Editorial Conversations: Lehigh’s Alcohol Policy
By: Brandon Sherman
Question: How should Lehigh’s administration deal with underage alcohol consumption?
The drinking age debate is doomed. The most passionate advocates for reform have three years to make their case. Then one day, they miraculously stop caring, or worse, they join the opposition.
Attrition is not the only problem, of course. There are no new arguments to be made. Compelling statistics overwhelmingly support a 21-year-old drinking age, and the political will for change is non-existent.
However, that the drinking age is and will remain 21 does little to rationalize the way the law has been enforced here at Lehigh. The administration is in the precarious situation of trying to reform our ‘party-school’ image while somehow retaining it – because, well, you can’t put lipstick on a pig.
If candor were the order of the day, President Gast could express skepticism about strictly enforcing a 21-year-old drinking age. Most 18-20 year-olds at Lehigh drink regularly, and the law is hardly a deterrent. But Lehigh is under the yoke of two separate but overlapping police forces: the LUPD and the Bethlehem Police Department. In recent years, the Bethlehem Police have received grants from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board. Those grants provide the money to pay the small army of cops on bikes that patrol the South Side each fall.
As such, it is difficult for the University to find the right tone with which to address this issue. A more progressive attitude could create the illusion of amnesty for underage drinkers or risk undermining the authority of the police.
To walk this tightrope, the administration should reiterate that its primary concern is the safety and security of Lehigh students – safety from alcohol abuse, to be sure, but also from a tarnished permanent record and from the physical dangers of South Bethlehem.
The LUPD should coordinate with the Bethlehem Police so that underage-drinking citations are handled through the University disciplinary system – not a kangaroo court above a video rental store. The University should then scale back the severity of the punishment for first-time offenders so that students stop fearing the police. With this ironclad partnership between students and law enforcement in place, maybe the Bethlehem Police Department will turn its attention to some “real” problems – like plasma TVs with legs.
To Discuss this issue, please see all three of our editor’s viewpoints, and comment here.
