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Editorial:
Administration leads by example... or exemption?

President Bennet and other administrators have maintained that their hands are tied regarding the policy because Connecticut State Law mandates its enforcement. While the Administration stresses that it must uphold the alcohol policy, it seems that in this case, administrators did not. What differentiates underage drinking at a black tie dinner from underage drinking at a frat party? Both are bound by the obtainment of a liquor license. What is the difference between a minor consuming Chardonnay or Natty Light? The consumption of either is simply against the law. 

At the Trustee dinner, the Administration’s loose enforcement of the distribution of alcohol indicated that it depended on underage students to decline alcohol honorably and honestly, based on their own individual responsibilities. If it trusted students to make honest decisions regarding underage drinking at the dinner, shouldn’t it be able to implement the same trusting attitude at campus parties? Based on its behavior at the trustee event, the Administration should be able to relax the party policy’s strict requirements that so closely monitor underage drinking. Instead, it should trust underage students to decline alcohol as it did at the dinner.

It seems the Administration has contradicted itself by serving alcohol to the privileged few underage students who were invited to the dinner. While the Administration most likely committed this error without thinking about the implications, this does not erase the hypocrisy of such actions. By serving alcohol to minors at the Trustee Dinner, the Administration has given the defenseless underage drinker an, albeit illegitimate, defense.