An unfair responsibility

Don't ask, don't tell: So goes the University's alcohol policy regarding room parties, which recently, according to anecdotal evidence, has been enforced with greater strictness. According to the University, all residents of a room in which alcohol was served are responsible if they were present or knew of, and therefore consented to, the party. In order to avoid potential disciplinary action, a student whose roommate throws a party must leave the room and disavow any knowledge of the party taking place.

The premise of this policy is that all residents of a room are responsible for what happens in the room. While this policy may be brutally effective, it is fundamentally unfair and puts an unnecessary strain on roommate relationships. Roommates choose to live together because they enjoy each other's company, not because they condone all of each other's actions. When one roommate announces to the others that he will be hosting a party for his birthday, the others are confronted with a distasteful choice: Either partake in the festivities and accept the risks that ensue, or inform the roommate — and the University — that they do not condone the event. There is no middle ground between accepting full responsibility and turning in one's roommate. That is, unless the roommates adopt a policy of don't ask, don't tell.

The University's harsh policy regarding room parties clearly stems from its desire to eradicate them from campus. Room parties won't disappear. In fact, with the advent of four-year residential colleges, their numbers are likely to increase, as some students transfer their social activities from the Street to their rooms. The University's fantasy that room parties will cease is literally as likely as students interrupting the course of human history by terminating thousands of years of social and intellectual encounters involving alcohol.

This does not mean that the University should openly condone room parties if the attendees are under the legal drinking age. Rather, the administration should work with students to devise a policy which neither forces people to be responsible for their roommates' wrongdoings nor incites tale-bearing.