I don’t really drink much. Occasionally, I’ll have some wine with a nice meal or sip on a beer if I’m thirsty in a basement and there are no alternatives present. Most of the time, however, I prefer not to drink. I don’t abstain from alcohol for religious or moral reasons or because I’m not yet 21. Rather, having had ample opportunity to experience alcohol and discover how I felt and behaved while under its influence, I’ve realized that I personally do not enjoy the feeling of getting drunk.
I do not judge or begrudge my peers, most of whom are legal adults, who make the personal choice to drink. Furthermore, I cannot endorse the hard alcohol ban, which limits students’ ability to experiment with and experience alcohol and come to their own conclusions about their drinking choices — a process which I was able to go through and which I believe to be fundamental to the transition into the adult world.
The hard alcohol ban is, at its core, paternalistic — most students are legal adults that have left their parents’ nests. They are generally capable of making their own choices and responsible for dealing with the consequences. Administrators appear to believe — or are possibly trying to make outsiders believe — that the ban is for our own good, protecting us from the consequences of what they deem to be our misguided actions. Instead, they are infantilizing us and halting much of the personal development that comes about from interacting with the world and making decisions, experiencing the negative and positive outcomes of those decisions and then choosing to continue or modify our future behavior based on those outcomes. It appears administrators have concluded that students are incapable of restraint and, if left to their own devices and without carefully constrained options, will choose the most destructive path and never learn from mistakes. Administrators have assumed the role of the nurturing parent, punishing the naughty child out of love and for the child’s best interest.
While many people have compared the ban to Prohibition in the 1920s, a more contemporary and apt analogy is to abstinence-only sex education. States that require schools to limit sexual education to abstinence-only curricula, which often employ shame and fear tactics, do not prevent teenagers from having sex, as demonstrated by their high rates of teen pregnancy. In contrast, many states that do not mandate abstinence be taught in sex education often provide students with a more comprehensive sexual education that includes information about how to have safe sex and what the physical and emotional consequences could be and tend to have lower rates of teenage pregnancy.
Seeing as teaching teenagers how to make informed decisions about their sex lives appears to successfully limit negative consequences such as pregnancy, the College may find similar success in teaching students about the potential physical, emotional and legal consequences of drinking and how to minimize their negative effects.
As the College — and society as a whole — should have recognized and acknowledged by now, there always has been — and likely always will be — a number of young adults that will consume alcohol. By banning hard alcohol outright, administrators run the risk of driving drinking further underground and discouraging students from seeking necessary medical help for intoxication out of a fear of being punished. If administrators cannot prevent drinking, they should at least try to make drinking safer. The best way to do this is not by restricting our choices, but rather by broadening our education on the matter.
Instead, what appears to be broadening — if the College’s response to the branding at Alpha Delta fraternity are any indication — is administrative paternalism. If the branding was in any way coercive, then punishment is clearly appropriate. If it was, however, voluntary — as the fraternity’s attorney has claimed — and coincidentally took place during members’ first terms in the fraternity, the fraternity should not be punished. Adults should have the right to choose whether they wish to modify their own bodies in a way that does not harm others.
Branding may seem extreme because it involves burning flesh, but it is not so dissimilar to people voluntarily inserting needles into their flesh to receive tattoos or piercings. As with the choice to drink alcohol, an adult student should be free to make the choice to be branded and to live with any subsequent consequences, as long as their decision is voluntary and does not inflict harm on others. If negative repercussions result — which is not uncommon when adults make real-world decisions — then it is up to the student to deal with the fallout and perhaps reevaluate their decision moving forward.
It is not the College’s place to serve as a nearly $62,000-per-year babysitter or a second set of parents, but rather to provide an educational experience that allows us to transition into adults who think critically, assess the world around us and make decisions accordingly. This includes treating us as the legal adults that we are and permitting us to make our own choices — so long as our choices do not involve harming others. Rather than try to restrict our choices in a Sisyphean attempt to prevent potential negative outcomes, administrators need to acknowledge that some young adults will choose to drink, regardless of policies or laws. If administrators would truly like to increase student safety, students should be taught in a realistic and honest manner about the dangers and potential consequences of drinking. Ultimately, when students choose to drink alcohol of any type, responsible drinking — not complete abstinence — should be encouraged by the College.
