Cleaning Up Off-Campus Housing
Tenants' rights exist to protect renters from unfair landlords, but they are only effective when enforced. In Hanover, an unlikely spot for substandard living conditions, landlords are mistreating student renters and flagrantly violating state law while officials provide shamefully little enforcement of tenants' rights.
Landlords take advantage of the fact that students are busy, move frequently and are generally unaware of the law. Many students, meanwhile, are afraid to report violations since, to afford the housing, they are forced to violate an outmoded town ordinance prohibiting more than three unrelated people from living together.
While Hanover officials say they are aware of the problem, the town has done too little. The local zoning board plans to implement a minimum-standards code and inspection program, but not until next summer. While this is a step in the right direction, the town should go further and make sure that no rental unit is overlooked, and do so immediately.
The College also has a responsibility to act. In addition to providing more apartment-style housing options so that students wishing to have their own kitchens need not turn to predatory landlords, the administration should provide advice and services for students who face rental difficulties. The College would also be effective if it more actively pressured the town to discipline unlawful landlords.
Unfair rental practices can no longer be ignored. Both town and College officials should make sure that students are not forced to live in substandard conditions.
Righting Financial Aid
Yale University has joined the handful of colleges across the nation that have agreed to compensate students denied federal financial aid because of drug convictions. Dartmouth should join the schools in ensuring that this misguided federal provision does not jeopardize the education of any of its students.
The government's stance is inherently biased against people from disadvantaged backgrounds since drug convictions only endanger the education of students who require financial aid. And the arbitrary targeting of drug offenders -- ignoring all other federal offenses -- shows that the policy is little more than a political gesture.
Students with drug convictions are denied the greatest outlet for moving away from drug use and toward greater social mobility -- a college education.
For Dartmouth to enact such a policy would not cost the College any great deal of money, as the number of students affected would likely be low. Last year, for example, no Dartmouth students lost federal aid as a result of the provision.
Yet the policy would send a strong message that Dartmouth will not allow the education of its students to be compromised by a political agenda.
Under the Influence
A bill under consideration in the New Hampshire Senate would, if passed, allow suspected underage drinkers to be arrested for the ill-defined act of "constructive possession." The intentional ambiguity of the bill's language gives police an unacceptable power to intrude on civil liberties.
In an effort to calm critics, New Hampshire State Liquor Commission Chief of Enforcement Aiden Moore said that "Law enforcement can't just arbitrarily stop people walking down the street."
But it isn't clear what would prevent police officers from doing exactly that. According to Hanover Police Chief Nick Giaccone, law enforcement only needs to show that a suspect "exhibited signs of intoxication" to get a conviction under the "constructive" standard.
So the bill would allow officers to make arrests if, in their opinion, a suspect showed external signs of having internal possession -- an idea that stretches the definition of both "possession" and "probable cause."
By setting such flexible standards, the proposed bill would effectively make the personal judgment of police officers the word of law. Even if the result were a deterrence of some underage drinking, the cost in personal freedom and the potential for human error would be too high.
