The recent revelation that student alcohol violations increased 171 percent between 2001 and 2002 raised many eyebrows on campus and likely shocked the small minority of deluded people who still think students aren’t drinking.
Yep, they’re still drinking. A whole lot. No big mystery there.
Campus authorities suggested many possible factors for the steep increase — more Department of Public Safety officers throughout campus with better training, less tolerance of drinking by fellow students and a greater residence hall population for the 2002-03 school year. DPS Interim Director Tom Hicks even told the Emerald last week that “My sense is the University of Oregon is going to get spotted pretty quickly about having one of the biggest jumps in alcohol violations across the country.”
But the trend didn’t end on campus, where hundreds of residence hall dwellers discover the joys of drunken debauchery each year. The Eugene Police Department reported that the West University neighborhood has seen a 19 percent increase in alcohol violations from 2001 to 2002. In the South University neighborhood, a 59 percent increase was recorded in the same period.
Given the increase in these different areas, a vitally important question arises: Are students actually drinking more, or are law enforcement officials simply seeking to write more citations?
Housing Director Mike Eyster told The Register-Guard that he questioned whether the increase in alcohol violations is attributed to a sudden increase in drinking, citing the lack of any noticeable change in the residence hall atmosphere.
“As the director of housing, it didn’t feel different to me last year,” he said in a Nov. 12 Register-Guard article. “I didn’t have a sense that the staff was overwhelmed or there was a huge difference, so it’s difficult to explain.”
University President Dave Frohnmayer’s edict in fall 2002 that required all fraternities and sororities go dry could provide another explanation for the increase. Members of the greek system who live in chapter houses may choose to drink in surrounding neighborhoods instead. Likewise, new members may choose to drink in the residence halls instead of putting a fraternity or sorority at risk by drinking in the chapter house. But less than 7 percent of the campus has greek affiliation, so it’s unlikely the increase could be wholly attributed to substance-free housing.
Most likely, the increases do not indicate a rise in students who are actually drinking; instead, patrols in those particular areas are probably increasing. Of course, more concrete research would have to be conducted to find any real trend.
It’s not proper to justify underage drinking — some would say it’s unhealthy for people younger than 21 to consume alcohol but, more than anything else, it’s against the law. Choosing to break the law is, of course, an individual’s choice, and it doesn’t seem fair for any individual or group to pass moral judgment on an individual who chooses to get a little sloshed before the all-important, incredibly subjective age of 21.
College students, whether it’s the right choice or not, choose to drink. Do University students drink more than those at Oregon State University, the University of Washington or Arizona State University? Probably not. The real question is why students at this University are cited more frequently. What are the priorities of most law enforcement agencies, and why are the local agendas seemingly so different? That’s the real question that needs to be answered.