Franklin Pierce University Forced by Local Police to Help Bust its Own Students
Drug war lunacy has taken hold in Rindge, NH and it isn't pretty. A new policy of notifying local police about suspected drug use on campus has disrupted the school's educational mission and provoked widespread alarm among students.
After discovering a marijuana grinder during a routine maintenance check, campus security called police to investigate. Police then locked students out of their residence for 26 hours while obtaining a search warrant. This video made by Franklin Pierce SSDP members shows how several students were denied access to all of their possessions, including their school work, for a full day so that one of them could be investigated for drug paraphernalia:
If this sounds like a typical college campus misconduct case, it's not. Sources familiar with the situation have informed me that Rindge Police threatened campus security themselves with arrest if they didn't start sacrificing students to the local drug war. It's like saying, "We know people smoke pot on campus. Help us bust them, or we'll bust you."
It's hard to understand what could motivate this type of law-enforcement. Small-town police departments with less to occupy their time are frequently prone to drug war excesses. College town culture clashes are nothing new either. But the sheer audacity of all this is stunning, and it raises important questions about whether this police department understands its proper role in the community.
Beyond that, it highlights how quickly the war on drugs can become a war on education itself. Throughout the nation, students bear the stigma of presumed drug involvement and are targeted, not just by law-enforcement, but by federal law that removes young people from school for petty offenses. The behavior of police at Franklin Pierce University is symptomatic of the corrupted drug war mentality that we must investigate and destroy our young people if necessary in order to discourage drug use.
This is not a war which seeks to protect and uplift America's youth. It is many things, but it is so clearly not that.
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redditFPU's Celebrity Trustee
Comment posted by Giordano on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 2:53pmThere seems to be an upward trend for some institutions of learning to help pave the way for a totalitarian state. Today’s news on another site included a story involving some schools that have banned students from hugging: http://www.commondreams.org/archive/2007/10/04/4313
Then there is the classic example involving Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, which placed electronic eavesdropping devices in the men’s dormitories to detect homosexual or drug using activity.
As an up and coming college that has just attained university status, Franklin Pierce University (FPU) should be more concerned about attracting new students to its 3200 student alumni than with whacking its precious alumni with marijuana charges.
Reading their website, I found that FPU’s celebrity trustee is none other than Marlin Fitzwater, former President Reagan’s and George H. W. Bush’s press secretary. Fitzwater may be the source of the problem. At least his celebrity status might be useful for focusing more publicity on the issue. Perhaps FPU’s 3200 students could get a petition going to “Just Say No” to Fitzwater, or maybe they could demand that Fitzwater be jack-booted off campus. The turmoil would be fun to watch.
Giordano
Interesting...
Comment posted by smorgan on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 4:32pmI should have added that, at least as far as this specific incident is concerned, it seems the administration is siding with the students.
They must still explain the cruel policy change of turning students over to the clearly bloodthirsty local police, but it's a start. I would have come down much harder on the FPU administration had I not been informed that they shared the students' dismay over this fiasco.
Yes.
Comment posted by smorgan on Fri, 10/05/2007 - 10:22amBeer was found, eventually. After the search warrant.