The rape allegations in the Duke University lacrosse team incident have heightened awareness of town and gown relationships across the country.
Sadly, the crescendo of bad behavior at the house where the alleged attack took place is all too familiar in many Baltimore City and County neighborhoods.
Sal Gentile?s recent opinion piece provided insight into the attitudes of students and underscored the need for colleges and universities to hold students accountable for bad behavior in the community.
Mr. Gentile perceives many students? college experience to be defined by a sense of entitlement due to their privileged backgrounds, at least at Johns Hopkins University, where he will be a junior next year. He points to this attitude as an explanation for why caring about the community where they live while attending college does not rate high on students? priority lists.
I sincerely hope that a minority of students consider the greatest worth of a college education to be access to high-paying jobs and elite institutions and clubs, as Mr. Gentile states. This undermines the value of various aspects of the college experience, particularly that of receiving a higher education ? its main purpose ? and learning to apply such knowledge in ways that contribute to humanity.
Mr. Gentile and I agree that “independence and a disdain for authority mark campus culture,” although I would attribute such a mind-set more to the age group than to student backgrounds. However, a belief that one?s social status merits special dispensation when the law is broken will inevitably perpetuate poor behavior and foster disrespect for the rest of society.
Challenging existing norms is a part of the human maturity process. Emotional maturity evolves as a result of the negative consequences of contesting authority. When university administrators appease their neighbors and local officials while remaining loyal to their students as Mr. Gentile suggests they must do, students are deprived of the experiences that allow them to mature into responsible and productive adults. No student?s pedigree should put him or her above the law or free them treating neighbors with basic courtesy.
Students who break the law, prompting neighbors to call 911, and find themselves arrested and detained in quarters they find unacceptable, should consider it a learning experience and make a point not to repeat such behavior in the future. If fraternity houses cause disturbances, the tenants must be held fully responsible just as any other citizen would be.
Mr. Gentile calls for students and neighbors to start talking, but about what? Citizens expect their peace and property to be respected and the laws to be obeyed ? what else is there to say? When students choose not to do this and the university continues to fail to establish and enforce a strict disciplinary policy that ensures it, local officials and police have an obligation to intervene and protect the livability of the community.
This is not about racial or socioeconomic divisions. People of all races and classes have a right to expect their neighborhoods to be treated with respect. To assert that universities will have a chance to tame their students? sense of entitlement if neighbors stop calling 911 when crimes are committed is absurd. Any such sense of entitlement can most effectively be tamed by the expulsion of students who tarnish the name of their institution by disrespecting its neighbors.
Corinne Becker writes about quality of life issues in the community. She is president of Riderwood Hills Community Association in Towson, Baltimore County. She can be reached at [email protected].
