Another Reason to THINK Before You Send an E-mail
 

The Alpha Gamma Delta chapter at Arkansas State in under an interim suspension, due to a member sending an e-mail concerning an upcoming social. In the e-mail, she tells them about bringing their real or fake ids to the party, and how to get around the bartender carding them if their id is fake.

http://www.asuherald.com/mobile/news...-ids-1.2515816

A copy of the e-mail is on a link at the end of the article.

Here's my question. Are there really college students out there so clueless that they need to be TOLD to bring fakes if they have them???

^^^ Co-sign

Facepalm.

^Ditto. There's dumb and then there's DUMB.

I like this quote from the Jonesboro police chief -

"I can't prove at this point that they actually did it," Yates said. "It's one thing to send out a foolish e-mail indicating that the rules are going to be relaxed. It's another thing for it to actually be that way...It's not against the law to be stupid. If it was we'd have more people in jail than we do now."

Ditto, sister.

I got this via e-mail Google Alert a few days ago. I hate to say it, but it should really be against the law to be stupid.

Oh no...

I'm aquatinted with the most recent past president of the chapter. My heart aches for her right now- mostly because I know she never would be stupid enough to let this e-mail be sent if she had seen it.

I feel for her too, and for the entire chapter. I'm sure, in hindsight, they all (I hope!) realize what a colossal error this was. Some days you have to be really, really fast to catch stupid before it gets away. I hope things work out for them and they're able to strengthen the chapter as a result.

A greater concern for me: how did this sort of thinking ever happen? Is it a product of the twitterverse or something? Granted, I'm old, and certainly no innocent, but back in the day we'd never have broadcast something like this. Which isn't to say we didn't think it. Or do it ;). But we knew it was illegal and would reflect badly on the Fraternity and our Greek community, so we laid low. When did flagrant, evidently blissfully ignorant law-breaking become acceptable? Did they even realize the consequences of their actions? And I'm not just referring to this chapter, or all Greeks, or any specific group. I've worked in Public Safety a long time, and the number of young people who admit to illegal drug and alcohol use, and act surprised when punishment seems imminent, astonishes me. Did no one teach them to distinguish the difference between right and wrong, legal or illegal? Or do they know but not care, or think it doesn't apply to them?

Baffled.

This is why, if you're involved with collegians, you need to sit the whole chapter down for a talk about how to police their stuff on the internet--how to assume that everything you say ends up in the student newspaper, or worse, as an exhibit in a criminal or civil lawsuit.

Hopefully, if you have that discussion on a frequent enough basis, make sure that your standards/whatever committee actually punishes even the smallest transgressions, these sorts of incidents can be kept to a minimum.

Are you really saying you're baffled that college kids drink? Or just that they'll readily admit to it?

Do you view the 21-to-drink rules as being more malum in se or malum prohibitum?

Been there, done that.....

No matter how hard you try to 'put the fear of God' in your undergrad members, there is always that one rogue member who insists on doing it their way.

I don't think it's any more "flagrant" than anything we did back then. We just knew to keep our damn mouths shut. This is the generation that it's been said over and over shares more than ever with their parents - I honestly think it's a product of that. Their home training is lacking. If you've come home drunk or JBF to your mom and she greeted you with a "hi honey! let's make popcorn!" why on earth would you think that your actions are going to have any consequences anywhere else?

So far, that hasn't been my experience.

It's not so much "fear of God," and if I said that, that's a poor choice of words. It's more about having members understand how they are part of us and that everything they do reflects on the chapter.

The simple if you do X, then you will be punished, isn't always a successful way to motivate kids to behave. They tend to act more to further their own interests. If they are proud of their letters and proud of what their organization stands for, then hopefully, they won't do anything to sully your organization's honor.

And when they do, the culture of mutual accountability kicks in and slip-ups are handled.

Collegians do need to understand that if certain things, like underage drinking, are brought to their HQs attention, those HQs are bound due to liability reasons to act harshly. I sometimes question whether that's enough on the part of any given HQ due to the immediate response everyone, including greeks has to these sorts of press releases, i.e., "What.. college kids drink? [shock!]"

I think lawyers who use latin words among non-lawyers are trying to show off.

