Responding to President Bolton

It would appear based on Bolton’s response to the Drug Policy pamphlet that she is not very concerned with the War on Drugs being waged against her students, otherwise hardworking and motivated people who simply enjoy consuming the flower bud of a plant. She clearly must not think too much about the fact that the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration are the biggest civil rights issues of our time. This message is strikingly inconsistent with the precedent that was already set by the administration itself on the subject.

Think back to the college’s relatively recent divestment from private prisons. Once attention was brought to the administration by black student activists of the college’s investments in private prison stock, the administration promptly divested, as they should have done. This divestment is an acknowledgement of the evil that is Mass Incarceration, and therefore by association, the War on Drugs. By divesting, the school has set a moral precedent: the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration are institutionalized mechanisms of racial injustice, and therefore reprehensible.

Now, given this precedent, let’s analyze Bolton’s response to the pamphlet. The following quotes come directly from the Voice article about the pamphlet. These quotes constitute the entirety of Bolton’s response.

“The pamphlet raises an important question.”

“We need and value all of those perspectives in making policy. I would encourage the publisher of the pamphlets to talk directly with student affairs as a next step

“I don’t condemn any method of voicing concerns so long as the method of voicing them doesn’t put anyone’s physical safety or access to their educational opportunities as risk. However, our policies are in place to support each other’s individual rights, and their responsibilities to the Wooster community, so media posted in violation of the policies will be removed, and there could be additional responses depending on the particulars of the violation.”

Bolton completely ignores the arguments made in the pamphlet. She failed to acknowledge the very real connection of the school’s drug policy to the War on Drugs. She failed to acknowledge that the War on Drugs and Mass Incarceration are the biggest civil rights issues of our time. She says nothing about how the administration’s aggressive crackdown on cannabis users unnecessarily forces students into a punitive and costly judicial system predicated on unjust drug laws.

Bolton also makes it clear that the college is prepared to punish those involved in the distribution of the pamphlet. This is evidenced both by her emphasis of pamphlet distribution as a “violation” and by her passive tone, referring to administrative sanctions as “additional responses.” While the pamphlet technically did violate the Scot’s Key, it was an expression of freedom of speech and a form of activism meant to raise awareness about the administration’s arbitrary use of power over its vulnerable students.

The administration has already clearly acknowledged the injustice of the War on Drugs. When Bolton totally ignores the perpetuation of injustice on her own students, it reveals the inconsistency of the administration’s message of social justice.

It’s worth noting here that Wooster is one of the few private liberal arts colleges in the northeast Ohio region that involves the police and judicial system when handling students’ drug violations. At schools such as Denison or Kenyon, the administration handles them internally. This spares their students the humiliation, loss of dignity, and financial burden involved in going to court, hiring a lawyer, and paying fines, not to mention the risk of losing your license or having a criminal record.

The fact that so many other schools do not involve the state completely invalidates the administration’s argument that they must call the police because of the law.

The school does not have to involve the police. They make a conscious decision to put their students through a costly, time-consuming and stressful experience of going to court, hiring a lawyer and pleading guilty to a drug charge. They and exploit the fact that the students are powerless to stop them. If we as a student body do nothing to fight against it, then it will continue unabated.