ups. Some people had more than one. We kept a file on each student and all of the infractions they were charged with. The files also contained the verdicts reached. This would become key going forward.
So, kids come in and their charges are read out to them by the Chief Justice. They are given a chance to defend themselves, and are dismissed to wait in the hall while we deliberate. If they were on the "paid" list, this was a formality and we would call them back in to hear their pre-arranged verdict. If they had not paid the bribe, that's when the real court began.
Being new, I was only allowed to observe for the first session and not vote. This was great because it allowed to see how the whole thing was structured and kept me out of a cut of the bribes which I would never have accepted anyway.
Watching and learning, as kids came in and seeing the machine of evil crush those that couldn't pay. Some students were only a few convictions away from being kicked off campus and violating their court orders. For some, there were real-life consequences in being unable to "feed the machine" of injustice.
Cheers would erupt in the halls for the ones exonerated. I'd pepper the other officers with questions about why they were voting the way they did. They pointed at the list. Many times, evidence didn't matter. As I said before, a conviction could result in "rolling violations" if you were late showing up for your community service. If you were even seconds late say, for your hour of weeding the campus, that would generate another write-up. If the officer judging your work didn't like the job you did, that would trigger another violation/court visit and even more potential bribes.
See what they were doing?
So there I was, in the weakest position on the court and with the title of Secretary that nobody wanted and the other justices laughed at.
And then the laughter stopped.
The power of paper
Being Secretary, I had all of the paperwork. Not only the bribe lists, but each students court history and I controlled all of the write-ups. I also controlled the order that students appeared before the court. This made me realize that if I could group students charged with similar infractions and court history, I could actually affect the votes of the justices.
It's week two and now I can vote. I'd met with the Counselor and gave him my initial findings. In almost complete disbelief, he's intrigued, but wants to see if their behavior is sustained and tells me to keep gathering information. At court people were usually called in at random, with the write-ups in a big pile. I began to sort them in the following way:
Say we have two kids appearing before the court. Both were charged with being late for a PAP meeting and have a similar history in the dorm. Student "A" paid the bribe, so they like him and buys a not guilty vote. Student "B" didn't pay, and is facing 5-25 hours of community service (1 or 2 hours a day) which may trigger the rolling violations I mentioned above.
So I call "A" first. They give him a not guilty verdict. Then "B" comes in soon after, and they punish him with 15-hours of service for not bribing them. I'm outvoted 4 to 1. It's all over right? Nope, I pull out the history of both students and remind them that they'd cleared the first student charged with the same offense.
"You let the first one go, so you have to let the second one go!"
At that, they all began to look at each other, likely realizing that I was not going to play ball. They refused to vote honestly, so I made a pre-arrainged call to the RA, who backed me up and ordered them to change their votes. The students are hearing all of this shouting in the courtroom as I demanded justice for them. We call "B" in and I give him the good news. There were cheers in the hallway after he left, because everyone knew he had not paid. However with icy stares from the other justices, they knew I wasn't one of them and the battle was ON.
This ordering of students also worked in the opposite way. Where they have a student who they hated who was actually guilty, followed by one they liked who was as well. I always made them vote the proper way. Then the threats started happening.
Blanket party
On campus, we had something called a "Blanket Party." This is where masked guys rush into a room, bundle a sleeping student into a blanket and then beat him senseless. So, I walk into my room and am at my desk working on my court list. A piece of paper is slid underneath my door and I hear footsteps running away. Inside was a threat to blanket party me if I didn't stop opposing the other justices.
That's when I knew we were winning.
I wasn't afraid of being attacked, as I shared an Honor Room with a Christian student. It was on the top floor at the end of a hallway of other Honor Rooms, and everyone up there was looking out for me. There were so many threats that I was assigned a security escort. He was a Christian guy named Angel from Bayamon, Puerto Rico, with a heart of gold and fists of steel. Angel accompanied me around campus. He was not about to let anything happen to me.
Turns out, business was down in the bribe room. Folks were beginning to notice that they didn't have to pay, because someone was fighting for them. The "Gang of Four" even offered me an increased share of the bribes if I would only relent, but of course I refused.
Justice is done
In my second month on the court, the Counselor had seen enough. He'd finally had enough free time to digest everything and to interview students that had been affected by the gang, but the threats against me were the last straw.
During a tumultuous meeting of the entire dorm each member of "The Gang of Four" were called up in front of the Counselor. One by one they were charged with their crimes and in front of everyone, ordered to pack their bags, escorted to the guards office by security and kicked out of Job Corps. They were driven directly back to their homes in the "DMV" (Delaware, Maryland and Virginia), and we were free at last of their wicked influence.
Everyone cheered their departure and I was surrounded in a sea of hugs. I gave a short speech telling everyone that I didn't do this all myself. There were many brave students who didn't have a security escort like I did that put themselves on the line as well. A new court was appointed with input from me and Angel became Chief Justice. He was leaving in six months and I wanted someone honest heading it. There was talk of running me for Dorm President, but I backed out as I wanted to make sure this new court was firmly established with a history of doing the right thing. People couldn't understand why I turned the Presidency down, however over the next eighteen months, my presence was needed to keep us on the straight and narrow until justice became the norm.
A new chapter
During that time, I hunted around to find someone like me to take over as Secretary. Six months before graduation, I found him. He was a new student in a club that played the board game RISK with me. We had long conversations in my dorm room, where it became obvious that he had the same strong moral center and sense of fair play that I did. Since the Counselor allowed me to choose my successor, we decided to keep his selection a secret.
Now that everyone knew the Secretary position was actually the most powerful one on the court, everyone wanted in on it. So we pretended I was loaded down with work and he was introduced as my assistant. This gave him time to shadow me at the sessions. He was smart and asked tons of questions about why I did certain things and caught on quickly. I set up a training court in my room where I'd ask him " how would you vote in this instance?" and explained what I would do. It was awesome watching him grow in knowledge and it turned out he was the right choice.
My last day was bittersweet. I don't like saying goodbye and told no one but the Counselor and the new Secretary that I was leaving. There was so much affection for me that we didn't want him to be overshadowed by my departure. The point was to turn over the page to him quickly so he could shine all on his own. We snuck out by the rear entrance while the students were away at class. They were told I was ill and it was almost two weeks before anyone knew I was gone. Over the next two years, the center kept me up to date on his progress. He'd call me for advice when he had a knotty decision to make and he ended up turning the position over to someone else just like the two of us.
That's the thing I'm most proud of. That I wasn't short-sighted in just cleaning up the court while I was on it, but in establishing a tradition of handing off the position of Secretary to someone good, which continued long after I left. The point in life is to try and leave things better than you found them. It seems I did. ;)
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