Point

Lee Feder: Celebrating is a privilege not a right

I do not want to hear about tradition. I do not want to hear about “a day off” from class. These are not at the heart of Unofficial.

I have been around this campus a long time and have enjoyed several Unofficials. Starting as a way to celebrate St. Patrick’s Day, which always used to be during Spring Break, on campus, Unofficial was a time when people would wake up to drink early and often, attending class if necessary and ditching if able. My freshman year, the campus barely celebrated Unofficial and underclassmen certainly did not come to class drunk and disorderly. The Middle Ages that were my sophomore year was the first time I celebrated Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day and it was just beginning to catch on as an all-day festival of green beer and parties. Around that time, the University identified the popularity of Unofficial and covertly moved it a week earlier so as not to conflict with guests of Engineering Open House (some green-clad staggering students used to pull the younger siblings of EOH exhibitors into Murphy’s to try to feed them beer while other vomited up and down the aptly named Green Street).

Only during the last two years have advocates talked about the “tradition” of Unofficial, a tradition without basis while detractors argue that it increases binge drinking to the point of becoming a serious health and education hazard. The difference between the old Unofficial I know and love and what it has become lies in a difference of maturity. Parties were common, bar visits frequent, but the tone was different. People with responsibilities on Unofficial tended to those and then partook in the festivities. Unofficial was essentially a campus-wide, daylong tailgating party, only without the football game. It was as mature a holiday as an all-day drinking festival can be, but recently has become a slosh-fest.

While Unofficial used to be one of my favorite days of the year, now it is just another party. People fail to understand that it is a privilege, not a right. Our tuition purchases us conditional rights at this University, the right to not suffer discrimination for example. Nowhere do we have a right either to disrupt others’ education or to take a day off school to destroy brain cells.

What made my Unofficials of years past great was the idea of doing something “wrong” that was not terribly wrong, like drinking when I should have been in class. The more recent holidays feature immature actions like disrupting class, drinking until the ambulance comes, and stupid decision-making (may whoever drives drunk, especially on Unofficial, suffer the full penalty of law.) People want the University to cover the external costs associated with Unofficial like missing class and police vigilance.

Unofficial used to be, and should be again, like a college senior ditch day: when you understand the idea and accept the consequences of celebrating, you may partake. Until then, Unofficial is a day for those responsible enough to remember it the day afterwards.

Counterpoint

Lally Gartel: Unofficially stupid campus event

I realize the unpopularity of the opinion I’m about to argue for, so I don’t plan to say that Unofficial St. Patrick’s Day should be illegal, or banned, or that anyone should, in any way, infringe on your right to drink for 12 hours straight on whatever day you want.

Instead, this is going to be an aesthetic, anecdotal argument about why we, as a campus, should perhaps reconsider the focus we put on sticking it to the man by (actually) sticking it to ourselves.

Last year, my freshman year, I found out about Unofficial the night before it happened. The next day, I tried to go to my 10 a.m. class and couldn’t because it was canceled. So, faced with the choice of sequestering myself away from the drunken crowds or joining them in their revelry, I joined in.

I can’t say I had a bad time. Dressed in the only green shirt I owned, I went to a party or two and surveyed the consumption of delicious-looking green beer.

And then all the news happened. One of my good friends gets hit by a car at about three in the morning.

It might be unrelated to Unofficial, but a drunk hit-and-run doesn’t just randomly happen when it’s the drinkingest day of the year. Another girl dies when she falls off the back of a motorcycle. I watch people throwing rocks at bicyclists from their fraternity houses in frat park. Mobs roam the streets looking for any last spare bit of beer and looking suspiciously at any other mid-street stumblers to see how stupid/funny/painful what they are about to do is.

This, my friends, is what Unofficial is: your reputation.

But like I said, I’m not going to argue that Chancellor Herman or the Champaign County Board needs to take immediate action. You need to take immediate action, because you are making this campus look, sound and smell absolutely ridiculous when you condone (with your own binge drinking) mass, drunken stupidity.

You probably won’t stop drinking. Actually, this will probably fuel the flame of your intoxication. But what can I say, on Unofficial, I’m going to try and abstain from being one of you and attempt, with the last little bit of my will power, not to drink for 16 hours straight.

Of course, having participated in it, I realize too that Unofficial is not any more fun than any other Friday night. But it is more dangerous because almost everyone is drinking for extended periods of time, leading to numerous drunken mobs and increased instances of drunk driving. But none of these are reasons to ban it.

In fact, it would be impossible to ban it. These are just reasons for all of us to take a look at ourselves for a moment and realize that one of the things we’re known for is drinking ourselves stupid for an entire day, and then ignoring the bad stuff that happens while we’re all drunk.

As a matter of fact, let me amend that: what we’re known for is falling for a trap of a cunning business owner who realized the profit potential in convincing 30,000 college kids they absolutely must get drunk all day one day out of the year.