Enforce drinking rules

If Princeton University is unwilling to enforce its current rules about alcohol consumption, why should the students be required to do so (Notebook, Jan. 28)? This nifty reversal of in loco parentis, leaving students to do the parenting, is the latest example of an unwavering march to total confusion regarding responsibility.

The University is responsible for an alcoholism policy and its enforcement. The students are responsible for adherence to these policies and any consequences for subsequent violations. If the trustees are unwilling to require enforcement of University policy, whatever that policy regarding alcohol consumption may be, then they should resign.

There should not, however, be any confusion about the New Jersey statutes regarding the age limitation on alcohol purchase and consumption. All those empty alcohol containers found along the P-rade route during Reunions fully illustrate the University’s and others’ lack of concern for the “open-container” policy instituted more than 60 years ago when I was an undergraduate.  

I have no dog in this fight, nor am I interested in who drinks or who doesn’t. That is a matter between the University and its student body. We do not need a social honor code; we do need an undergraduate body whose members believe in doing what is required of them as part of the University community, and an administration that no longer sets forth rules of conduct that are not enforced. Even small children are capable of spotting intellectual dishonesty when they encounter it.