Hey, WUPD: We like your style
Staff Editorial
Posted September 21, 2009 at 12:47 am
When we first heard about the recent influx of complaints from the University City community about noise and trash from Wash. U. students living north of campus, our thoughts jumped to concern about what this could mean for WUPD’s historically liberal alcohol policy. We hold fond memories of frat parties and suite parties from our years as underclassmen, and we respect WUPD for enabling us to have them. We feel that it is imperative that the police department maintains a similar stance on off-campus parties as they do on campus—A hands-off policy that lets us drink responsibly enables the continuation of a mutually respectful relationship between students and the authorities.
Police Chief Don Strom addressed our concerns in a recent interview. When asked about the recent noise complaints, he remained respectful toward student needs, saying, “We’ve tried to partner with the U City police to try and address these issues…and assist them in creating a quality of life for students in those neighborhoods.” He acknowledged that a large portion of the increase in complaints may simply be due to the fact that people have new ways to complain: Social networking has made it easier to express concerns about the community.
However, Strom also emphasized that the potential for off-campus parties to get out of control is high, and that students often inhabit the same neighborhoods as families “that may go to bed at 10 p.m.” For WUPD, it is essential that University students remain respectful toward ordinances that forbid outdoor consumption of alcohol and the distribution of trash in yards. But, Strom says, students can often address their neighbors’ concerns themselves: “It would be helpful for them to talk to their neighbors and understand what their neighbors deem to be acceptable.”
Socializing forms a key component of the experience at the University, and students living off campus in their own apartments—many of whom are over 21—should be allowed to socialize responsibly at large gatherings involving alcohol, just as WUPD’s policy enables students living on the South 40, the North Side and in fraternity houses to do.
Because WUPD’s policy has been liberal toward underage drinking, this campus has been a safer—and arguably better—place. As legal adults, we are allowed to experiment with alcohol safely and on our own terms, developing a safe relationship with the substance—one that is not over-dependent or secretive. The risks of binge drinking—the kind of drinking that goes on quietly and behind closed doors—are high. Students with alcohol poisoning may not seek help if they feel that charges will be pressed, and often, “pre-gaming”—drinking before events where alcohol is forbidden—leads to irresponsibly rapid consumption. Rape and sexual assault are more likely to occur in alcohol-charged situations, and are less likely to be reported when a good relationship does not exist between party-goers and the authorities.
We commend WUPD for its historic understanding of our social world and its commitment to our safety. We encourage students and their neighbors to engage in a dialogue that promotes a mutually-respectful attitude toward partying so that this social world—a safe and enjoyable environment—can persist without problems.
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On September 21, 2009 at 11:56 pm CB said
I was shocked to read this. How can the editors suggest Wash U’s lax drinking policy makes things safer? It’s because drinking is so unregulated that more than a few people drink dangerously. Stricter penalties are consistent deterrents, and since alcohol is such a frequent factor in sexual assault, doesn’t it make sense to limit alcohol consumption to those of age? And it’s nonsense to think pre-gaming is lessened when WUPD is less strict; I bet if you surveyed partygoers, a clear majority would say they pregame often. All Wash U’s policy does is breed so-called “social drinkers.”
On September 22, 2009 at 12:53 pm MK said
It is preposterous to suggest in the slightest that “it’s because drinking is so unregulated that more than a few people drink dangerously.” I do not know in what world you live, Mr. CB, but out here in the real world stricter penalties do not act as deterrents in the least. They merely encourage students to drink underground and out of sight – something much more dangerous than drinking where the authorities can keep an eye on you.
If drinking at a younger age causes one to drink more dangerously, then why do students in European countries (where the drinking age is lower) tend not to over-consume alcohol on a daily basis? I’ll give you a hint – they don’t have to hide their consumption, and so they drink around people who are able to appropriately monitor their drinking. Tell me, which is more dangerous; sneaking into your parents garage to pound that bottle of vodka before they find you, or drinking in a civilized manner in your living room, where they can stop you if you’ve had too much? The same concept applies to universities.
You say we should “limit alcohol consumption to those of age,” without truly considering your words. What does “of age” mean? The ‘age’ of legal alcohol consumption is, in the United States, a randomly-chosen number that has no relation to any other age limit in the country. You stop being a minor when you turn 18, you can join the army when you turn 18, and you can buy cigarettes when you turn 18. You are Legally An Adult at the age of 18. At 18 you can rent your own property without parental consent, you can purchase your own airplane tickets and fly out of the country, you can drive a car. The one and only thing that you cannot do at the age of 18 (besides become president) is legally drink.
So yes, we should limit alcohol consumption to those of age – but of the age that the law has determined relevant for everything else in life; 18.
On September 22, 2009 at 3:00 pm Read your own newspaper said
Last Friday, you published an article headlined “Binge drinking a bigger problem among college students,” and then you turn around and defend WUPD for a policy that encourages drinking?
Not to mention that students who live off-campus take on certain responsibilities that come with living in the “real world,” like neighbors who aren’t college students… and the University City PD.
