Cap's president, Liz Biney-Amissah, was the only undergrad to deliver an address at the University's heavily-publicized Assembly on Integrity. Last week, she became the latest suspect to be named in the Borough Police's ongoing crusade against underage drinking on Prospect Avenue.
It was inevitable that the tramp of Borough Police jackboots should again echo across the Avenue; the only question was where they would stamp down. This time, the police say, an underage undergrad drank the hooch and ended up hospitalized. They hit Cap's president with the charge of serving alcohol to a minor. Biney-Amissah is not alone: in May, the Borough hit the previous Cap president with the same charge. Earlier this year, the presidents of Colonial and Quadrangle were charged, last year, Ivy's president was charged.
Unsurprisingly, University punishments for alcohol violations have also been surging. While total sanctions peaked in 1999, issuances of disciplinary probation, the most serious of the sanctions issued for alcohol violations, rose from a low in 2000 to peak in 2001 and again in 2002.
Why are alcohol laws treated with a naked contempt unthinkable for other statutes — academic regulations, for instance? It's simple: breaking the latter is dishonorable and breaking the former is not. There's no shame in chugging a cup or twenty-four, but there is plenty in plagiarizing your junior papers. (At the very least, you're less likely to buy a T-shirt advertising your skill at the latter.)
Princeton has an unwritten alcohol honor-code which bears more than a passing resemblance to the academic Honor Code. Students elect club officers to draw up the rules on alcohol use. Students enforce the rule, checking PUIDs at the door and choosing who gets Beast at the tap. Students also deal with infractions, expelling the disorderly and McCoshing the comatose. Adults enter the picture only if there's a major screwup — an appeal, in the Honor Committee's case, or a hospitalization, in the Clubs' case.
Like the Honor Code, the informal Alcohol Code has its staunch defenders. Each Borough bust is invariably followed by hand-wringing editorials praising the clubs for providing a safe environment for drinking in contrast to dangerously unsupervised room parties. Never mind, of course, that this year's Cap bust and last year's Cap and Ivy busts stemmed from students who drank in a "safe" environment and still landed in the hospital.
Undergraduates have declared the University to be an enclave exempt from New Jersey's alcohol laws. As there is no dishonor in flouting the law, underage drinking is rampant. This would be of no consequence if overindulgence were harmless. But it isn't — Drunk students get hospitalized, vandalize entryways, smash Frist chairs against lampposts, steal medical golf-carts, and spray urine and vomit into every crevice and corner. And despite SHARE's exhortations before every freshman class that drunkenness and date-rape are kissing cousins, anecdotal reports of sexual assault are not entirely uncommon.
Princeton's alcohol honor code is in desperate need of revision. It is not dishonorable to drink yourself into PMC; it ought to be. It is not dishonorable to urinate in public or to vomit in an entryway or to vandalize University furniture; it certainly ought to be. While a sea-change in morals and manners of the student body will not come about overnight, club officers must roundly declare that drinking one's self criminal or comatose is unacceptable.
Which brings us back to Cap's President. Liz Biney-Amissah is in an ideal position to steer just this kind of reform on Prospect. Her selection to speak on integrity establishes her as a moral authority. Her position as a club president gives her the opportunity to experiment with new standards. And the fact that she has herself been hit with charges underscores the fact that even students of the highest standing are not safe from the Borough Police. Club leaders must hammer out a new standard of honor regarding alcohol — and enforce it without exception. Joseph Barillari is a computer science major from North Canton, Ohio.
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