Greek houses are facing felony charges for providing alcohol to us. College President Jim Yong Kim says over and over that we drink to excess. The indefinite threat of Hanover Police's sting operations continues to linger over our campus. And after this weekend, it's no longer safe for us to use the Good Samaritan policy to help out fellow students in need. What's to become of drinking at Dartmouth?
Many have pointed to the sudden escalation in enforcement by Hanover Police as the problem. They've charged The Tabard, Psi Upsilon, Theta Delta Chi, Sigma Delta and Sigma Alpha Epsilon with felony offenses for serving alcohol to students. But the fact of the matter is that we can always count on them to hold us to the law they have consistently announced their intention to do so. Some say that the Kim administration is not doing enough to prevent local police from becoming involved with student life. But it's not their responsibility to protect us from ourselves, and we've seen what happens when they do so from the flat-out ban on the river docks this summer. They've failed to defend the Good Samaritan policy, an indication that seeking their further assistance is a waste of effort.
Could it be time for Dartmouth to stop drinking? Don't be ridiculous. The "D" in Dartmouth stands for drinking, and that's something that will never leave our campus culture. But it's becoming more and more crucial that we become smarter drinkers (or "hard guys," if you will) for the sake of protecting other students' right to drink.
That largely means understanding the full impact of our actions and inaction. The vast majority of Dartmouth students understand how to manage heavy drinking. We're not seeing large groups of students wreaking havoc that leads to the prosecution of Greek houses. The problem lies in poor planning and a lack of foresight among a minority of students that lack the readiness to handle worst-case scenario situations. And where their lack of judgment has resulted in our current predicament, it falls upon the students around them to take responsibility.
There is an appalling lack of mental preparation shown by this small group of Dartmouth students, whose actions have led to felony charges against Greek houses who allegedly hosted them as guests and provided them with drinks. These students have not prepared themselves to exercise their Fifth Amendment right to remain silent and do not understand the consequences of providing names of Greek houses to law enforcement officials. Nor do they understand what will come of calling help to a Greek house; the relationship between state-run emergency medical services and state-run law enforcement is obvious. One service will accompany the other. These students must learn personal responsibility that they cannot allow their choice to drink to adversely affect the entire campus. If you believe in your inalienable right to eat and drink as you see fit, then you must understand that it can just as quickly be taken away if you ask government agencies to step in.
But Dartmouth students will still drink themselves silly, and the responsibility will lie on fellow students to protect them for all of our sakes. It's time for us to understand that we may need to act as the last resort for some student friend or stranger on any given night, and that a large part of our collective decision to drink is to help others be responsible when they cannot. We are all capable adults who understand how to handle intoxication. We should be able to effectively take care of one another forcing a friend to induce vomiting, preventing your drunk friend from choking, keeping the inebriated properly hydrated, checking their breathing and temperature and utilizing other basic first aid without state-run help. That '14 streaking past a police car on Frat Row may not appreciate you stopping them in their drunken state, but the consequences of not doing so are too dire for us all. By thinking and acting in terms of potential consequences, we can put an end to the threat that faces Dartmouth's drinking culture.
The drinking at Dartmouth won't stop. This isn't Brown University, and Kim will slowly come to acknowledge this fact. But it's vital for us as smart drinkers to manage our drinking without calling for school or government intervention. When we do, we give them reason to enforce the alcohol-related laws and punish everyone on our campus.