On September 22, 2009 at 4:47 pm ST said
As one of the residents you mention, I want to point out that it is not your “responsible drinking” that has led to the increase in complaints. It stems from your littering our yards, urinating on our shrubbery, overturning our dumpsters, defacing our property, and your general loudness and lewdness until all hours of the morning. It just so happens that you are irresponsibly drunk when participating in these illegal activities.
You want a “mutually respectful” relationship with authorities, but fail to mention the residents who call those authorities. If you respect the residents, there is no need for the authorities. Students over 21 absolutely can participate in gatherings with alcohol – just not in my yard. Nor can you use my fence as a toilet or doodle board on your way home. You are worried about the student’s quality of life in “these neighborhoods”? How insanely selfish. What about the resident’s quality of life?
How are we residents working to maintain a mutually respectful relationship with students? So far, by not having you arrested. By uprighting our own dumpsters, picking up your trash, hosing your urine off our fences in the mornings, and simply posting signs asking for your respect and quiet after 10:00. By not videotaping you in the middle of these illegal acts. What will you do?
When you leave Wash U property and come onto mine, you make a choice – a choice to fall under my eye and the jurisdiction of the U City police. As a permanent resident and a taxpayer, I look forward to U City’s support in stopping these illegal activities.
Real laws come with real neighbors. That’s what this comes down to – respect for others and the law. You’ll realize that once you come back to the real world.
On September 23, 2009 at 9:49 am WU Senior said
As a Wash U student, I have to completely agree with ST. This article ironically argues that being allowed to drink prevents abusing that privilege, but seems to ignore the “noise and trash” and more that WU students’ abuse is causing. My advice to ST is please DO videotape these students. Please DO have them arrested. The point of living off campus is that you begin to enter into the real world. If WU students aren’t willing to leave the WU bubble, they shouldn’t move off campus.
Should 18-20 year olds be allowed to drink responsibly? Yes. But these are examples of irresponsible drinking and they should be dealt with accordingly.
On September 24, 2009 at 4:45 pm Prof@WU said
To the Resident:
Move. You chose to live in a place called “University City”. What were you thinking? It was Kindergarten University? I’m pretty sure the University was there before you. If you want quiet, move to Chesterfield. Your property is worth plenty (thanks to the University), so I think you can afford it.
To CB (the dude who thinks people respond to rewards and punishments):
Go to college. The rational world of economics doesn’t work in the real world, and the students know that better than those in the “real world”.
To WU Senior:
You are in the real world. Wake up. Have a beer.
On September 24, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Jerome Howard Bauer said
“To the extent that institutions of this sort contribute to the division of our nation into two Americas, they do more harm than good to our nation. Perhaps we should rethink our mission. Perhaps our students should grow up a bit.” I wrote this last year in a response to your annual Valentine’s Day issue, entitled by StudLife “Grow Up.” WUPD’s policy of tolerance for underage drinking and marijuana use contributes to this division, and to our unfortunate reputation as an expanding bubble of snot. Let’s reform our alcohol and marijuana laws, but let’s have one law for one America. Let our chief product not be arrogant scofflaws. Let Washington University in St Louis respect the labor laws as well, and let us take seriously our school’s motto, “strength through truth.”
WUPD, I too like your style. I appreciate your polite way of harassing and surveilling your political opponents, or those whom you are ordered to regard as such. Speaking now only for myself, I thank the plainclothes security guard who identified himself as such, shook my hand and congratulated me for teaching free classes to the other unemployed, at Spring 08 WUstock. He accepted a free t-shirt for Cervantes Free University. Next, he called WUPD, and I was surrounded by no less than three police officers in full uniform, who stood looking fierce and embarrassed, in full public view in the middle of the Swamp, before they gave up and let me go without incident. Was I about to create a disturbance by giving away what the University will no longer pay me to do for them?
Marijuana violators, despite the stated policy of zero tolerance, are given a slap on the wrist: an essay assignment on the health risks of pot. Alcohol abusers are tolerated, at the expense of our neighbors. Rebel Lecturers, sit-in participants, and other political dissidents are not beaten up, tasered, or maced in the face, as they are elsewhere in our city. WUPD, I like your style. Speaking strictly for myself…
Washington University in St Louis and other class I “research” universities have been described as the bastard offspring of non-profits and multinational corporations. They receive public funding, tax breaks, and many other concessions. Let’s rethink this.
My loyalty is to Washington University of Utopia: what the school COULD be, most definitely NOT what it is now.
Lecturer Dr. Jerome Bauer
–local homeowner and taxpayer
–with at least 10,000 hours of sweat equity in WashU, and at least as much right to a voice here as any Trustee with a bag of money or any tenured professor
–who has never, and never will, post to StudLife pseudonymously or anonymously
On September 24, 2009 at 9:18 pm Jerome Bauer said
PS. WUPD also keeps the riff-raff out of the WashU dumpsters. I do no dumpster diving, but I know people who do, and this is what they tell me.
