Yale's failure to 'protect and serve'

By Kushal Dave

SHAWN CHENG/YH

Dear Fire Marshalls and Police Officers:

I write to thank you for going above and beyond the call of duty. Not just anyone can adhere so strictly to the letter of the law while blatantly disregarding the spirit of it, chasing phantom threats while disregarding real ones. I am in awe of your deft deceptions, your skill in inconveniencing students. Ah, your brilliance! How shall I count the ways?

Let's start with room inspections, when you, Fire Marshall, don't let genuine dangers like antique two-prong wall outlets or boxes of Kleenex near the radiators stand in your way. Your eye never strays from those vile microwaves, either.

Unless we cover them, that is, in which case it's as if they were never there. How clever. This practice not only preserves the integrity of your office but keeps you busy, and no undergraduate education would be complete without participating in this charade every time an e-mail foretells your arrival.

The only way you could improve on these inspections would be to take me and everything I own out of the room. Rumpus has informed me that we are all flammable, and I wouldn't want my precious room damaged, it being worth far more than my happiness.

As for you, Officer, your intelligence is unparalleled. Consider your enforcement of traffic laws. What a great idea to give a ticket for a left on red at 2 a.m. while completely ignoring the motorists who routinely try to run pedestrians over on the streets. A healthy disregard for the white stripes that denote pedestrian walkways is what makes New Haven superior to Boston.

I also like the way you look the other way when motorcyclists careen down Elm Street in the wee hours of the morning, as if there were no noise ordinances. Certainly any rules about noise apply only to parties—which as a rule must be broken up just as they are getting good—because it's 1 a.m.

You reach your pinnacle, though, at access control. In cahoots with the administration, you concoct cockamamie schemes that leave us waiting at various gates when our IDs break, waiting to be let in by others, who do so unthinkingly, thus subverting all of your precious security. The pièce de résistance is that this looks so good, our parents think we are well-protected. I wish that I could just learn your skills at deception!

Your latest campaign is a crusade to make us lock our bathrooms. You are no doubt unaware that students frequently lock themselves out of their rooms because taking keys to the bathroom is an unsanitary hassle. Your campaign demonstrates your beauteous disregard for reality and unwillingness to communicate with the people you protect.

Another great part of your security plan is locking Commons at night, compelling detours in sub-zero weather to the unfriendliest stretch of College Street. You also lock the High Street gate of Old Campus, even though we can get through Durfee's without so much as an ID. Who could be so wise as to see the goodness in what seems blatantly stupid to everyone else? Only you.

Your last failure lies in your lenient enforcement of drinking laws. America, being the world's last bastion of civilization and morality, knows that people should only drink after they've voted, been drafted, and have been driving for three or more years. But you ignore this fact! Why? You are so close to achieving an arbitrary police state. It's within your grasp. Act now!

Lord knows where I would be without you there keeping me safe and educating me in the ways of the world. As a lowly student at this podunk university, I have absolutely no idea how to protect myself from danger. And so, like the unthinking soldiers of yore, I salute you!

Kushal Dave is a sophomore in Pierson.

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