Stephen Yeargin

State Senator Roy Herron (D-Dresden) sponsored a law signed by Gov. Phil Bredesen last week that will require state universities to notify the parents of any student under 21 years of age disciplined for alcohol or drug violations. Herron states that it is the first of its kind in the country.

I believe that in some cases, parental involvement may prove to be the kind of remedial force necessary to accomplish that goal. What perplexes me is the requirement being in force until age of 21, three years past all statutes that a person becomes a legal adult at 18 years of age. It would appear to me that this law creates more of a burden for campus administrators who should be spending resources on educating to prevent such offenses rather than notifying parents. If the university system wished to have such a policy, it would have implemented it years ago. My alternate plan for curbing the number of drug and alcohol offenses involves putting them into the same justice system their peers who do not attend the university enter for the same offense. “We will call your parents if you misbehave,” works on kids at a summer camp, not the liberal arts major who opted to sit around and drink a few beers with friends.

The primary argument for this law could be summed up in “if they are paying for your education, they should know when you misbehave.” I could not agree more, as long we clarify who “they” are. If the majority of a student’s tuition is paid by the HOPE lottery scholarship, the Tennessee Education Lottery Corporation should be informed of any diversion of those funds to other purposes, i.e. beer money. If a community group, church or other civic organization is footing the bill, they should be informed if a student partakes of illegal substances. In a majority of cases, the parents are at most paying for incidental expenses through the first few years of college (until the 21 years of age benchmark is met). At which point, either personal loans underwritten by the parents or education loans taken out by the students are used to finish the degree. If this law must exist, then it should be for the purpose of updating the true stakeholders in the student’s higher education, not simply default to the parents.

There is also the matter of the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act, but I am not of sufficient legal background to summarily dismiss this new statute as unconstitutional on those grounds alone.

I had a front row seat to the weekly report from Public Safety during my three years as editor of the school newspaper. Most of the violations were either simple possession of drug paraphernalia or, more frequently, public intoxication. Part of my conditions of employment mandated that I was to never appear in that report under any circumstances (my truck was once vandalized, but that was par for the course I suppose). So what does the justice system look like at my alma mater?

If you were in the dorm suite away from the festivities but all your roommates were caught with beer, the arresting officer at his or her discretion could charge everyone in the suite with a violation of the law pertaining to alcohol on university property. The report would be filed, you would be informed that your name was being handed over to Student Affairs and you were to schedule a meeting with the Student Conduct Officer. What happens from here is based on what we were told on no less than five occasions over three years by students going through Student Affairs.

The university handled so many cases that there was no wiggle room in the rules: you were issued a citation and placed on the first time offenders list with Student Affairs. There was no right for a student to challenge the charge, and I have it from numerous sources that harsher reprimand awaited for anyone who tried. Even talking about your punishment or circumstances had words like “suspension” and “expulsion” being tossed around. Whether this was an empty threat or is based on fact is something that I cannot personally vouch for.

Regardless of how it all turned out, the student’s name would be included in the summary given to a newspaper reporter every week, and in turn would be printed in the following week’s issue. That is really what spurred most of our intel: people feeling wrongly accused in print and wanting to clear their name. Most, however, really wanted to share their experiences of what they felt to be a gross injustice. In February of 2006, we took a closer look at the system and found that there was another avenue for justice that had been dormant for at least five years prior to the publication of the story. I doubt that it has ever been used since.

I am curious as to how this law will be implemented at UT Martin, or how it will be received among the campus community.

Update: I finally tracked down actual piece of legislation (never mentioned in any of the news reports).

SB4108 by *Herron, *Burks, *Burchett, *Williams, *Kurita, *Ford, O., *Finney R.. (*HB4088 by *Maddox, *Cooper B, *Hardaway.)

Education, Higher – Requires public institutions of higher education to notify parents or legal guardians of students under the age of 21 if the student commits a disciplinary violation with respect to use or possession of alcohol or controlled substances that is a violation of law or institutional policy or rule. – Amends TCA Title 49.

An amendment added the line “except as prohibited by the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act,” so I guess that covers all of the legal bases.