Open the door for safety

Universities have a responsibility to ensure that their students are safe, and their conduct policies should reflect that responsibility. Recently, some at Duke have challenged the efficacy of the University’s alcohol policy, contending that it fails to promote safety and is inconsistently enforced. Moreover, students have expressed concern that the language of the policy does not align with its implementation. Although Duke claims to prioritize harm reduction, students are not always left with this impression, and many perceive administrators to dole out punishments unpredictably and unfairly. In today’s editorial, we identify some of the problematic features of the current alcohol policy and explore ideas that might improve it.

In recent years, students have felt that the approach taken by the administration and the Housing, Dining and Residence Life staff in regards to alcohol has shifted away from harm reduction. While this may or not be true, we must recognize that the University has an obligation to follow state law and reduce risk. Because administrators desire to create policies that both align with federal law and promote student safety, they face a difficult dilemma. They must choose between designing policies that are clear but strictly enforced and those that allow students some freedom to make their own decision about drinking and are, therefore, enforced inconsistently.

We do not advocate strict enforcement of clear rules because strict enforcement may encourage students to move dangerous behavior off campus. The current policy, however, puts an unnecessary burden on resident assistants, residence coordinators and graduate residents to make decisions about when and how to enforce the rules. This strains relationships with residents. Additionally, inconsistent enforcement forces students who choose to drink on campus to live in fear because they are wary of receiving unpredictable citations.

The most important factor in a healthy culture around drinking is effective communication. In order for students to feel safe on campus, their expectations must align with the implementation of policies. We also advocate a policy that emphasizes safety over punishment, and we believe that the open-door policy may do just that. Under this policy, students can drink alcohol without facing punishment as long as their door remains open and they do not violate any other University policies. We recommend that East Campus remain dry, but that West and Central campuses move to the open-door policy. This will make drinking safer, produce more trusting relationships between HDRL employees and residents and reduce disruptive relations with the Durham community.

If the University were to implement this policy, promoting clear communication about enforcement and expectations would remain a critical task. During the first few weeks, all HDRL staff would have to candidly communicate with freshmen about their expectations and their methods for dealing with policy violations.

Although the open-door policy represents an improvement to the current system, we cannot wholeheartedly endorse it. Given the popularity of drinking games and other unsafe behaviors that characterize Duke’s drinking culture, we feel the open-door policy may not be a realistic option. If the University values safety, it should prioritize harm reduction and clear communication.