This was one person at one chapter. I suspect even in your day, one person at one chapter did something stupid and get caught. And kids have been drinking/using drugs underage since there was an age limit/since drugs became illegal.

I always see "kids these days" and I'm pretty sure that "kids these days" are just about the same as "kids in those days"

You completely missed the point. It's not about drinking, it's about being too clueless to know you shouldn't shout it from the rooftops. And it most emphatically is NOT just "one person at one chapter."

You are very fortunate.

No, I said that because that is what I tried.


I agree. But, I've also run into the attitude of 'I'm 18 now, you (older adult) can't tell me what to do!!!!!'



I never had to deal with drinking. The chapter just wanted to do silly stuff that they though would be good sisterhood bonding activities, but I had to tell them that the activity was now considered hazing. They wanted to try to do it anyway.

I figured she'd understand as she's in law enforcement, and hell, can it be considered to be lawyertalk if Jeff Bridges' character in True Grit waxed eloquently on the law using those terms?

True. Trouble is, that our national offices are trapped between the proverbial rock and a hard place.

Create a safe place for illegal drinking? Then when something goes on [and it will] complicity of the HQ is easily proved, even though common sense would seem to dictate that for the members, this would be the ideal approach.

Pretend it never happens and close chapters when they are dumb enough to get caught? Then when something goes wrong [and it will], at least you have plausible deniability. This is obviously the worst approach if the safety of collegians is paramount, but it's the approach most organizations take.

The sending of the email was one person from one chapter. That was, in this case, the shouting from the rooftops. I maintain that someone, 10, 20, 30 or more years ago, probably got in trouble for something similar, it just wasn't an email.

The drinking and drugging and whatever, as I said, is not new and is not somehow more blatant than 10, 20, or 30 years ago. People have had fake IDs, underage parties and such since the dawn of minimum age laws, and I doubt that they were ALL more subtle.

Point is, in 1981, someone got a group in trouble for underage drinking at a party because they were stupid enough to talk/brag about it in public. 'Kids these days' aren't worse, they just have different ways to get caught being stupid.

You're right.

I think the point being made was that "kids in those days" did not have social web sites like t-witter, face-book and the such to broadcast everything they did.

"Kids these days" have that option. Unfortunately the "kids these days" choose to use that option when they really should not, for most reasons.

Yeah, yeah it is.

can't do it, even if it would make sense logically it's illegal and can't last. Until the law changes there's no choice for our offices at all.
I don't really think that it's necessarily true that creating a safe space for illegal drinking is some how actually safer. I think people believe that it is, but I don't think statistics back that up, not when it's still illegal.
Considering our orgs all seem to do alcohol abuse education in some way shape or form (maybe not all, but many) they're doing more than just looking the other way.

My question is, how did it get out?

That's not altogether true. Although, as an aside, I will say that I'm certainly advocating a position which is different from how I act when dealing with my own chapter (I follow the rules). While active support is probably out of the question, feigned punishment, meaningless suspensions and not shuttering chapters when individuals have lapses in good sense are probably on the table.

Examining a few premises with regard to drinking, would you agree that:

1) Less education is better than more education?

2) Fewer policies looking after the safety of members are better than more policies looking after the safety of members?

3) Drinking at the chapter facility is better than drinking elsewhere and having to obtain transportation home while one's judgment is impaired?

We can talk about those statistics (are you referring to that early-2000s Harvard study?) as it fails to discuss some of its basic assumptions, has some rather flawed premises, and that its conclusions tend to be somewhat viewed in a vacuum, and are not generally reliable if we're wanting to glean anything useful.

I agree that most of our organizations require undergrads (and begrudging advisors in many cases) to view the Alcohol 101 flash presentation, and that's better than nothing, but if we're doing that, are we not on some level admitting that we know that everyone is engaging in this activity?

I do agree that the big issue here with AGD was that the email admitted to many members having fake IDs, which in most places is a felony. That officer's behavior could have resulted in the chapter's officers, advisors, etc., being named as defendants in a conspiracy to commit a felony case. I don't really fault AGD's offices for taking the action they did. Under the circumstances, it was probably appropriate, so I hope no one views my words here as being critical of AGD's activities, because if it was my chapter, I'd probably be supportive of the same sort of action being taken.

