Does this image remind you of your campus?

Three months and about 10,000 visits ago, I blogged about my SSDP chapter's campaign to overturn the University of Rhode Island's disciplinary policies that treat students like babies.

Since then, we have come a long way, but there is still much work to be done. Our two most recent victories come by way of a major media hit and a substantial comprimise by University officials.

Last week, Rhode Island's largest weekly publication, The Providence Phoenix, featured SSDP's campaign as their cover story. The story (entitled "Tale of Two Campuses" in the print version) takes a comparative angle, pitting URI's harsh, invasive policies against Brown University's more sensible policies.

Not surprisingly, considering how Animal House-style antics have long been considered part of the college experience, many students are chafing under the strains of URI’s new prohibitionism. Some complain that the festivities have merely been transferred off-campus, leading to tensions between students and residents in the towns near URI. Others cite inconsistency in the approach of resident assistants in different dorms. But perhaps the most galling thing is how elite private colleges like Brown University seem to favor a more tolerant approach when it comes to student partying.

At Brown, for instance, there is no rigid protocol for suspending students caught with alcohol or drugs. (After a third offense related to drugs or alcohol, URI students face academic probation or suspension from the university for one year. A violation involving drugs counts for two strikes, while one involving both drugs and alcohol results in a suspension.) At Brown, each violation is taken on a “case by case” basis, although three infractions would be taken “very seriously,” a university official says, and students can be suspended for repeated violations. Tom Angell, a 2004 graduate of URI who serves as the campaign director of Students for Sensible Drug Policy in Washington, DC, sums up the situation this way: “At private, Ivy League schools, students tend to get off easier than at state schools.”

Of course, the campaign's focus is not as simple as the "freedom to party" - rather, it is primarily about justice and safety. In a sense, we are fighting the Drug War on a local level.

For URI students like senior Micah Daigle, president of the campus chapter of Students for Sensible Drug Policy (SSDP), the school’s drug and alcohol policies seem like a trap, luring students into a confrontation with the law.

“Before, when URI was not a dry campus, most of the partying went on on-campus — it was contained,” Daigle says. “Now, there are parties going on next to people living with kids and their families, so they are understandably angry . . . You can have a few maybe drinking in the [dormitory] room and, if you’re lucky, an RA won’t catch you. But if you want to party, you have to go 20 minutes away — which means you have to drive.”

[snip]

Daigle and the SSDP favor policies that offer education and treatment for non-violent drug and alcohol offenses. Given a choice, Daigle would choose the model applied at Brown University. “They’re dealing with very similar circumstances,” at both schools, he says. “It’s students who are all essentially the same age, getting into the same things, drugs and alcohol. I feel like there is another way of going about this, which would be more towards the model of Brown, where you’re not busting students.”

Tom Angell, SSDP’s national campaign director, says the lesson of the war on drugs is that strict laws and increased enforcement only guarantee more arrests, not fewer users. The problem of student drug and alcohol use is cultural, Daigle and Angell say, and no amount of law enforcement can stop it.

In addition to this great media coverage, our campaign has succeeded in establishing an unwritten but substantial policy change. As a direct result of negotiations between SSDP's activists and the president of the University, all Resident Hall Assistants have been ordered to no longer call the police when encountering a marijuana violation. Incidents involving marijuana are now to be dealt with within URI's Conduct System, a system that has major flaws but does not result in prison sentences and criminal records.

If you have harsh, prohibitionist policies on your campus, you can fight back and win. Visit the national Campus Change Campaign webpage or contact Tom Angell for more information on how you can make a difference.