Something is wrong on the Syracuse campus.

As reported by The Daily Orange on Jan. 25, cops raided a birthday party at Maggie’s. The cops were tipped off by a Syracuse University faculty who saw the party listed on Facebook. When the officers arrived at the bar, nine tickets were issued to the birthday partiers. The D.O. article quoted Sgt. Joel Cordone of the Syracuse Police Department having said:

‘It was just very easy to be quite honest with you. The girls were all sitting at one table together. All that was missing were the balloons and the cake.’

As an SU student, I find this disturbing. Let’s start at the very beginning: someone was born, just like you and me, a person. That person grew up, applied to colleges, was selected as a trustworthy person to attend SU, drank some Keystone while underage and decided they wanted to have a party for their birthday.

Sounds like an everyday criminal.

An implied level of trust is present in academic institutions, and certain situations exist that require legal action.

The Office of Judicial Affairs policy reads, ‘Integrity, respect for the person and property of others and a commitment to intellectual and personal growth in a diverse population are values deemed fundamental to membership in this university community.’

While I thoroughly understand the students broke the law, and I realize it was incredibly stupid to post it on Facebook, I also don’t think snooping around students’ personal lives enhances the integrity of the school.

And I am disturbed that faculty are peeping around looking for ways to screw students.

Now, SU faculty is a broad term. It could be your math professor, your geeky RA who has entered into John McClane mode or a shady university faculty member who smokes cigs and always chills in the shadows of parking garages.

But overall, faculty should be aiding student growth, not playing Inspector Closeau to the Syracuse nightlife. If they find it necessary to ‘protect’ a student from underage drinking, they should just talk to the student about it. Don’t get them arrested and make them have to deal with going to court, which probably interferes with academic pursuits a little more than birthday parties.

This type of action is the first step to creating a culture of snitching and ratting on people that is not part of a healthy university.

I understand it was a preventative step. However, by this reasoning, why shouldn’t the university take the preventive steps of closing every bar, burning down Kwik-way and bulldozing every frat house to pave more parking lots.

The other thing that angers me about this situation is the way the police conducted themselves. I support police officers; I think the call to serve is noble, but seriously, Sgt. Cordone, do you really feel good about ruining a girl’s birthday?

So in the grand scheme of things, we now are looking at a school in which faculty would rather get their students arrested when they could just pull them aside and give them a lecture about common sense.

And a school in which the local cops makes jokes at students as they arrest them on their birthday.

And to those girls, unlike the faculty member and those cops, I hope your 21st birthdays are a blast.

Tim Goessling is a senior television, radio and film major. His columns appear every Thursday. He can be reached at [email protected].

Published on February 6, 2008 at 12:00 pm