Regulating What & When
While I would love to protect myself and others from being around cigarette smoke, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist, Karen Heller makes an important point by questioning how when we begin to regulate certain behaviors (such as smoking cigarettes on a college campus in the outskirts of Philadelphia) we may be setting ourselves up to fall along the slippery slope that leads to other rights being infringed upon? When institutions start to ban behaviors that have been legal and mainstream, I think that we need to question it really deeply rather than simply respond by saying “Oh” - which is precisely what I might have done had I not read Karen’s article today. Read on to see what you think.
Karen Heller: Let students choose, even the wrong ways
College administrators have been acting recently more like parents than educators. Widener University announced an all-campus smoking ban - including outdoors - to be launched this summer. Lincoln University instituted a fitness graduation requirement for obese students, later downgrading the class to a suggestion after being charged with discrimination.
I don’t know about you, but I went off to the University of Chicago to make my own choices, wise and otherwise. The dumb ones - an exceptional number committed during freshman year - were as instructive as any classroom lectures. Long after I forgot most basic laws of chemistry, I know that running laps on an outdoor track in winter, fueled by beer while sporting scant clothing, is an enterprise better in concept than execution, and not worth repeating.
With the best of intentions, Widener, Lincoln and other schools are taking greater steps in deciding what’s in the best interests of their students, who, despite behavior to the contrary, are legally adults. Administrators are extending the definition of in loco parentis.
“Regulating this behavior is completely antithetical to freedom, especially as they’re not really harming anyone other than themselves,” argues Vic Walczak, the ACLU of Pennsylvania’s legal director. “If people aren’t doing something illegal, doing something they may find pleasurable but is bad for them, then they’re just showing bad judgment. Universities should not be taking steps to prohibit something that is otherwise lawful.”
Many of us loathe tobacco, but that doesn’t abrogate its legality. Some studies indicate that outdoor smoking poses health risks to non-smokers but, let’s face it, all smoking poses health risks, while “outdoors” constitutes a sizable territory. Despite massive efforts promoting healthier diets, obesity remains a national health problem, epidemic among African Americans. Lincoln is an historically black college. But that doesn’t make reforming the overweight an educator’s job.
“College is the first opportunity for most students to be responsible for what they do 24/7. They’re going to make mistakes like we all do,” says Temple constitutional law professor David Kairys. “We are in this period where we should be aware and worried that more kinds of government and institutions are compelling conformity that is being thrust on us.” The courts are filled with cases arguing the legality of restricting off-campus behavior, including “sexting.”
Even with the best of intentions, governing conduct in higher education seems an impediment to the very learning and freedoms schools promote. It’s infantilizing students on the cusp of adulthood.
“This is a little like the virtue police, determining what constitutes pure living,” Walczak says. “What’s next? Regulating when and what kind of sexual relations you can have?” Some religious colleges and universities already do that.
These schools mean well. A healthier population is generally more productive. And promoting better choices is a sound investment. Healthy citizens tend to work and live longer, less dependent on social and health services.
Civil rights experts see these lifestyle rules as a start towards moderating behavior, a way to enforce conformity. “With the more conservative Supreme Court, we may see much more leeway for regulation, many more limitations on free speech, privacy and discrimination,” Kairys says. “Schools may become more involved in regulating student behavior though you think of universities as bastions of freedom promoting the whole marketplace of ideas.”
Rather than repressing poor choices, why not promote and reward good habits long before college? In America, as long as an adult isn’t harming anyone else, we’re entitled to our foolish choices. Without them, there would be no beer pong, rush week, the freshman 15, or Big Ten rivalries verging on holy war. Indeed, college seems predicated on the yin and the yang of great ideas and questionable conduct.
Contact columnist Karen Heller at 215-854-2586 or kheller@phillynews.com.