I don't agree. (Except I never said that drinking etc was new) Unless you were around in that time period, you really can't assert that THE SAME AMOUNT OF people acted the same way. They did not.

Of course there were people occasionally who were dumbasses and got busted because they were blabby. The dumbassery just wasn't occurring as often because the majority of people were aware that they had to keep certain things under the radar.

If fraternities and sororities wanted to put the cap on this behavior, they'd lobby for the states to drop the drinking ages below 21 if they saw fit, and quit worrying about their images.

Yes, people 10, 20 and 30 years ago could also be stupid. The big difference is that there was nothing permanent back then. No email, no internet, no twitter, no text. There was also not the level of news/entertainment reporting that there is now. If someone blabbed, it only was heard by those in earshot. If it was repeated, then it became an unproveable rumor. These types of things just didn't travel far. And they certainly weren't important enough to make the 6pm news or the front page of the local paper... which is all the news that we had.

So, the lack of common sense could be the same, but the situation today is completely different. Put something stupid "out there" now not only could the whole world potentially see it, there would be no way to retract it/hide it/deny it. Yes, people got in trouble back then, but the ramifications of their actions weren't near as severe.

This question in particular struck a chord with me.

The issue at hand is that several people don't understand the consequences of written records, and considering how email, twitter, and FB messages work on a technological level, it'd be crazy to assume that any of it was actually private.

Even for private messages sent online, you should imagine that they are mailed without any envelope with all the parts printed on the same side of the same sheet of paper, and that it is physically impossible to deliver unless each person handling it reads the entire message and photocopies it each time they handle it. Not to mention, some of the handlers are handlers because they can make money by selling information contained in those messages (this applies, in particular, for Facebook and Gmail).

As for Yahoo! Groups: last I recall, the default settings make the group easily viewable to the public. I haven't checked, but chances are, someone can probably go online and dig up that incriminating message mentioned in the OP right now.

When people wonder why I'm such a tech advocate in some areas but an ultra-Luddite in others, this is why.

I haven't seen True Grit yet, but thanks to Legally Blonde, I know what the two terms mean :)

For the record, I'd pick the dangerous one...because I'm not afraid of a challenge!

Wow! Tons of interesting discussion here. Basically, I'm with 33girl: it's not that we were angels back in the day, but we were a lot more circumspect about it. I'd like to think I wasn't all that wild as an undergrad, but I was scared spitless of our standards process--that put the fear of God into me.

Kevin, I'm thinking malum prohibitum.

This discussion is an interesting dip into current mores, that's for sure. Thanks for all the different points of view.

Feigned punishment never results in respect for the rules. I think that's a bad idea.



No, No, No (and that's a very non-neutral premise the way you worded it, I'm disappointed in you.)

I haven't seen anything that suggests that, for example, teens who have parents who let them have alcohol at home (as a party, not as a glass of wine with dinner) are better about handling their alcohol either. I think we trick ourselves into thinking that.

IYeah, it's a systemic issue, one that's outside of our orgs control. If our organizations want to lobby to change the legal drinking ages, I'm all for it. Our organizations should NOT condone - tacitly or explicitly - illegal activity.
I agree, that's a whole other issue.
No, I don't have to have lived then because that's just anecdotal evidence. If there's statistical evidence out there I'm glad to examine it, but I don't know that it exists.

Instead, I'm making what I feel to be logical assumption that someone, somewhere on a yearly basis, throughout the history of organizations has done something stupid and made it public. Just like someone, somewhere every year has an MLK party with fried chicken and watermelon and 'thinks' that it's cool. Stupid college students do that sort of thing. One hopes they grow out of it, but this is not something new.

I disagree, I think we just find out what happens at XYZ, Alpha Beta chapter because of the internet. I believe that XYZ Alpha Beta chapter would have gotten in trouble every year, but Joe Schmoe cross the country wouldn't have heard about it.

I agree.
I do agree with this. I was disagreeing with the idea that kids these days were just scandalous in ways never considered before. I think they don't realize the ramifications of putting things online, but I think they've always been just as stupid (and smart) as ever.

I went to school where the bar age was 19. I know of nobody dying of alcohol poisoning in a bar. I know of several people who died of alcohol poisoning in fraternity houses.