On September 24, 2009 at 11:42 pm LK said
@ST
As a resident of U Drive, I have to ask, do you live in a bubble? The crime rates in St. Louis are INSANE compared to the rest of country. Not long ago a police officer was murdered on the Loop, practically your and my doorstep, and you want the police to spend their precious time making sure a few students whisper when they’re walking home at 10:00? The muggings and crime in U City have been getting worse and worse in the 3+ years I’ve been here, in your neighborhood, and somehow student noise is your priority? What planet do you live on?
Prof@WashU is right. Unless you moved into your home prior to 1853, I’m not sure what exactly you were expecting.
As for the rest of the commenters who don’t understand the logic of this column, I’m from a college town with university that enforces underage drinking laws and parental university drinking policies down to the letter. Several students have DIED from binge drinking in the past year because underage students are too afraid to take their friends to the hospital when they’ve had too much to drink because they will be punished and put on probation for doing so. This is why I commend Wash U for its reasonable alcohol policy and for creating a community that has a support system for those with true drinking problems while letting the rest of us use our own common sense.
On September 25, 2009 at 9:22 am
Jerome Bauer said
Of course we want a common sense alcohol and drug policy, and WUPD and the WashU Administration ought to be congratulated for their commitment to our students’ safety and security. I agree with the main point of the editorial.
That having been said, the issue of privilege and selective enforcement of the law keeps coming up in our discussion of these issues. I probably made myself very unpopular by pointing out that WUPD has had a similarly lax policy towards marijuana use. One cannot really overdose on pot. The ill effects on one’s health generally take a long time to develop, hence the essay on the long term dangers of marijuana, as punishment for public pot smoking on campus. I know WUPD cracks down from time to time. Just last year, or the year before, they busted a fraternity. I believe I recall that the StudLife coverage talked around the issue of drug abuse. If we are going to be open and honest about underage drinking, why not marijuana and other drugs as well? The issue is not only safety, it is privilege. One can generally get away with a lot more in the WashU Bubble.
Drug laws are selectively enforced everywhere. Political dissidents, for example, are more often busted for pot. This is no secret. It was official Nixon Administration policy, and everybody knows it is still common practice. Race and class are factors as well.
Lecturer Dr. Jerome Bauer
On September 26, 2009 at 6:24 pm
Jerome Bauer said
Another example of WUPD’s tolerant policy on marijuana is their way of handling the traditional Four Twenty pot smoking drum circle on April 20 in the Quad. In 2008 this was broken up by WUPD, and Student Life ran a story about it. I did not contribute to the discussion then, because I did not want to offend my students, some of whom were in attendance. I should not have let that stop me.
I did not attend this because I do not smoke pot and it is not my scene, but the students I asked informed me that the WUPD officers they conversed with said they were concerned not so much about pot as “outside agitators” of some sort. The new SDS, perhaps? This occurred about the same time as the WUStock incident described above.
It is illegal for activists and “outside agitators” to smoke pot on the WashU campus.
On October 4, 2009 at 5:10 pm
Jerome Bauer said
Why would WUPD surround me? The same week, I posted to a Student Life discussion board a message pointing out that the University had violated a promise not to retaliate against 2005 Living Wage participants, among other verbal agreements. They have fired or marginalized, or forced into early retirement, the major faculty supporters, including Lecturers with no job security. Therefore, I said, promises made to the Administration, including the verbal promise made by sit-in participants not to take over any more buildings, are no longer valid. Even so, I still did not endorse such an action. Why not have our classes out on the college green instead? That was all I said, but I said it twice on the Student Life discussion board. In Autumn 06 I had published an Op-Ed in Student Life, pointing out that I was an invited participant-observer of the sit-in, and I had asked permission to come as a worker, not a faculty supporter. I reminded the students of their promise not to occupy any more buildings, because one must keep one’s promises.
The Administration and WUPD know that the SWA made a promise to me, twice for emphasis, to support me (and others, I am sure) if we were to face retaliation. They seemed to imply that this may involve another direct action, such as occupation of a building.
If anybody resorts to direct action, please don’t tell them I sent you. I heard Dean Jim McLeod endorse civil disobedience as a great American tradition. You can tell them he sent you. I heard Chancellor Wrighton thank the SWA for reminding us all to treat our workers better, in his 2004 Commencement Address. You can tell them he sent you. That is his right, and his privilege, as Chancellor, the one at whose desk the buck stops. Perhaps they will invite you back into another building as honored guests, as they did before. Why don’t you ask?
Please remember, I came as a worker, a Lecturer with a year to year contract and no career path. I was never a leader or advisor of that group, though I was an early endorser, and I attended their meetings and supported their goals, if not all their tactics. I did not incite the students to do anything, certainly not the hunger strike.
Why not have a real career path for Lecturers, with tenure for collage teaching? WashU used to have this (for example the late David Hadas, a full professor who never published anything, as a point of honor). This is under discussion as the still evolving “Professor of Practice” proposal. Why not have our classes out on the Swamp? If WUPD will leave us alone, that is…