Absurdities on 40

Last week, the Columbia administration’s reaction to the senior class’s “40s on 40” tradition marked a low point in my four-year undergraduate experience. What happened on Thursday was a shameless display of hypocrisy and paternalism on the part of the administration and Public Safety, and it speaks to the effectiveness with which a bloated Columbia bureaucracy has managed to materially degrade the quality of life of its undergraduate students.

The “40s on 40” saga is one that has been ongoing for years, with the administration consistently attempting to destroy the tradition. What was originally a free-for-all on the steps became confined to a pen on Low Plaza. Eventually, Columbia imposed serving limits and even went so far as to randomly search the belongings of students for contraband. By last year, the restrictions had become so draconian that the event was effectively emaciated, which of course was exactly what the administration wanted. This year, the student councils decided not to spend $20,000 of undergraduate money throwing a sham event, and so “40s on 40” went underground.

In response to students attempting to celebrate their upcoming graduation outside of official University sanction, Public Safety and the administration engaged in a crackdown that was irrationally harsh in character. For two hours, over 20 administrators and Public Safety officers surrounded the senior class in as intimidating a manner as possible, kicking out and writing up anyone who so much as carried a Nalgene bottle. Now, the administration can only have two possible reasons for engaging in this kind of behavior—either because they believe that “40s on 40” is a danger to students, or because they feel obligated to enforce New York City drinking laws. Although both points are certainly valid, the current policies go far beyond what a reasonable University administration would consider itself obliged to do, and they truly verge on the hypocritical and the absurd.

Firstly, on the issue of safety, I can understand why Columbia wouldn’t want all of Low Plaza to be turned into a drunken free-for-all. However, the reasonable solution to this concern is to create a designated drinking area to which only seniors have access. This is what happened several years ago until the administration decided that the quantity and composition of alcohol had to be regulated as well. Again, this concern is not unreasonable, but where the administration went too far was to impose its asinine one-beer-an-hour restriction, which is sufficient to keep even a 90-pound woman sober. Moreover, the consumption limit Columbia imposes on its of-age undergraduates is completely hypocritical since the University has been known to provide unlimited beer and wine to graduate students who, in many cases, are hardly any older than college seniors.

With regard to the University’s obligation to uphold New York City drinking laws, we again see a reasonable concern implemented in an overzealous manner. Columbia should respect the laws of New York City, but the way that a reasonable administration would go about doing this would be to maintain normal patrols on Low Plaza and to reprimand students who are either brazenly drinking with open and labeled alcohol containers or who are displaying unacceptable levels of public drunkenness. The University is not obligated to deploy extra officers to spend two hours standing five feet away from students, actively scanning the crowd for water bottles that may or may not contain alcohol. The Police Department would never do something like this in Central Park, and why Public Safety needs to engage in this kind of draconian behavior on Low Plaza is simply unreasonable.

Although it is apparent that the administration and Public Safety lacked legitimate reasons for cracking down on seniors in the way that they did, the more disturbing issue lies with the fact that for two hours, the University actually chose to deploy mid- and high-level administrators to sit outside and stop seniors from drinking beer. Simply put, did these people have nothing better to do with their time? For these administrators to spend hours (funded by our $50,000 a year tuition) cracking down on a student tradition shows either a stunning inability on their part to set good priorities or simply the fact that they their jobs just don’t give them anything worthwhile to do.

I sincerely hope that the latter possibility is not the case since the administration has shown itself to be willing to come to a reasonable agreement with students through the Greek party policy, which sanctions responsible drinking and treats students like adults. In my mind, there is no reason why a similar arrangement cannot exist with “40s on 40,” where seniors can drink in an enclosed space with the same rules as are applied to graduate student functions. All that is necessary is for the administration to stop treating 21-year-old seniors like children and to make real efforts to carry out their most important duty—improving the lives of students.

The author is a Columbia College senior majoring in economics.