Original Article: http://dartreview.com/archives/2006/02/10/cultural_revolution_at_zoo_mass.php
Friday, February 10, 2006
In late January, the University of Massachusetts at Amherst put into place strict new drinking regulations, effective the second semester of this academic year. While most news reports focused on the abolition of drinking games, the rules were far-reaching in their attempt to curb alcohol abuse in university residence halls. According to a press release from UMass Office of News and Information, the new regulations are as follows:
- ’ A group of more than 10 people in a residence room in which alcohol is present will be…prohibited. Progressive large gatherings and/or any gatherings that spill out into a common space are prohibited and may be viewed as a violation of the alcohol policy.
- ’The possession and/or use of drinking paraphernalia or products that promote the abuse of alcohol and/or put the user in a position to consume alcohol irresponsibly is prohibited. This includes, but is not limited to funnels, taps, and beirut/beer pong tables.
- ’Creating, offering, and/or engaging in drinking games or other behaviors designed for the purpose of rapid and/or excessive consumption is prohibited.’ The amount of alcohol which a student may possess and/or store is limited to 12 (12 oz.) bottles/cans of beer, two (750 mL) bottles of wine, or one bottle of hard liquor (1L). This applies to each resident in a room who is 21 or older. Other quantity-dispensing containers, including but not limited, to kegs and beer balls, are prohibited in all areas of the residence halls.
- ’Possession of empty alcohol containers is prohibited in residence halls by students who are under 21 and may be viewed as evidence of possession and/or consumption of alcohol. In addition, students are not allowed to use alcohol containers, whether full or empty, as decorations within their residence hall room.’ Intoxication, defined as being under the influence of alcohol or any other psychoactive drug to any extent which requires the attention of university staff or which causes a disturbance or is a danger to persons or property is prohibited.
Moreover, the new regulations were recommended by the Student Affairs Judicial Issues Committee, which includes students as well as faculty and administrators. However, according to an official poll taken by the university’s Daily Collegian , students oppose the new policy by a margin of nearly 2 to 1.
Furthermore, the new measures seem both draconian and unenforceable. For example, a student in a single room could have 10 guests but serve only 6/5 of a beer to each. That is, he limited to 12 cans, yet could serve a total of 40 and keep all his guests at or below the legal limit. Meanwhile, the prohibition on empty beer bottles embodies how the new rules both impinge on students’ freedoms and single out alcohol consumption from among the vices that afflict UMass students. What’s the difference between decorating your room with alcohol receptacles and cigarette boxes, pornography, or (in the case of underage students) pictures of Bob Marley smoking marijuana. For that matter, what’s the fundamental difference between the new policy and restrictions on the consumption of Big Macs and the display of McDonald’s paraphernalia?
Restrictions on drinking games, while perhaps innovative in theory, both restrict freedom (according to the press release, the mental act of “creating drinking games” is banned and appear eminently unenforceable—both theoretically and practically. Regarding the former, the new rules suffer from definitional ambiguity. (“No, officer, that is not a beer pong table! We were playing beirut with red Solo cups and cranberry juice . Yes, that’s right, straight cranberry juice. What’s that? Well, gotta get your Vitamin C, you know.)
Quite separate from such semantic quandaries, the new rules will be damn near impossible to administer. According to the UMass Amherst police chief, as quoted in a March 9, 2004, Daily Collegian article, staffing the dorms would cost $3.2 million annually. That’s $3.2 million taxpayer dollars to ensure that young Johnny UMass doesn’t have 11 people in his room.
According to Dartmouth anthropology professor Hoyt Alverson, who has studied drinking culture extensively (see TDR 11/4/2005), “these policies will mostly have the effect of creating new kinds of drinking games, theatre, evasion, underground activity, which may or may not lessen per capita consumption or binging but will change the arena of play and ritual within which the drinking is manifest as a social activity.” For instance, one obvious side effect is that consumption currently in the dorms will move off-campus. The bottom line: “these restrictions by themselves might change the ecology and social form of drinking but probably won’t change quantity.”
While the thought behind the new alcohol policy on the Amherst is campus is understandable and perhaps even noble, the specific restrictions are as incomprehensible as the Pixies’ “UMass”—and will probably be far more short-lived than the band. In the mean time, how the campus copes with the new policies will certainly be “educational.”