My So-Called “Rights”

Recently, the Committee on Student Life decided to end what one of my upperclassman friends called “the best time ever to get bombed and light things on fire.” In other words, there will be no more River Run. The Man has finally put his foot down. But listen, Committee on Student Life. My fellow 2013ers and I are here to tell you that this is an infringement on our God-given rights as students at a highly-selective university that generally gives us what we want. I mean, what am I supposed to do tonight? How will I ever get to know my eighth blockmate, the one whom I agreed to live with because he looks like a total bro in his Facebook profile picture? If we’re going to share a bathroom for the next three years, there is no way we can meet sober!

I learned in APUSH that the 21st Amendment gives me the right to drink when I want—it’s not like there’s any difference between me now and me in two years when I’m actually, technically, legally allowed to drink. Also, my right to demonstrate in public obviously means that I can burn a highly flammable and potentially hazardous boat in the river as a protest against the Quad! Even my grandfather participated in River Run, commissioning one of his servants to erect “an impressive pyre” for the gods. Cancelling River Run is disrespectful and highly offensive to my family—the only reason my parents wrote such generous checks the last 19 years was because they wanted to see me placed in the best House at Harvard. I can’t disappoint them now.

Alleging that there is something “unsafe” about burning a floating celebratory monument in a public water supply is bogus, and the administration knows it. Who is Dean Dingman to stop chemistry from happening by refusing to let water put out fire? Furthermore, it is a blatant violation of students’ rights to station police cordons around the river like we’re animals in a zoo, or convicts in a prison, or irresponsible teenagers who could potentially harm our fellow citizens by lighting things on fire in public spaces.

One more objection: When will I ever get to visit all the upperclass Houses if I can’t take a shot of Rubinoff in front of each one tonight? It’s not like I could walk by on another day, or eat in a friend’s dining hall once we’ve been housed. And it’s too painful to see Mather when you’re sober—all that concrete is bad for the eyes.

But, no matter. When it comes down to it, we freshmen will do what we want. We’re the Class of 2013—we’ve already been admitted to Stillman for alcohol-poisoning more than any other class to date! (Including the post-prohibition class of ’33.) The administration clearly cannot keep us from our self-harming and public-endangering revelry with the meager presence of “scary” state-troopers and a t-shirt slumber party that ends at midnight. If the Grinch stole Christmas, then Dean Dingman and the Committee on Student Life have stolen something far worse: my one shot at hooking up with that hot HoCo chair from Dunster.

Matthew Ibodson ’13 is a freshman living in Weld Hall. He is thinking about concentrating in Government, but maybe History instead—it depends how Advising Fortnight goes.