Accessory to the crime. Photo from web.
I was expecting a judge on a high podium, or a jury of my peers, or at least some gavel banging. What I saw, as I poked my head in the door of the Alice Johnson room, was a table manned by two kids I’d seen in Harris and at parties and a woman I didn’t recognize. Across from them was a table reserved for the accused party with three places set with identical laminated Honor Code cards.
As I sat waiting for my accomplices, I thought about the crime that had landed me before three pairs of eyes, measuring me from across the table. The case report describes how the security officers found us, “creating music with guitars and a drum set…The three students were found in possession of six unopened cans of Narragansett Beer (from an opened 18 pack) and admitted that they were drinking…The three students complied with the orders given to empty the six cans of beer. The students were asked to end their music practice for the night, and the building was secured.”
In e-mailed statements submitted to the Judicial Board we explained ourselves: the box had not been full when we brought it there, one of us had not, in fact, been drinking, the other two (myself included) had consumed two to three beers over the course of two hours. As a freshman, I didn’t know what to expect in terms of repercussions. When I didn’t receive a response to my e-mail for about a month, I assumed that the ridiculousness of the charges had caused them to be dropped. Then, just before Thanksgiving break, we were summoned to an Adjudication Team hearing.
It was kind of funny up until this point. Okay, J-Board, I’ll write you guys a remorseful confession begging you to forgive me for the two beers that I consumed. I’ll take whatever slap on the wrist you deem necessary to punish me for this blatant violation of the honor code. But telling me that the names of “my witnesses,” if any, must be submitted “at least twenty-four hours in advance of the hearing” makes it pretty hard for me to take you seriously. Especially when, the night after my run-in with Campus Safety, I saw the same officers confront some considerably more intoxicated students outside of a dorm and ask them to pour out their beers without writing them up.
In preparation for the hearing, we were required to prepare “a brief statement (it must be typed, double-spaced, and preferably no longer than one page) in response to the alleged infractions” and advised to “be knowledgeable of the contents of the Student Handbook located on CamelWeb.” After my accomplices arrived in the Alice Johnson room and took their seats next to me, a tape recorder was switched on and our statements were read aloud by one of the kids across the table. Next we were asked to read the honor code cards before us out loud.
“In unison?” one of my tablemates asked.
“Sure,” said the boy across the table.
Together we pledged to uphold the honor and integrity of our school, as well as our own beliefs, and respect the community that we are so proud to be a part of. After a brief period of questioning and disapproving glares, the hearing concluded.
“Until a verdict is reached, you are not permitted to speak to anyone about this hearing,” we were warned. “You may not mention what was said or who you saw here. Nothing happened this morning in this conference room.”
As we stood to leave, one of my fellow delinquents, who was written up four days before his twenty-first birthday, couldn’t help but remark, “You know, this is straight out of Dante’s Inferno. The cards? In hell, in Dante’s Inferno, there are scenes carved into the ground so that as the sinners walk through they look down and are forced to contemplate their sins.”
The Adjudication team was not amused by this parallel.
I understand that my actions were illegal but I don’t feel that they were irresponsible. If I am going to be judged by a panel (mostly of kids about my age) instead of the law, I would expect a little more thought and understanding to go into my punishment. The card I received from the Choices workshop (which I was sanctioned to attend as punishment) tells me that consuming two drinks in two hours keeps me in “the green zone” of dangerous alcohol consumption (the blue zone corresponds to Thursday night shenanigans and the red zone is near death). My age and circumstances afford me the privilege of living in a bubble where my actions are not punished by law. However, I’m ready to start being treated like an adult. To me, that means evaluating the gravity of my infraction before churning me through a judicial system that lands me in a workshop that ends up telling me that the “choices” that put me there were exactly the kind that would be expected of a responsible adult.
I understand that I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I also understand that I’m not the first person to complain about the judicial process and that it is currently being revised. I hope that the changes made will help to foster the spirit of mutual respect and integrity that our school is based upon rather than perpetuate a hypocritical, overly dramatic system that inspires more snide literary comparisons than it does respect.
This opinion piece is a student whining about the repercussions for their breaking the law. That’s what happens when you break the law, you run the risk of getting caught. It is not your prerogative to whine petulantly about those consequences you invited upon yourself.
This opinion piece is a student urging common sense. She had two beers with friends. This isn’t college students going crazy; it’s a couple kids playing some music and having a beer or two. If that’s not American, I don’t know what is.
And it IS her prerogative. She disagrees with the law, so she wrote about it. This is what we do in this country. So lose the condescension and come back when you have something more substantive to add.
“Common sense” would be either not breaking the law, or at least understanding that when you do and find yourself caught, you will have to face the consequences of your actions.
I noticed that the honor code requires us to uphold the integrity of our beliefs, so what happens when the law conflicts with our beliefs? I believe that the legal drinking age of 21 is unjust and unwise for several reasons, and that’s not going to change when I turn 21. I’m not a government official and I have no way of changing that law, but it would be cowardly and irresponsable of me to follow it because I was afraid of the the consequences if it get caught. Following my beliefs without regard to the consequences or what any one else thinks is what honor means to me, and I think that the honor code should reflect that. I’m not Emily Bernstein or any of the people who were with her but I comiserate with the position that she is in.
The school also allows that Connecticut state and federal law trumps the honor code in all situations. And Petyr, you’re forgetting that civil disobedience must occur with a complete acceptance of the consequences. What Emily Bernstein is doing is, rather than accepting the consequences of her disobedience, whining about them and claiming it is unjust.
