Two Tailgates, One Lesson

The Cambridge air is growing colder, the days are getting shorter and the Crimson football season is in full swing. Harvard-Yale football isn’t far away.

The Game is at Yale this year, and perennial concerns about student alcohol consumption have again been raised in New Haven. But unlike the hard line that the Boston Police Department (BPD) has adopted in regard to future tailgate planning in Allston, Yale and local police are taking an infinitely more pragmatic and sensible approach towards planning for this year’s festivities in New Haven.

According to Yale College Dean Peter Salovey, who was quoted in the Yale Daily News, “There’s been some discussion about potential ways to address [student drinking at the tailgate], but we haven’t settled on anything yet. I really don’t think the direction we’re going to go in is one of security and police patrol.” Instead, Yale will encourage more alcohol-free events that will coincide with the tailgate, and it will work with student groups to ensure that alcohol is consumed safely and responsibly.

Though The Game itself proceeds uniformly every year with a massive Harvard victory, the character of the celebration surrounding The Game depends heavily on the venue. In New Haven, Yale and local police have successfully positioned themselves to encourage responsible, safe drinking without resorting to draconian tactics. In Allston, the BPD’s penchant for rabid enforcement has only succeeded in making the event more unsafe.

In the wake of the 2004 Harvard-Yale tailgate in Allston—a comparative success in anyone’s eyes except those of BPD Captain William B. Evans—the BPD threatened to “crack-down” on any future tailgates. Evans touted this crack-down, which will include parental notification for underage students caught drinking, as a response to students’ inappropriate actions at last year’s tailgate. Yes, there were problems in 2004. A bottleneck at the entrance caused crowd control issues, and a shortage of portable toilets made public urination common. But these problems are easy to remedy for the future. Overall, Ohiri Field was not the den of iniquity that Evans gleefully described to every media outlet that would listen to him. Actually, unlike previous years, there were no serious alcohol-related incidents, and student drinking was for the most part responsible. This success was largely due to the foresight of University Health Services, which set up an aid tent on the field, and Harvard University Dining Services, which gave students free barbecued food to eat before the festivities. If the BPD’s presence had any effect at all, it was to force underage students—who were going to drink no matter what—to consume alcohol quickly and in secret.

Yale and local police seem to have realized that a harsh police crack-down on underage drinkers will inevitably result in more uncontrolled student alcohol consumption. By contrast, Evans’ personal obsession with erasing underage alcohol consumption from the face of the earth is clear evidence of his priorities: blind enforcement of the letter of the law over concern for the welfare of young students.

We wish Harvard were in a position to emulate Yale in its philosophy that student safety is far better served by treating alcohol consumption as a health issue and not a disciplinary one. But the BPD has tied Harvard’s hands. As this year’s Game approaches, we look forward to partying in harmony with law enforcement, not in spite of it.