With the exception of six sororities, Alpha Chi and Heorot, all Coed-Fraternity and Sorority houses are privately owned. This means that the College has no legal right to monitor or dictate policy to them. The College does have a trump card, however -- derecognition. This means saying that no students are allowed to live in a CFS house, thereby destroying the house(s). This rule forces houses to accept any or all regulations put upon them. Among the new rules that College Committee on Alcohol and Other Drugs cites should be dictated to CFS houses: 1) Shut off the taps at parties by two a.m. 2) Only 24 kegs on campus at any time, and none during the summer. 3) Safety & Security can monitor parties and enter CFS houses to ensure student safety and legality of drinking.
Now let's consider that these are rules being handed down by the College to private organizations and put things in a slightly different context. Imagine the College was interested in making sure nobody would get intoxicated while (legally) drinking at a bar or restaurant in Hanover. Do you think Murphy's and 5 Olde Nugget would accept the College telling them they were allowed to serve an individual no more than three drinks? That is what they're telling CFS houses with Rule 2. Rule 1 was made because students said they drank late at night "because of a lack of alternatives." Here's an idea: try offering alternatives. Call me crazy, but I think that's what the students were asking for.
The most contemptible of the recommendations is Rule 3. As an American, how could anyone support the unlawful entry of a quasi-police force into a private home? Let's say that I have learned well these college lessons of police rule. I become the mayor of a town and say, "I know there are child abusers out there, and I want to stop them. From now on, the police force will do random searches of homes to look for impropriety." Not only would that announcement cause riots as people tried to defend their right to privacy, but it's also unconstitutional. Yet this is the recommendation made to the College. Unbelievable.
Now let's return to the reasoning behind the CCAOD proposals. As Dean Pelton has stated, it is the College's intent to foster responsible drinking. This, of course, only occurs once a student achieves the state-determined coming-of-age and miraculously blossoms into an adult. What I would like to say is that responsible drinking cannot be maintained under these circumstances. As the CCAOD recognizes, underage drinking will always occur at Dartmouth. When an underaged person drinks, however, they will rarely, if ever, drink responsibly. It is illegal to possess alcohol, so rather than having a single drink with dinner, the lot must be consumed secretly and quickly. The illegal nature of alcohol dictates it will be used in a "high risk" fashion. Once the drinker turns 21, they can be relaxed about their consumption and do so in a moderate fashion. However, after having spent several years bingeing and experiencing that as the accepted norm, there is no impetus to change habits while the drinker is still in college. The system breeds irresponsible drinking.
This said, the College has two ways to deal with underage drinking. It can accept the CCAOD recommendations, or it can challenge the laws that the CCAOD says force it to make them. It is a noble thing to lead a lawful existence, but a law that is wrong must be questioned. I maintain that lowering the legal age to 18 would, with time, defuse many of the problems the CCAOD report cites by removing the stigma associated with alcohol. An 18 year-old drinking age in Canada hasn't created a nation of alcoholics and drunk drivers, and the complete lack of a drinking age in many European countries hasn't either. Why should we accept laws that help cause irresponsible drinking among young adults and coerce the College into putting unconstitutional pressures on CFS houses?
The students of Dartmouth are more than 4,000 individuals; we are 4,000 individuals who can vote (we gained the right to determine our country's future when we turned 18). If this institution turned its efforts to doing away with oppressive laws, we could achieve more than by slowly squeezing students with prohibitory rules. I have been to two schools that were dry and had no CFS houses. At one, students would rent hotel rooms for parties, drinking until they were sick. At the other, students would go out to railroad tracks near school and drink alone in the dark. If this is enforcing responsible drinking, then there is something gravely wrong with our notion of the word responsible.
It is time for us to break the hypocritical impasse that exists with our drinking laws and create an atmosphere conducive to the responsible consumption of alcohol. We have a unique opportunity to either support oppression of civil liberties or to eradicate it. Let us take the morally correct path. Let's work to lower the drinking age.
