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Letter to the Editor

Published: Monday, March 15, 2010

Updated: Monday, March 15, 2010 08:03

Dear Editor,

I am writing to you because I feel that the ban of alcohol at this year's Spring Fling is a flawed and outdated policy. As an alumnus of Tufts, I was proud to see that University President Lawrence Bacow was a signatory to the Amethyst Initiative. The initiative, according to their Web site, "supports informed and unimpeded debate on the 21-year-old drinking age. Amethyst Initiative presidents and chancellors call upon elected officials to weigh all the consequences of current alcohol policies and to invite new ideas on how best to prepare young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol use." I was proud that Tufts was publicly at the forefront of exploring innovative ideas in protecting students from the dangers of binge drinking. I am now saddened to read that in practice Tufts is simply forging ahead with the same flawed and outdated policy that made this country's Prohibition experiment such a complete failure. A total alcohol ban is the antithesis of the new ideas that the Amethyst Initiative seeks. A ban is certainly the safe public relations move in light of last year's event. However, as last year proved, student health and safety is truly at stake. Perhaps this year public relations should take a backseat to a new policy that realistically addresses the fact that we are dealing with college students attending a four-hour concert.

Tufts' strength is its ability to draw on very courageous and intelligent people who possess an amazing ability to collectively solve difficult real-world problems. I now call on the President and other members of the Tufts administration to revisit this decision and to, at the very least, have an informed and debate on this matter. Hopefully, innovative and more successful policies can be freely explored and implemented in time for a safe concert.

Sincerely,
David McNally
Class of 1997

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3 comments Log in to Comment

Another Alum
Mon Mar 15 2010 16:16
I wholeheartedly agree.

Not only is this policy backwards given the history of success involving punitive and prohibitory approaches to substance abuse....not only does it place the administration at odds and in direct oposition with the student body....not only does it undermine any innovative and progressive policies already in place by the school.....but this policy decision is also ASININE, IRRESPONSIBLE, and somewhat DANGEROUS!

It makes the assumption that 18-20 year old college kids in America, in 2010, will have NOT be likely to respond to this policy by increasing the binge drinking they undoubtedly are already planning on engaging in. Furthermore, now even legal-aged students are added to the mix.

The attitudes behind this policy are so blind, it is staggering. In this geographic location and time period, it can be considered a certainty that this demographic will engage in excessive drinking behavior and there is considerable evidence that this is, in part, reinforced by similar policy decisions on the national and local governmental level. It can at least be said that similar policies have had an almost non-existant level of success in curbing this kind of behavior.

I condemn this policy not to advocate binge drinking, but to advocate the forward-thinking steps Tufts HAD been taking towards redesigning and re-thinking the cultural status of alcohol in American culture. Institutions like Tufts are often inherently progressive because they are supposed to exist above the knee-jerk reactionary stance of local officials, so this regressive action is really baffling and disappointing to me......

Sorry for any errors in spelling or grammar...

JonahPLA08
Mon Mar 15 2010 14:21
As an alumni, class of '08 I absolutely agree. I should also point out that most of the people who were TEMSed at last year's spring fling were underage, and weren't getting drunk because of the 2 beers they got from their senior and alumni friends, but from lots of binge drinking beforehand. This will only encourage pre-gaming and will make the event's "casualties" worse than ever. I hope that Dean Reitman will strongly reconsider this policy. In my experiences with him in the past he's been just and fair and showed considerable foresight. This policy, however, displays a strong lack of judgement in my opinion.
Recent Alumnus
Mon Mar 15 2010 14:00
Thank you Mr. McNally. Unless the administration begins to realize that the way in which they implement policies has a direct effect not only on the student body but on the Tufts community of alumni then our University will continue to struggle with endowments and alumni donations. I personally will not donate back to Tufts as a whole given the scandals of pedophiles, embezzlement, and narrow minded implementation of policies that the administration has been pursuing. I am eager to give back to the elements of Tufts that helped enrich my experience their but am offended by how the administration treats its students. Their policies make Tufts either the laughing stock of late night television or the subject of local 10 o'clock news channels. This is not representative of the overall high quality education that Tufts seeks to provide.

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