What do you think about it? I think it is crazy that colleges are trying to force bars to stop having drink specials. I can understand not serving booze on campus, but off campus is none of the schools business. It is the students’ responsibility not to drink too much. It is the college’s responsibility to teach the students that want to learn.
I went to Penn State. After the riots up there a few years back the school got CRAZY about drinking. This past year during “Artsfest” (the festival weekend of the past riots) Penn State had a policy that you would be expelled from school if you got stopped 2 times for being drunk, even if you were not on campus. That is ridiculous! What the students choose to do off school property should not have an effect on their on campus life. The police of the city should handle it. What do you think?
The problem is that the universities are held responsible when some idiot drinks himself to death. There is a certain element of in loco parentis responsibility assigned to the university, which means that the institution carries some of the responsibility of a parent.
Okay, let’s make an assumption here first. And it’s going to be a doozy, I know. Let’s assume for a second that those drinking are of legal drinking age. (for example, the 21 year old in the article)
In my personal opinion, someone who is 21 is an adult. Legally they are. I don’t think in the case of someone in their 20’s that ANYONE should have to act as a parent. Part of being a legal adult is being responsible for your actions. I don’t think that’s an in loco parentis situation. [those who are underage, well then perhaps that’s a different situation, although they still are technically legal adults…]
So in regards to the OP about whether bars should or should not have drink specials - I don’t think a business should have to comply with those wishes unless they want to. Presumably they are doing their best effort to ensure all their customers are of legal drinking age, and they are therefore serving adults who are responsible for their own actions.
Of course, I must remember that this is the age of no personal responsibility. Let’s find someone else to blame when we drink too much, puke in our lap, have unprotected sex with a stranger and wake up in the bushes without our pants.
(as an aside, the above has never happened to me…at least not in that order & combination)
Of course the Universities shouldn’t be held responsible when such things happen. An 18 year old college student is an adult. Is there any other group besides college students who reach the age of adulthood and we still expect someone to act in loco parentis? Ooo…I love saying that.
I understand that young adults do a lot of stupid things. When I was 19 a few friends and I decided that we were going to get piss drunk that evening. Around 2 or 3 in the morning I started to vomit and I didn’t stop until 10 in the morning. I learned my lesson the first time and I’ve avoided going on such benders since then.
Poor guy… one more and he would have completed what I’m sure his goal was: 21 shots. Approximately a 30 oz. [perhaps as much as 40oz.] Big Gulp™ of alcohol in 10 minutes? I admit to doing my share of drinking during my college years, and I still enjoy the occasional vodka tonic, but this defies explanation. The individual himself, and to a lesser extent whoever served it, enjoys responsibility for causing this tragedy. I’m also going to risk sounding old fashioned, but IMHO it is young adults who are improperly prepared for life in the outside world by their parents that can’t handle the newfound freedom offered by college life and being of legal drinking age.
The university is the least responsible of all parties, and in cases such as this, in loco parentis does not apply, the young man had reached the age of majority. Beyond taking reasonable steps to curb underage drinking and discourage binge drinking by those of legal age, the university should not be held responsible.
Are these people winning the lawsuits? If so that is ridiculous too. Admittedly the bars should be keeping an eye on how much they are serving, but it is not like they are forcing alcohol down people’s throats, and they most definitely did not tell the person to drive a car. In the end the individual makes their own decision.
I would also say that in cases like the Michigan student dying, the friends are equally at fault as the actual person. I went on my 21st birthday and when I had done several shots and was getting impaired, my friends stopped buying me shots. I mean how stupid are these kids. I did my fair share of binge drinking, and still do :), but if I am too drunk to know when to stop one of my friends will usually point it out too me.
As far as underage drinking goes, I suppose the universities should be able to take action against these students, even if they are off campus, because it is against the law.
Restaurants are and, IMHO, should be held responsible if someone drinks too much. One of the first things to go when you’ve had too much to drink is your judgement. People who are drunk make bad decisions. Period.
It is the law (I think) in every state is that it is illegal to serve an intoxicated person. The bar that served someone 20 shots in 10 minutes is liable for his death.
Let me just comment that I agree that universities should not be held responsible when someone inadvertently kills themselves with alcohol of their own free will, however they generally ARE held responsible when that occurs. Not only legally, but it hurts the reputation of a school and there can be pressure from the governor, etc. Especially state universities have to make a big show of Taking the Problem Seriously and Doing Something About It.
I mean, if you were choosing a college and had recently read that a student a)died from drinking at an offcampus location b)was sexually assualted at on off-campus location or c)died in a fire at an offcampus location due to lax fire code enforcement, wouldn’t it color your perrception of the school?
Unfortunately, yes. But I don’t think that makes it right, nor does it really make it those other people’s responsibility. That’s why I added my little “bitter woman against the world” tirade about people who don’t take responsibility for themselves. :: shaking my cranky ol’ fist ::
In response to rmariamp, I would agree that to some extent the school suffers by the bad publicity. However, here again in my own little world, if I was choosing a college, here’s how I’d respond to your scenarios:
a) wouldn’t change my opinion of the university - one person who is unlucky/unfortunate/whatever does not a crappy university make
b) probably wouldn’t change my opinion of the university so much as it would make me wonder about the quality of the surrounding neighborhood (which yes, may color my decision of whether or not to go there, but does not, in my mind, detract from the school’s academic reputation)
c) if it’s not an oncampus residence, does the university really have any way to enforce safety regulations???
A school may hold some clout in a neighborhood, but I’m not sure that it “rules the roost” and can be held accountable for what happens outside of its grounds on other public grounds.
Except when they do. I’ve been piss drunk at a bar and had a waitress ask me move my car. (It wasn’t mine, I had walked.) If it had been mine, they should have been asking me for my keys and calling a cab, not encouraging me to drive.
Sure, idiots who drink themselves to death bring it entirely on themselves. But students are representative of the school. If a student kills himself, it reflects poorly on the school. And believe it or not, schools have the right to set their own rules, and to expel people who break thoses rules.
When you’re admitted to a school, when you register for classes or engage in some other process of matriculation, you usually are required to sign something to the effect of an agreement to abide by the rules and regulations set forth by a student conduct code book. If you have signed such an agreement, you are required to behave accordingly or face the consequences of your actions. Whether that code dictates not getting arrested, not getting caught drunk or not picking your nose is irrelevant. You have agreed to the terms. (Personally, I think that some of the clauses in those code books are an invasion of privacy insofar as some of them have no bearing on academic performance). Now, if a school were to implement some new criteria that you hadn’t agreed to, you may have a legal leg to stand on, although I doubt it. Pertaining to regulating private establishments, I don’t know how in the hell they were able to legally dictate how a proprietor can sell his/her products.
While I’m certainly not keen on the trend of people blaming others for a lack of personal responsibility, I’m not sure this situation is quite as clear cut. If the person’s ability to make rational decisions (and act responsibly) has been impaired by copious amounts of booze, I think perhaps that the licensee has a responsibility to reduce the risk of them getting any worse.
Of course, where the line is between ‘merry’ and ‘irresponsibly drunk’ is not something easy to define, and it doesn’t absolve the patron of being silly, but I wouldn’t really trust a drunk to act responsibly of their own free will.
I’ve heard of people winning, but it’s always been under the same circumstances as the bar cases I’ve heard of - it’s not the person who got drunk doing the suing,but the person the drunk injured while driving.And the friend is not just someone who was at a bar with the drunk, but someone who continued to give him/her alcohol (at a party,for example) after he/she was intoxicated. That’s a big difference from the intoxicated person suing someone for letting them drive.