Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2004/01/05/kegs_wrapped_in_red_tape.php
Monday, January 5, 2004
For much of their existence, Dartmouth's fraternities were treated like adults and left to regulate themselves with minimal College supervision. Greek houses installed bars in their basements with tap systems, and quickly became the social epicenter of campus. There was a great deal of immaturity, to be sure—events during the 1960s inspired Chris Miller '63 to write Animal House—but much of what went on was good fun, even if it was alcohol-inspired.
The regulations the College places on student parties have long focused on alcohol, but have not always been as stringent as they are now. During the 1970s, alcohol policy was essentially non existent. The 1988 alcohol policy, designed around the principle of "responsible individuals," presented many of its guidelines as recommendations and not rigid requirements.
At that time, events with over seventy-five people in attendance could be registered with Safety and Security during regular business hours on the day of the event, but spontaneous events could be registered later for a nominal fee. Organizations registering events were encouraged to control behavior and to monitor entrances, but were subject to Safety and Security observation only if the event was unregistered, or if they asked the officers to intervene in a dangerous situation.
Today, the alcohol policy is far more complex, with a bewildering array of rules that discourages registration by making it an extraordinarily difficult process. Houses are forced to choose between the bureaucratic hassle of registering an event with the College—or the penalties inherent in spontaneous parties, the most common sort at Dartmouth.
Events today must be planned several days in advance, and must be approved by the Office of Student Life before the registering individuals meet with Student Life bureaucrats. Organizations are then told how much alcohol their guests will be allowed to consume, a quantity based on a rough estimate of a person's alcohol tolerance. Among the layers of red tape, one of the more frustrating rules is a restriction on the total amount of alcohol on campus. A maximum of twenty-four kegs are allowed at a given time; this frequently creates problems, especially on big weekends when several houses host large parties at the same time.
Not surprisingly, the quantity of alcohol consumed has not noticeably dropped since the inception of the rules, though administrators increasingly slap Greek houses with College sanctions.
A house caught holding an unregistered party with kegs or more than forty people is subject to social probation, a period during which it may not hold registered social functions. If Safety and Security officers discover a house in violation of any rule during their probation, penalties can be much more severe.
A recent crackdown on unregistered events—those with attendance of either more than the fraternity's membership or more than forty people, whichever is fewer—has placed Chi Gamma Epsilon, Sigma Alpha Epsilon, and Sigma Phi Epsilon fraternities on probation for several weeks this term. The complexity of the rules regarding registration of these social events, including the prohibition on spontaneous gatherings of over forty people, ensured that these violations were all but unavoidable.
This fall, the College also began a new tactic of citing houses at which students drink. Safety and Security grills each intoxicated student they detain about where they drank and how much they consumed, leading the frightened drunk to confess all or invent a story. Students, though they are never told this, are under no obligation to report where they consumed alcohol to Safety and Security.
As a result of these drunken confessions, a half dozen fraternities are now on social probation, while several others are being investigated. Many house presidents, though, decried these investigations, claiming that they use as evidence the word of one admittedly intoxicated student and presume a fraternity's guilt.
"The school takes the word of one student over that of a recognized organization," Gamma Delta Chi fraternity president Mario Avila '04 said. His house has been twice charged this term with "providing alcohol to an underage student."
Gamma Delt is not alone in facing these charges. Alpha Chi Alpha, Alpha Delta, and Sigma Nu fraternities have all faced similar official investigations, while Bones Gate fraternity faces unspecified charges, probably stemming from a Safety and Security search that the house says was completely illegal. After a fire alarm, Safety and Security officers broke through a padlock in the basement, according to brothers.
The College employs bizarre tactics in all these cases, often waiting until weeks after the incident to tell the houses they have been accused of a violation. Fraternities are then given approximately one week in which to respond, and can either accept the charges and get a reduced penalty or deny them and face a potentially far greater punishment at the hands of a dean.
"Some organizations have made honest, whole-hearted efforts to do things 'by the book' according to all College rules, but get in trouble anyway due to situations that are somewhat out of their control," said Theta Delta Chi president Eric Erb, whose house is one of the few not cited this term.
That the College now enforces these rules so strictly perhaps indicates a growing frustration with the failure of the Student Life Initiative to hamper Greek activity, illustrated best by the probable return of formal rush to sophomore fall. Faced with the inability to regulate the Greeks out of existence, the College seeks instead to clamp down on what fraternities and sororities do best: Have fun.