Durham -- A Duke freshman died earlier today from alcohol poisoning after drinking heavily at a fraternity party last night. He was admitted at 3 a.m. and pronounced dead earlier this morning. President Richard Brodhead has just been informed, and the students' parents have yet to be contacted. Duke responds by...
I don't pretend to know what would happen next or what I would do.
But I do know what wouldn't happen-the party monitors at the party in question wouldn't be punished. It is also far from certain that the fraternity who threw the party would be charged by the Greek Judicial Board.
So who is ultimately responsible? Duke is. The reason is that the school assumes all liability when they allow fraternities to throw parties on campus controlled only by student party monitors (themselves members of the hosting fraternity), as opposed to top-down party management by University officials and/or campus police.
It seems, then, that Duke has a tough problem to solve: It bears all responsibility so it needs a program that provides some legal cover; at the same time, it wants to allow the students some freedom to party, knowing that as their policies get more repressive, the students get angrier and ignore them.
The first solution is to abandon the status quo. The next step is to consider the available alternatives. The key is to remember that rushing into a conservative decision is not the answer and that, instead, a serious discussion of the incentives of all parties involved is truly needed.
The current system has two key flaws. First, the training program is inadequate: The information it provides is too general to be of any particular use to party monitors because it prioritizes a variety of topics over in-depth training in any specific area, the session itself is informal enough to allow most individuals to pay no attention at all but still receive certification and there is no test to ensure that the lessons are properly learned. The average person who attends a training session is no better equipped to be a party monitor when he leaves than before he came.
The biggest problem, though, is one of conflicting assumptions. Duke has to comply with state law to receive federal funding, so it has to maintain officially that every event is technically BYOB and thus distribution-free. Despite the obvious fact that no event on campus fits this requirement, the peer educators in the training program tacitly endorsed providing alcohol at events by teaching the proper ratios of alcohol to mixer when serving drinks.
The second failure is that fraternities have no incentive to ensure effective functioning of their party monitors. Because they are rarely (and likely cannot be) held accountable, fraternities merely have to meet the minimum standards in order to pass muster. That is, their monitors have to be certified, sober, and wear the orange shirt. The system is in truth a cop-out, an excuse groups can use in defense of their parties because they've complied with the University's requirements.
Party monitors ostensibly exist to make sure parties are conducted reasonably and responsibly. But when the training is unrealistic and groups have no incentive to make the system work, in practice the program amounts to nothing if not a waste of time and a spoiled Friday night.
So how do we fix it? I propose two alternatives: Fraternity self-censorship and party monitors-for-hire. The former would work like this: The University establishes reasonable, clear guidelines for on-campus parties and have officials randomly stop by to inspect. If the University threatens severe and expedient punishments for failure to comply, especially if hospitalizations result (assuming a thorough investigation of the facts and potential mitigating circumstances proceeded first), fraternities' incentive is to self-police their parties, which significantly enhances their autonomy in entertainment decision making.
The latter model would require the University to construct a strenuous training program for party monitors, one that lasted several hours and provided profound instruction in the science of alcohol, first aid and CPR, conflict management and crisis response. Work study students would voluntarily sign up to be trained and then called upon when needed to monitor parties, of course being compensated with legitimate wages for the four hours the party lasts. This creates an objective group of properly-trained monitors who can easily be held accountable for unsafe drinking.
Our party monitoring program is inadequate and something has to be done to fix it. Noting that there is little room for error, I leave the decision up to you.
Jon Detzel is a Trinity junior. His column runs every other Thursday.
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