There will be blood on the Borough’s hands

If a student gets dangerously drunk, then he or she needs immediate medical attention. If, however, getting help also involves being harshly punished, then you're less likely to seek assistance before it's too late. The University recognizes this, which is why it has an amnesty policy at McCosh Health Center: If you bring a friend there out of concern for his or her safety, then the University won't punish you. The Borough takes the opposite tack. As Cloister and Connor's cases make clear, the easiest way to get slapped with charges is to do the right thing and call an ambulance. That is, to put it mildly, perverse.

In this case, that means club presidents and individual students are going to think twice before dialing 911. Instead, they'll wait and see, delaying that consequential call out of hope that things might work themselves out. They'll only get professional help once it becomes obvious that they have no other choice. At that point, someone may already have died. I realize that sounds melodramatic, but the tragedy down that happened to Westminster Choir College last year was quite similar to the situation just described. If his friends had called an ambulance before he stopped breathing, Justin Warfield might have survived. If you expect amnesty, medical attention can be sought as a precaution. Without it, you'll only get help in an absolute emergency.

Public officials always feel driven to get "tough on crime." In a college town like Princeton, dominated as it is by the presence of the University and with little or no violent crime, that naturally leads to a crackdown on alcohol violations. The problem is that getting tough on crime often blinds officials to the unintended consequences of their actions. The Borough undoubtedly believes that it is making the world safer by attacking Cloister and Connor. The problem is that this belief is wrong in every way.

By cracking down on the eating clubs and students who assist their friends, the Borough is essentially trying to prevent drinking from occurring at all. But realistically, college students are going to drink no matter what the authorities do. Trying to stop that from happening is as futile as King Canute ordering the tide to turn. Only in that story, the King was proving that there were some things he could not do, that his power to rule the world was limited. In the Borough's case, that fact hasn't sunk in yet.

A better tack might be trying to mitigate the consequences of intoxication, to make sure that those who need help get it and that students get drunk in the safest environment possible. What the Borough has emphatically failed to realize, and what the University is starting to grasp, is that the eating clubs pretty much accomplish both goals. The safest way to drink I can imagine is to do it publicly in a large group supervised by sober upperclassmen willing to get you help, without hard liquor or a drive home afterwards. Drinking shots in your room to pre-game the Street or getting drunk at a room party is far, far worse.

In fact, in the case bedeviling Cloister today, it's clear that things went wrong because of overzealous pre-gaming, a common pattern. This is especially important because Cloister did not serve the girl who was hospitalized. I can say with absolute certainty that she did not receive as much as a single beer from our bartenders. Not only has she has told Borough Police this throughout their investigation, but I know from my own experience that our bartenders will not even serve club members who aren't of age.

If the Borough charges Cloister, it will greatly reduce the incentive for the next club faced with an overly inebriated freshman to seek help. The University and the clubs have been trying without success to get the Borough to realize this, and if our elected officials don't change policy quickly, they'll eventually have blood on their hands.

Barry Caro is a history major from White Plains, N.Y. He can be reached at bcaro@princeton.edu.