Blood in the Streets of Durham

By Benjamin Wallace-Wells | Wednesday, October 22, 1997

National media attention has recently been riveted on the quiescient town of Durham, New Hampshire, as a pair of clashes between police and students have disrupted campus life and sent the University of New Hampshire into a state of prohibitive unrest.

Students at the university blame the outbreak of violence on a harsh administrative crackdown on fraternity parties last spring, which forced parties and alchohol consumption off campus, into the houses and apartments rented by students. The two scrapes between police and students both began when local authorities tried to break up off-campus bashes.

UNHhad been known as a calm campus set in a rustic town until last spring, when a drunken fraternity brother toppled off the roof of his fraternity house and died. The administrative response was predictably severe.

UNH upheld its ban on kegs in fraternities and concurrently imposed a series of harsh regulations designed to keep the student body out of fraternities. Now, any student trying to enter a fraternity party must have a personal, written invitation from one of the brothers.

The practical effect of the regulations, according to Caroline Dornfeld, a senior at UNH and an editor of The New Hampshire daily newspaper, has been the total devastation of the Greek system.

'There are barely any parties any more,' she said. 'Those that do exist are very small, basically limited to the brothers and a few of their friends. Compared to how the Greek system was during my freshman year, its dying now.' Only 20% of UNH undergraduates are currently enrolled in Greek houses, and, according to Dornfeld, this past rush yielded few new members.

The decimation of UNH's fraternity scene has, however, yielded unexpected consequences for the university's social environment. 'Students here aren't just going to stop drinking because they can't go into frat parties,' Dornfeld said. 'The fraternity parties under the old system were tightly controlled. The administration, however, can't do anything to regulate off-campus parties, and that's where almost all of the drinking is taking is taking place now.'

The move of parties away from campus has also meant a shift in law enforcement. Instead of university police, local officers from Durham and surrounding locales take on enforcement responsibility. That shift, recently, has meant nothing but conflict.

The first incident took place in early September, when town police officers moved to break up an outdoor party at a street intersection. When confronted with a hundred drunken students who refused repeated orders to disperse, officers at the scene, unleashed police dogs and pepper spray on the crowd.

Predict-ably enough, the police's zealous response was not well received by the students, who responded by throwing rocks and bottles. When the patrolmen finally subdued their opponents, only one student was arrested, although several dozen had been hurt.

But this was only the beginning.

A week later, police again confronted a large group of partying students on a lawn outside of UNH's campus. When the students ignored and cajoled the attendent officers, the police on hand panicked, calling in officers from fourteen seperate nearby locales to help restore order. Both sides soon resorted to violence, and again a small scale riot broke out. Tensions between UNH and the town of Durham remained strained.

'I think that, yes, the police may have gone a little overboard by using the police dogs, and pepper spray, and by calling in all of the extra police,' said Dornfeld. 'But this really shouldn't have been that big. It was basically just a few dozen students getting drunk.'

Blood in the Streets of Durham

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