2008 Woodie Awards
Editorial
Inappropriate Campus Safety & Security report
Editorial Staff
Issue date: 11/20/06 Section: Opinion
Each week, The Clarkson Integrator publishes incident reports from Clarkson's Campus Safety & Security. These reports keep readers informed about what's going on at Clarkson, and yes, sometimes they can be pretty funny or controversial. There was a particularly memorable report from last week regarding public urination, something that seems to occur frequently on college campuses.
This is one of the reports we ran last week, taken directly from Campus Safety's daily reports site with only minor spelling corrections: "Two CU fraternity students while participating in the worthwhile "Derby Days" for charity event, tarnished their efforts when they were ticketed for unlawful possession of Alcohol and Public urination."
Now, wait a minute. According to Campus Safety, they "tarnished their efforts" for this "charity event." What gives Campus Safety the right to moralize about these students' actions? As long as the activity they were participating in was legal, what they were doing should be irrelevant. If student athletes got into trouble while celebrating a victory, would Campus Safety say they sullied their recent win?
Campus Safety actually has a policy to withhold the names of students involved in on-campus incidents. They say that these reports are meant to make people aware of events that take place on campus and that there's no need to include names. Then why mention the fraternity? An organization should not be held accountable for the actions of individuals, and it was unfair of Campus Safety to tie these students to their specific organization when they would not have done the same for other organizations.
The Campus Safety incident reports are there to let the community know what's happening on campus. These reports aren't meant to teach people lessons or push agendas; let them decide for themselves what lessons they want to learn. Campus Safety acted unprofessionally when they published this description-incident reports should convey just the facts, not personal opinion.
This is one of the reports we ran last week, taken directly from Campus Safety's daily reports site with only minor spelling corrections: "Two CU fraternity students while participating in the worthwhile "Derby Days" for charity event, tarnished their efforts when they were ticketed for unlawful possession of Alcohol and Public urination."
Now, wait a minute. According to Campus Safety, they "tarnished their efforts" for this "charity event." What gives Campus Safety the right to moralize about these students' actions? As long as the activity they were participating in was legal, what they were doing should be irrelevant. If student athletes got into trouble while celebrating a victory, would Campus Safety say they sullied their recent win?
Campus Safety actually has a policy to withhold the names of students involved in on-campus incidents. They say that these reports are meant to make people aware of events that take place on campus and that there's no need to include names. Then why mention the fraternity? An organization should not be held accountable for the actions of individuals, and it was unfair of Campus Safety to tie these students to their specific organization when they would not have done the same for other organizations.
The Campus Safety incident reports are there to let the community know what's happening on campus. These reports aren't meant to teach people lessons or push agendas; let them decide for themselves what lessons they want to learn. Campus Safety acted unprofessionally when they published this description-incident reports should convey just the facts, not personal opinion.
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