Boston Officials Ban ALL MIT Fraternity And Sorority Parties, Indefinitely
About a month ago, an MIT student fell four stories from the roof of the Phi Sigma Kappa fraternity house. You see, PSK had a plexiglass dome skylight on their “illegal rooftop deck,” and during a Wednesday night soiree, one student decided to jump up and down on top of it. He landed on his back and suffered some head injuries, but was conscious after the fall.
That student was stupid (as far as MIT students go, anyway). You don’t attempt to break glass by jumping on it, and then get upset when it breaks, but I suppose we all do stupid things when we’re drunk. Some of us text the guy we just met 32 times in a row. Some of us make out with vaginas on public sidewalks. Some of us order “one of every slice” at a local pizzeria. And some of us attempt to defy the laws of gravity and narrowly avoid plummeting to our deaths. It happens.
Officials in Boston, however, don’t seem to share my “Let’s let bygones be bygones” mentality when it comes to serious injuries. In response to the student’s accident, all parties and gatherings at off-campus fraternity houses, sorority houses, and independent living groups have been banned. Organized events involving more people than are permitted to live in each dwelling, by law, are hereby forbidden, indefinitely.
This ban is to last at least until each building has been issued a new inspection certificate by the city, but officials are “seriously considering” making this a permanent change.
While maintaining safe party facilities is important, I can’t imagine the detriment this will cause for the party scene. School officials are trying to provide on-campus facilities for social gatherings, but do you remember how fun the last school sponsored social event like BINGO in the student lounge was? Of course you don’t! You didn’t go to it. Nobody did!
Have a heart, Boston. Fix the safety issues, quickly, and let the students of MIT drink, make out, and socialize in peace. Those nerds suffered through four years of not going to parties in high school. Let’s let them rage.
[via Boston.com]
Image via MIT
THANKS OBAMA
11 years ago at 5:39 pmBest of luck.
11 years ago at 6:26 pmDammit. I wish I thought of this name. Nicely done.
11 years ago at 7:39 pmAren’t all parties technically illegal anyways?
11 years ago at 5:49 pmno
11 years ago at 6:29 pmyour so talented
11 years ago at 5:49 pmIf that gets challenged in court, it’s not going to stand up to scrutiny for longer than it takes the judge to write a 3 sentence decision. This ban is essentially trampling heavily on 1st amendment right of assembly.
Want to have a few buddies over to watch the game with your roommates? Sorry, you’ve exceeded maximum occupation. Jesus this is a dumb overreach. It’s almost as bad as when LA tried to ban raves, which are idiotic in and of themselves. “What do you mean we can’t ban types of music?”
11 years ago at 5:51 pmIANAL, but as a resident of an MIT fraternity in Boston, we have very few rights. We are technically licensed as dorms, so we don’t even have 4th amendment rights. Police don’t need warrants to come inside.
11 years ago at 6:01 pmi’m an MIT alum. MIT police don’t need warrants, but BPD do. the reason MIT police don’t need to is because they’re not part of the state, and the Constitution only applies to the government
11 years ago at 6:50 pmMIT are licensed police officers and bound by the same rules as normal cops, I’m assuming, except the dorms probably have some kind of probably cause or exigent circumstance waiver in the housing contract. And yes the constitution applies to MIT as well. Any school that takes any kind of financial aid or participates in government programs, which MIT definitely does, then they have to abide by just about everything public schools do. IANAL either but that’s how it’s been presented to me.
11 years ago at 10:48 amHello, real cops? I’d like to register a complaint.
11 years ago at 8:22 pmJust do what my house did when it was put on probation.
We were issued a mandate that required an event form filled out and filed anytime we had more than 20 people gathered with alcohol present within our house. Considering my fraternity housed 100 men, our dinners usually had more than 20 guys 21-and-over at them. They would have beer or wine with dinner (no hard alcohol allowed in this mandate.) So..we started filing events every damn day..requiring our fraternal governing bodies (and sometimes police) to come over and inspect our “events.” They would always get pissed, and we would just reply, “Hey, we’re just following the rules. Would you guys like to join us for dinner? Spiro, our chef, makes amazing steaks.” After about 3 weeks of this, they stopped showing up.
Soooo we started throwing huge parties..filed and everything, but none of the officials ever showed up.
11 years ago at 9:57 pmHow about that constitutional right to assemble huh?
11 years ago at 5:53 pmThe ban violates the 1st Amendment. People have a “right to peaceably assemble.”
11 years ago at 5:53 pmWho the fuck do these totalitarian bureaucrats think they are?
11 years ago at 5:54 pmMIT now NF.
11 years ago at 5:57 pmI figure MIT parties are large-scale math competitions anyway.
11 years ago at 6:02 pmthis kills the halloween parties
11 years ago at 6:02 pm