Director of Safety and Security Harry Kinne's response ("Alcohol infraction numbers require more context," Feb. 20) to my guest op-ed ("Thirsty for a Reasonable Alcohol Policy," Feb. 16) contains statistics that shed little light on the reasoning behind Dartmouth's punitive alcohol policy.
Certainly the College's Safety and Security department renders many commendable services, as Kinne carefully enumerates. But I was not advocating the abolition of Safety and Security. I simply noted that in low-crime Hanover, the size and the cost of the College's security force is disproportionately high compared to Yale University's police department.
Kinne's reply to my remark mirrors the explanation often given by College administrators to critics of Dartmouth's swollen bureaucracy. But let's not be distracted by his recitation of Safety and Security's various achievements. The issue at hand is not whether these College employees are doing some valuable work, but rather whether all of their work is necessary and cost-effective.
On the subject of alcohol, Kinne is correct in observing that he brought to my attention the fact that until Oct. 1, 2006, there were important distinctions between the state alcohol laws in force in Hanover and in New Haven. However, he omits to add that I, in turn, informed him that Yale has formally announced that despite Connecticut's new laws, it will maintain its tolerant posture toward alcohol consumption by underage students. Yale's position was confirmed by Council of Masters Chair Judith Krauss on Oct. 25, 2006 at an open forum on alcohol sponsored by the Yale College Council.
Kinne also asserts that he told me that my "belief that we turn over a large number of students to Hanover Police was incorrect." Not true. Besides, the term that I used in my column was "often," and it is curious, and perhaps even telling, that Kinne chose not to provide a corrected numerical figure in his column. Similarly, Kinne maintained that "Asch's numbers for Dartmouth are greatly inflated," but he did not offer any statistics to replace the ones that I advanced, figures that Dartmouth itself reported to the federal government under the Clery Act.
I'll leave it to Kinne to provide accurate numbers in place of his adjectives "large" and "inflated," but suffice it to say that he and I agree that each year Safety and Security, unlike the Yale University Police, turns over students to the local police.
In addition, as I pointed out in my op-ed, many students end up in the hands of the Hanover Police (whether or not they are picked up as part of a Good Samaritan call) when Safety and Security brings them to Dick's House and they are then transported to the Dartmouth-Hitchcock Medical Center in the Town of Hanover ambulance. Each time that Dick's House employees call for the Hanover ambulance, they do so in the knowledge that the Hanover Police will likely be along to make an arrest.
Despite the above quibbling over exact numbers, a second truth remains: Dartmouth's Safety and Security force also apprehends hundreds of students each year for alcohol violations and these students are usually subject to College discipline -- whereas Yale University has chosen not to sanction drinking by underage students.
The Wright administration's justification for this situation -- that Safety and Security is obligated to enforce state law -- is disingenuous when you consider that Dartmouth Safety and Security only has the status of a private security guard service; it has no legal obligation whatsoever to enforce any laws. In contrast, the Yale University Police Department is a duly constituted police force with "arrest powers." Its armed officers are sworn to uphold the laws of the State of Connecticut.
We should also note that Yale's alcohol regulations were developed after extensive public deliberation by Yale's Committee on Alcohol Policy. Yale's regulations did not originate with the Chief of the Yale University Police, Kinne's counterpart in New Haven. Kinne did not create Dartmouth's alcohol policy either. He told me himself that his Safety and Security staff is directed by the Dartmouth administration to behave as it does. My message was that the administration should instruct Kinne's force to behave differently; it certainly has the discretion to do so.
If the Dartmouth administration chooses not to adopt a tolerant alcohol policy like Yale's, then a senior administrator should be forthright with us and share the real reasoning behind the College's harsh stance on student drinking.
We should expect no less. Hundreds of Dartmouth undergraduates deserve to know why they have New Hampshire police records and sanctions in their College files for behavior that would have elicited no punishment at all at Yale University.