(I know, anecdotes are not data, but I'd argue that a "safe place to drink" did exist, though it was illegal for 19 and 20 year olds to drink there)

You know, penny pitcher nights aside, I suspect the cost of getting drunk at a bar combined with the lack of "Jungle Juice" made with Everclear makes bars somewhat safer.

I would think it's more the presence of bartenders and (if they are allowing underagers to drink or being lax in IDing) quickly putting the kibosh on anything/throwing out anyone that might get them busted. Trust me, there are some bar concoctions out there that go on special that make everclear seem like water (our one bar had one called Rocket Fuel that lived up to its name).

One of my friends is in her early 30s, was Greek, and told me she NEVER drank beer in college, always mixed drinks. I cannot fathom this. Obviously (at least some) college students have money to blow on hard alcohol on a regular basis.

I never drank beer, only mixed drinks - but I'm not a big drinker, and I went to a school where there was little chance of having to buy my own drinks anyway. (All you girls going to schools with majority female populations are completely missing out.) :)

Thanks to Ladies Nights and idiot college boys lol

ETA: DSTRen13 types faster

Did I mention she was still, um, pure through most of college? I'm sure that's the cherry on the sundae (no pun).

"Girl, I just wanna talk. Let me get you this drink so we can get to know each other."

Idiot college boys lol

I don't think anybody said kids haven't always been just as scandalous. They were saying it was kept quieter before the internet.

My experience is that it's not just that the internet, email and the like make things more permanent these days. It's that kids today have grown up in a culture where so much more is shared than was the case in the past. I have nothing but anecdotal evidence drawn mostly from my own experience, and I'm not a "kids-these-days" head-shaker type. But I agree with 33girl -- in my experience, kids were generally better about keeping things under the radar. People knew what could get them in trouble, so they tended to be careful about who they told things too.

When a lot of us are making mention of kids now and kids before, there are quite a few things that are different and make the comparison difficult if not impossible. Many states did not raise the legal drinking age to 21 until the late 1980s (or 1990s if you're Louisiana with Frenchy Napoleonic Laws) so the parents of kids these days could often drink at 18 when they entered college. Perhaps some of that attitude or behavior has crossed the generation, and we all know of parents who are now held liable or responsible for buying alcohol for their minor children & children's friends. I know my parents were able to drink wine and beer before 21, but hard alcohol was 21+ and that state still has strange liquor laws, and many other states have those as well (Kevin, I'm looking at you and your warm beer for sale).

The change in the 1960s and 1970s is partially related to the large population of young people, the Vietnam War and the draft, and also the 26th Amendment changing voting from 21 to 18. Drinking and driving, hell seat belts, weren't prevalent like now, and people lived in areas where they didn't rely upon, nor own cars like now. Colleges were still allowed a vast amount of in loco parentis and women were often locked in at night.

It is now a different time and era, and sure, kids still do dumb stuff, but we hear about it a lot faster due to technology and the 24 hour news cycle. Self publication with social media gets it out there as well, and it is much harder for someone to have their parents (or others) sweep something under the rug. It is a lot easier to get caught when mug shots are online, the court record is online and searchable, and people put it on facebook with a quickness.

The method I have found useful with collegians and undergraduates is making the legal, economic, and long term ramifications of being caught for their actions clear. They can't say "I didn't know" or "no one told me" when it hits the fan. Criminal issues regarding drugs and alcohol can prevent them from holding jobs, Greek membership, living on campus, financial aid, driving privileges, being in school, and cost an obscene amount economically and emotionally. I've found that putting it in black and white has deterred some, some just don't get it, and others are hard cases who need to learn a lesson and perhaps need a treatment program.

Not my experience at all, except perhaps for the use of seat belts.

You're right that the drinking age was different -- we could buy beer and wine at 18. (And we were getting beer and liquor in high school.) But I still think the main difference is cultural. The prevalent culture then -- in my experience -- was to keep things quiet as best you could. As you say, perhaps this was due in part to schools acting more in loco parentis.

That would be 1995 for Louisiana. I was 20 years old when the drinking age was forced to 21 when the federal government said do it or we take away your highway funds. All the bars were convinced that everyone between 18 and 21 was "grandfathered in" for about a year until they really started enforcing the law, so I never really was effected by the law. I did start school at 17 so I used a fake ID once to get into a bar.:eek: