While many in the Dartmouth community are resigned to the impending presence of Safety and Security officers in Greek houses, I question whether enough attention has been paid to the true rationale for the new policy. It is clear that the College is committed to the policy and within its legal rights. Nonetheless, it is much less clear why such a policy is necessary. As members of the administration have attempted to spin this unwanted intrusion as merely a student safety measure, they have created a credibility gap between their stated and true motives.
The stated primary purpose of the S and S walk-throughs is to increase student safety within the physical plant of Greek houses, not to increase policing. This is a laudable goal but one that is inconsistent with the policy which the administration has crafted. If the justification for walk-throughs is to provide an extra set of eyes to look for "leaking pipes, overflowing toilets" and the like, then why would S and S officers be the best people for this task? S and S officers are trained to deal with discipline violations, not home repair. Facilities, Operations and Management would be the more logical organization to implement the policy, if leaky pipes were the true concern.
Another fallacious justification for the walk through policy is that by increasing interaction between students and S and S officers, students will feel more comfortable asking for their help in an emergency. One need only imagine how administrators would respond to a similar policy with the Hanover police to see how ludicrous this argument is. Were the Hanover police to institute walk-throughs of the common areas of each Hanover home, residents would be up in arms over such an unconstitutional and gross invasion of privacy. Even if the police were courteous and had the best of intentions of helping residents fix up their homes, it would clearly undermine the relationship. Policies handed down from administrators by decree, to which the same administrators would not dare submit themselves, are inherently suspect.
Dartmouth is not bound to respect either the Constitution or the privacy of its students. But it should nonetheless consider whether student relations with S and S would be better under walk-throughs than under the status quo, for this greatly affects student safety. Positive relations between a community and law enforcement body are created when law enforcement is available, but unobtrusive
S and S officers are well aware of this phenomenon, though they are reluctant to speak out about it. I spoke with an officer recently who said that he and his colleagues were strongly opposed to the new policy. His reasons were more practical than philosophical: the policy would erode the trust he had built with students and, as a result, make his job more difficult because he would no longer have students' cooperation. S and S officers are a group of professionals who obey orders, but don't make the mistake of thinking residents of Greek houses are the only ones complying with the walkthrough policy under duress.
It's also telling that it's impossible to find a copy of this new policy on the Dartmouth website. Take a look. If the policies emanating from the Student Life Initiative are as beneficial as we're told, then administrators ought to have the courage to publicize them and allow prospective students, parents and employees to make their own judgments.
So what am I asking for? Clearly the College is committed to the walk-through policy and so it's unrealistic to expect its termination. I have a more basic request: end the obfuscation of your true motives. Close the credibility gap. Let's not pretend this is anything other than a way of increasing the scope of College control over students' daily lives. Let's have a real dialogue about the motives for this policy. A little candor would go a long way.
