Sorry, Interfraternity Council, but we don't buy it.\nHowever, before dismissing your successful lobbying to allow regulated parties as a policy that will go down in flames, you deserve at least a few words of praise.\nYou advocate the use of designated drivers. Many kudos to you for taking this step. Guests at your "bring your own beer" parties will be screened, and underage partygoers will be drinking A&W, not PBR. Good for you for not facilitating the intoxication of 18- to 20-year-olds. Limitations on the type and amount of drinks involved and a ban on drinking games should help prevent dangerous bingeing. Again, a good move.\nUnfortunately, we cannot help but suspect that these measures are nothing more than the proverbial fleece over the IU community's eyes.\nLet's be honest. At first glance, these new regulations seem strict, but the potential for under or nonenforcement is glaringly obvious. Your "Party Patrol" (coming from your own membership) would be responsible for monitoring parties. Excuse us, but this sounds like the blind leading the blind. How are snitches viewed in prison? The same way alcohol enforcers are viewed on college campuses. \nEveryone knows what happens inside your houses Friday and Saturday nights. Many of us have attended functions inside your homes, functions that didn't exactly serve cake and Kool-Aid. BYOB parties, as you call them, will do nothing to change the perception that, under a facade of personal development and community service, you are about nothing beyond partying. The fact that you've tried so hard to achieve officially permitted drinking merely confirms what outsiders already think of your organization. Congratulations, IFC! You've institutionalized your own stereotype.\nThere's nothing wrong with partying, and there's certainly nothing wrong with promoting safe, responsible drinking. The crucial question here is of intention. We, on the outside, view your program as an illusionist's smoke and mirrors -- a show for the authorities to make everyone appear more responsible before returning to the status quo. \nWe'd love to be proven wrong.\nThe ball is in your court. You have a policy, now stick to it!
Dissent: BYOB Beneficial\nFor all the complaining we students do about IU's alcohol policy, we seem to do very little about it. We seem to accept that drinking will be banned, that underage students will drink regardless and that all the dangerous activities that come with alcohol abuse are inevitable. \nIt was this mentality that the Interfraternity Council tried to overturn with its experimental over-21 BYOB party. Certainly the policy needs work, but it's a step in the right direction, toward accepting legal drinking on campus. Regardless of what one thinks of fraternities, it's necessary to acknowledge the constructive statement made by this experimental policy: Students older than 21 can and should be trusted with alcohol on campus. Hopefully, we can move to a point at which fun parties with alcohol can be held without alcohol being the focal point. \nWill loopholes appear? Perhaps. Until they do, we should hold the frats in good faith for changing IU alcohol policy, rather than simply disobeying it.\n-- Peter Chen
