Nov. 27, 1999, the worst fears of every Duke student, administrator and parent were realized: then-junior Raheem Bath died after a week-long battle with aspiration pneumonia, which was brought on by excessive drinking.
Bath's tragic death--and the widespread bacchanalia it exposed--hastened the completion of an administration-sponsored campaign to alter campus alcohol policy. Party monitors were added, certified bartenders were required and Residence Coordinators were appointed, all in an effort to control underage and unsafe drinking. Only seven years later, it is clear that those efforts have failed; what's more, administrators have created two serious problems where once there was only one.
In fact, the consequences of pushing high-risk behaviors into high-risk environments are quite intuitive. With fewer police and medical personnel available, these policies effectively increase the danger for student drinkers. Moreover, because it is not clear how our judicial code applies to off-campus offenses, administrators have decreased their ability to control outlandish behavior.
In the context of our relationship with Durham, our questions should go one step further: why should the residents of surrounding neighborhoods be forced to accept the very "boorish behavior" that has no place on a college campus?
The answer is very simple if we see Duke's alcohol policy for what it really is: an attempt to avoid liability by forcing dangerous student conduct onto private property in Durham. This distinction is essentially false, though, because it does not recognize our ethical responsibility to address such behavior, rather than push it out of sight. Student malfeasance will always reflect on our University-wide community, no matter its location.
Indeed, our current policy's most unfortunate consequence is that it consistently allows a small minority of students, on the order of 15 to 20 percent, to ruin things for the rest of us; their involvement in things like baby oil-wrestling matches sullies the good name of all Duke students, especially those of us who have never found it necessary to urinate publicly.
Consider, also, that only 17 percent of Duke undergraduates live off campus, many of them clustered in apartment complexes like The Belmont. For perspective, 58 percent of Tar Heels live off campus, and 46 percent of Cornellians live in greater Ithaca, both with far less incident than we do. Clearly, some Duke students are having a hugely disproportionate effect on our standing in the Durham community.
This tyranny of the minority includes-according to the Lacrosse ad hoc Review Committee--"late-night noise and loud parties, excessive drinking, littering, public urination, and some damage to cars parked in the [Durham] neighborhoods."
What's more, the committee asserts that, despite the lacrosse house's notoriety, "none of the houses rented by lacrosse players was among the worst of those whose loud parties attracted hundreds of disorderly Duke students on weekends."
Given this level of off-campus debauchery, you and I should read the writing on the wall: the Alcohol Policy will soon (explicitly) cover students' off-campus conduct. Before this happens, I think that we are all missing a very useful distinction: the difference between student drinking and student drunkenness.
Whereas drinking can be both legal and acceptable, drunkenness encompasses all the unsafe and inappropriate behavior that has no place in this community. Indeed, the current policy's focus on the distribution of alcohol, especially the licensing of bartenders and the ban on kegs, effectively denies access to smaller, less organized social outlets. We can all debate whether or not this is desirable.
Indeed, the current policy's focus on the distribution of alcohol misstates the problem. This community is not in crisis because of its guidelines for bartender certification; rather, we are realizing the true cost of allowing, "hundreds of disorderly Duke students" to run wild over Durham.
Consider, then, the possibilities of publicly and openly disciplining drunken misconduct. In fact, our current alcohol policy already prohibits "Community Expectations Violations," which are defined as: "action[s] while under the influence of alcohol that [are] disruptive to the community... includ[ing] but not limited to: driving; exhibiting disorderly conduct, damaging property and/or fighting; vomiting and/or urinating in public; cursing and/or shouting at others."
Drunk or sober, there is no excuse for that kind of behavior; it reflects a total lack of respect for one's surroundings. We should transition our strategy to hold students--and not the alcohol they consume--primarily responsible for their own conduct. Recognizing that a minority of Duke students has treated Durham with shameful disregard, this a doubly effective way of reducing tensions with our neighbors. We're up to the challenge.
Kristin Butler is a Trinity junior. Her column runs every Friday.
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