Finally, the honor code itself involves not breaking the law by drinking underage. While this may seem at first like an internal conflict, I think you’ll find that the honor code promotes upholding the integrity of our beliefs as they coincide WITH the honor code. If your beliefs cannot coincide with the honor code, then you have two choices: changing your behavior to reflect the code rather than your beliefs, or leaving Conn. Which do you choose?
This is a response to “Veit,” not “Littlefinger.”
The honor code does not in any way mention federal laws or underage drinking. Here it is, in full.
“We will never, by any selfish or other unworthy act, dishonor this our College; individually and collectively we will foster her ideals and do our utmost to instill a respect in those among us who fail in their responsibility; unceasingly we will strive to quicken a general realization of our common duty and obligation to our College. And thus in manifold service we will render our Alma Mater greater, worthier, and more beautiful.”
You’ll notice that what it promotes is a small collection of abstract concepts: respect, duty, obligation, and the ideals of the (female-gendered) College. I would argue that no person on campus, or at least an incredibly small minority, actually regard the drinking age as an ideal held by the community. Two beers in the barn are not a breech of respect or duty toward the College or the community, nor dishonorable in any reasonable sense.
As for your claim that “The school also allows that Connecticut state and federal law trumps the honor code in all situations,” why would we have J-Board if that were true? There are rules, federal and state, which govern offenses like drug use or possession and underage drinking, which we instead put before the judgment of students, many of whom actually commit the same fouls, and punish with BASICS. If you really think that laws trump the honor code, or that they should, then you have absolutely no business defending the institution of J-Board.
The code to which you’re referring is a fiction you seem to have entirely constructed, because the one printed in the C Book and signed upon matriculation lays out no rules other than mutual respect. And that’s respect for each other, not for “the law,” which is inconsistent with our ideals to begin with. Just a few things to think about.
“We will never, by any selfish or other unworthy act, dishonor this our College”
I find it a bit preposterous that you wouldn’t regard an obvious breach of the law an unworthy act. I doubt any would agree with you.
As for the J-Board rules, you’re right, perhaps it would be right for the school to turn those breaking the law in to the police. What I’m commenting on, however, isn’t the structure of J-Board; rather, I think the author of this article is a spoiled, self-entitled brat if she really believes that she, for no clearly defined reason except “I don’t like it,” shouldn’t be punished for her actions which break the law and school policy. I can understand the practice of civil disobedience, in protest of a law that is disagreed with. But civil disobedience comes with acceptance of consequences, which Bernstein obviously has not done. Rather, she has chosen to whine and demand that she be treated “like an adult.” Interesting. Emily apparently would rather have been issued a citation by the NLPD.
Ok you got me, I’m not going to leave the school on principle, but I’m sure as hell not going to change my beliefs because of it. Anyway its irrelevant because the school allows underage drinking to go on, because attempting to stop it is impossible. the fact that the drinking age is completely unenforceable is one of my main problems with it, since I don’t think we should have laws that we know we can’t enforce and consequently have no intent in actually trying. Its a pointless farce to arrest some teenagers for drinking when we know its something nearly all of them do anyway. The school does the same thing by making drinking a violation of the honor code and then having everything else you encounter tell you the truth; that it perfectly ok as long as you do it smartly and in relative moderation. Now I think the honor code is great in most ways, but I think there is a serious difference between cheating on an exam, which is morally wrong and something that every student can reasonably be expected to never do for their entire time at Conn and drinking, which is morally ok and which the average student probably won’t make it past their first weekend her without doing. If we want everyone to take the honor code seriously it has to be something that we expect everyone to follow to the letter, it can’t be “oh just ignore the part about drinking unless you get caught.”
Littlefinger,
A crime is not defined by whether it is preventable or not. There is no way to prevent crime from taking place. How is the school actively preventing you from being assaulted or robbed? I’m sure if either of those two things happened you would not drop the charges because the crimes are unpreventable and therefore not crimes. Can’t you see the laziness and skewed logic in your argument. Just because you think underage drinking is ok, doesn’t make it so. The argument that there was no “craziness” to the drinking is irrelevant. The law was broken and our school issued standard consequences. Obviously, Emily is going to feel like the consequences are unfair. The state of Connecticut probably feels its unfair for underage drinking to be such commonplace at Connecticut College. However, the state and its laws will have the final say.
In the article, the author seems to consider her infraction as being inconsequential and yet was somehow offended when she felt the judicial system treated her trial as inconsequential.
Also, we are all in a bubble in which are actions are often not effected by state or federal law. Where doing illegal activity or having illegal substances can go unnoticed, be treated as a “you darn kids scenario”, be cracked down harshly upon, or anywhere in between. Students doing these things aren’t entitled to do so under the system, they’re just rolling a die every party night with the relatively small chance that they’ll get snake eyes. There are Conn rules against alcohol in the Barn and though I have seen bottles and 30-rack boxes strewn about the space, you likely signed a MOBROC contract that said you wouldn’t. It’s from a very weak footing that you argue unspoken agreements that certain rules don’t count in light of being caught and that it is unfair that you were one of few people caught for this infringement.
As someone who has abused the system, I approach the current movement to take drugs and alcohol abuses out of the social honor code with hesitancy. However, everyone seems to acknowledge a invisible ammendment to the honor code that champions the freedom of it and scorns the social obligation. But if students are upset by the pettiness of their drug/alcohol use hearings and JBoard and the school are bothered by all the time that they use up, then it seems neither side has respect for the system and it needs to be reformed.