Alcohol policy reveals out-of-touch administration
By Travis Mushett
Published on Thursday, April 5, 2007
To the Editor:
In Acting Dean of the College Dan Nelson's op-ed ("Dartmouth's Enforcement of Alcohol Laws," April 3), he claims that "the health, safety and well-being of Dartmouth students is always uppermost in our concerns."
While I do not doubt that his intentions are noble, the current alcohol policy highlights the gulf between the administration and student life. The College strictly enforces the drinking age at school-sponsored events, like Friday Night Rock, while engaging in little more than token enforcement at Greek houses. This inadvertently pushes students -- particularly more vulnerable and less alcohol-experienced underclassmen -- into chaotic and highly gendered fraternity basements.
Furthermore, the half-hearted attempts of the administration to curb drinking in fraternity houses are often counter-productive. Take the open-source policy. Fraternities are prohibited from having kegs, punches or other large drink containers from which party-goers can serve themselves. They must instead be served by Social Event Management Procedures-trained fraternity brothers. This a) increases the ease with which brothers behind the bar could slip something into the drink of a sexual target, and b) reinforces a power dynamic in which women and unaffiliated men must gain the approval of a brother in order to participate in the social scene. The alcohol policy is anti-progressive, bad for women, damaging to the campus community and stifling to the creation of alternative social options.