Street's fine on its own

I hope everyone read Cullen Newton's article last week ('Let's be Honest,' March 26).

As Cullen, quite rightly said, "There is no safer party environment in the United States than Prospect Avenue." He justified this claim by pointing out that on the Street there is no driving and there are officers and bouncers in charge of keeping clubs incident free, as well as a set standard for no hard alcohol allowed when the club is on tap.

But picking up the paper on Monday, I and many other Princeton males read with some disbelief a disparaging letter by graduate student Jonathan Eastvold. He described Cullen's column as an "insult to journalistic integrity" and the "reader's credulity."

In the letter, Princeton males were described as misogynistic, pornography reading, female objectifiers, something I and my fellow students found comical and completely false. I, for one, have in my two years never once seen pornography at an eating club, and this "affront to decency," as the atmosphere is described, seems more of a criticism of social trends at large. Moreover I feel the letter gave an inaccurate and misrepresented view of the situation inside the eating clubs and thus it provided steps that I feel would prove inflammatory to the campus alcohol problems.

While the eating clubs do have weekend parties with beer and dancing, the culture and atmosphere is anything but misogynistic; if anything, it is a typical representation of adolescent college kids partying on a Saturday night.

The clubs are not bastions for male hegemony as many would assume was the case before the eating clubs were open to females. Now there are female presidents and a host of female officers. Women are treated with respect and dignity by members and guests, and unlike what was implied, the eating clubs are not some academic variation of the Playboy mansion.

Moreover, the clubs are also not just about alcohol and parties. For members, they are a social, intellectual and communal setting where you get to interact with peers and upperclassmen on a daily basis.

The letter also claimed that the sound of ambulances is common place on party nights. Some would prefer that the University crack down on all underage drinking, but that would be the biggest mistake the University could make in the fight to provide a safer college party environment. Cracking down on underage drinking at the street would cause more students to stay rooted in their dorm rooms where they would consume even more hard alcohol and likely take even more trips to PMC.

It was claimed that if the University continues to neglect this blatant misuse of alcohol that occurs on a daily basis at the street, a student will eventually die from alcohol poisoning, and that then the University "will have no one to blame but themselves." In response to this, I would urge many of you to consider that if some horrific alcohol-induced incident were to befall a Princeton student, blame may, but should not, fall on the University. I urge my fellow students to take responsibility for their alcohol consumption and not pass blame on the eating clubs or the University.

There will always be underage drinking on college campuses, and while the University should try and discourage underage drinking up to a point, it is ultimately up to the students and not the administration to control this.

The administration or borough trying to interfere with our uniquely safe social environment would make the alcohol consumption at Princeton harder, more reclusive and lead to even more problems.

The best thing the University can do is to let it be. Chris Berger is a sophomore from London. His column runs every other Thursday. You can reach him at cberger@princeton.edu.