I am very proud that I attend the University of Illinois on most every day of the year, except for Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day. I consider this a morally reprehensible “holiday” that goes against everything I stand for, so I applaud the recent efforts to end it. I was also not surprised to see the recent arguments to “save” Unofficial: the students like it too much, it’s none of the University’s business, nobody’s really getting hurt, and people will just find a way to celebrate it anyway.

Indeed, nothing will stop the kind of people who most appreciate Unofficial from being boorish, but the other arguments aren’t valid. There is nothing sacred, universal, nor safe about binge drinking, and Unofficial is absolutely the University’s business. It occurs on school grounds when class is in session and inevitably sends drunk students onto those grounds and into those classes. The faculty and the students, who choose not to get plastered (far from the minority, I would argue) on Unofficial have, at the very least, just as much right to a regular day of school as Unofficial’s patrons do to a drunken one.

As I said before, there really is nothing the University can do to totally stop Unofficial, but it can and should do everything in its power to oppose it, because it goes against everything an institution of higher learning is about. By not doing anything to condemn it, the University condones it, which I believe to be the greatest wrong of all, since it sends the message that bar owners can control school policy. So I wish the anti-Unofficial advocates the best of luck in bringing this “holiday” to an end and can only hope that in the future, I can be proud of my alma mater every day.

Chris Fletcher

Senior in LAS