Last Wednesday, in a surprising display of efficacy, the Student Government Association voted unanimously to support the Good Samaritan policy that is one of the most important issues being tossed around in the student governing system. This policy, which would protect students from disciplinary action in the event of an overdose or alcohol poisoning, is primarily being championed by the infamous Students for Sensible Drug Policy. Granted, the SGA’s decision to support the resolution does not necessarily translate into policy. It will take a decision by the University Senate to give the SGA’s resolution the spark of life it needs to be adopted by the university and Resident Life.
This is incontestably a policy the university and Resident Life should adopt without restraint. As Micah Daigle, the national field director for Students for Sensible Drug Policy, pointed out in his Feb. 15 guest column, (“Students for a sensible Good Samaritan policy”), “a 2006 study published in the International Journal of Drug Policy found that emergency calls doubled after Cornell University’s Good Samaritan policy was enacted in 2002 … [And] more than 90 U.S. schools” have already adopted similar Good Samaritan policies.
However, what many officials seem to fear is that students will abuse the policy. For example, is it possible that the growth in emergency calls at Cornell University was a result of a renewed sense of concern for safety among students? Or is it possible this growth in fact reflected a renewed sense of entitlement – a sense that students could abuse university and dorm policies more than before because the Good Samaritan policy would protect them from any sort of repercussions, other than perhaps a nasty hangover in the morning?
To a certain degree, these concerns of abuse are warranted. Anyone who would argue otherwise has not spent two years working in the dorms. As a resident assistant, I have witnessed how many students will take any degree of freedom and completely abuse it. The university cannot be expected to “teach” students about responsible alcohol and drug use. That sense of responsibility and moderation should have been acquired long before college. Unfortunately, because our generation rewards excess and any lack of education, the majority of students will take the “freedoms” of college and utterly exploit them. If the university were to loosen its belt even a little by adopting the Good Samaritan policy (and it is a loosening), then students cannot be trusted to not take advantage of that. Daigle said it himself – “Students party, whether we like it or not.”
People should be a little less concerned with the policy (which will, eventually, be adopted) and a little more concerned with the language being tossed around concerning it. For example, previous columns have stated that by not adopting it, university officials are “needlessly” throwing away student lives and are, in some way, responsible for the cowardice of students too concerned about disciplinary action and not concerned enough for the lives of their friends. This blatant selfishness is not a fault of the officials, but a fault of the students. A new policy cannot change the self-motivated interests of certain students. It will just help them sleep better, knowing they would not have had to gamble with death because they were too worried about their own interests and less concerned with those of their incapacitated friend.
And what details will be included in the Good Samaritan policy? As one commentator on The Diamondback website asked, what is to prevent police from pursuing disciplinary action? What are the boundaries that will be covered by the policy? Will a student on Fraternity Row be covered? What about the fraternity satellite houses? These students may not have to worry about disciplinary action from Resident Life, but they can currently face punishment from the Code of Student Conduct. Dartmouth College faced this dilemma in 2006 after an off-campus sorority blunder.
While it would be foolish to disregard the Good Samaritan policy, it would be equally foolish to not consider the entire issue. The university should do everything it can to protect its students, but students, in turn, should evaluate their actions before crucifying officials.
Matthew John Phillips is a junior English major. He can be reached at mjphilli@umd.edu.
