Crackdown

AAPD jumps on under-age drinking bandwagon

Under-age drinking has become the issue du jour among authority figures at the University. The death of LSA first-year student Courtney Cantor, along with the recent alcohol-related death at Michigan State University, has resulted in various committees and other highly publicized efforts intended to raise an uproar over this perceived scourge on the community. Now the Ann Arbor Police Department has joined the campaign, bringing with it what the University and its task forces could not: the law. Over the weekend, the AAPD ticketed 75 minors and cited four parties for violating laws against under-age drinking. The police sent under-age volunteers into three fraternities and one campus party where they successfully obtained alcohol. As a result, three fraternities are under investigation and risk a number of possible penalties, including having their charters revoked.

This zealotry to crack down on under-age drinkers and their supposed corrupters has gotten out of hand, and the consequences are beginning to outweigh whatever benefits, if any, exist. The integrity of the methods employed by the AAPD are highly questionable. Enlisting people who are under 21 to try to get unsuspecting fraternities to serve them alcohol does not help anybody, it simply provides an opportunity for the police (and the University, if it chooses) to take punitive measures against the houses. Furthermore, it creates an atmosphere of mistrust and antagonism among students in otherwise social and largely controlled environments. What it does not do is help prevent tragedies associated with drinking. The AAPD is trying to demonstrate that it will not tolerate under-age drinking nor the possible catastrophes that it can cause. These recent sting operations amount to little more than a publicity stunt. It makes the police department appear to be on top of a problem perceived as pervasive and insidious, and it sends a message to the parents of students that Ann Arbor is not a place where under-age drinking is allowed.

For better or for worse, under-age drinking is as common in Ann Arbor and among students at the University as it is anywhere else in the country - the latest efforts of Ann Arbor's Finest will do nothing to change that. Although there is no direct connection between the police actions and efforts to curb under age drinking on the part of the University, the timing of the citations coincides with recent pressure put on fraternities to go alcohol-free.

Further, under the recently amended Family Education Rights Privacy Act, the University has the authority to notify the parents of under-age students who are caught drinking. Vice President for Student Affairs Maureen Hartford stated that the administration has not yet decided whether or not it will inform the students' parents. The University should not change its policies simply because it now has the legal power to do so; instead, it should respect students' privacy.

The belief seems to be that there are major problems on this campus with under-age drinking and that tough action is needed to deal with them. Making examples out of fraternities and others who serve alcohol at parties (as well as the people who consume the alcohol) is counter-productive. The Ann Arbor Police Department has jumped on the bandwagon of harassment and punishment that has characterized efforts to "help" students deal with under-age drinking. University students need to be given more respect by those who are supposedly there to protect them.

11-12-98