Any of the Dartmouth fans who attended this weekend's double-header against Columbia and the University of Pennsylvania at Red Rolfe field will tell you that heckling at baseball games, also known as America's favorite pastime -- heckling, not baseball -- is on the verge of extermination.
Safety and Security, that loveable institution that safeguards our well-being and constitutional rights while here at Dartmouth, has decided that the time has come to, yet again, destroy something that normal people find entertaining and innocuous. An example of innocuous might be pointing at a Safety and Security officer and making a funny face. Another example might be yelling out to a Columbia pitcher, "You listen to Coldplay!" I think that those two examples can safely be labeled innocuous, but please do write a rebuttal if you feel otherwise.
A line certainly does have to be drawn. Overt profanity or racial remarks without question warrant ejection -- there are small children and families at nearly every game, and those comments are in terrible taste and are just wrong. However, this weekend Safety and Security ejected and threatened to eject a number of students for ridiculously inoffensive comments, such as "you're a Hillary Duff music fan," or "stay in your box, my son."
This is a baseball game. There is always heckling at a baseball game. The "private institution argument" is often made in defense of the college's lax adherence to certain parts of the U.S. constitution -- i.e., that whole "Bill of Rights" joke that some of the more overcautious founders added on at the last minute. This private versus public argument is absurd. Dartmouth accepts money from the federal government, and certainly the U.S. Congress expects that institutions of higher-learning that receive taxpayers' dollars adhere to the legal pillars of the American government -- they almost always are required by law to do so. Plus the phrase "freedom of speech" has a nice ring to it, and I'm pretty sure it was a line in a Golden Globe-winning film I once saw that starred California governor and fellow patriot, Arnold Schwarzenegger.
Also, the home field advantage that our players get in "heckling sports" is hindered by the storm troopers over at Safety and Security. At almost every other Ivy League institution, heckling goes uninhibited -- just ask any of your friends who play "heckling sports" such as baseball or hockey.
Several alumni at the game were also not too happy with Safety and Security's decision to crack down on students for these harmless comments. I honestly heard one alumnus say that he was going to stop donating to Dartmouth's administration after the overzealous responses from Safety and Security. If alums are getting angry, it's probably safe to say that this article is not just expressing the opinion of an unstable, washed-up, alcoholic student (to quote my parents and, coincidentally, my Safety and Security file), but rather those of more reasonable persons as well. Whatever happened to "Live Free or Die," anyway? After this weekend I know what those state-motto guys were talking about when they came up with that mildly psychotic slogan 230 years ago. It really does suck to live without freedom of speech, even if only for a few hours at a college baseball game. Seven definitely should've "stayed in his box," and that pitcher definitely listens to Coldplay. And no one should have been ejected for pointing that out. See you when I get back from my four-term, Parkhurst-sponsored "freedom of speech" vacation.
