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Actually, the administrative response to the hanging nooses on campus was quite refreshing in that it was vigorously critical. Some students (a vocal group, including the creators) however, chose to participate in the same sort arrogant entitlement you point to...

posted 5 years ago
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gomi, thank you for your comment. I think it gets to one of the main aspects of the privilege issue as it relates to drugs at Reed and similar campuses. First, there is the institutional interest in being permissive and less interested in bringing in the police (as pointed to in gomi's comments).
The students have more freedom because of their class and economic privileged as well. Yes, half of Reed's students are on financial aid, but that means the other half are not. Cocaine and heroin are expensive drugs. Many of the popular pills might not be easily available to the average low-income kid. Half of the students at Reed have no reason to be concerned about their federal financial aid being cut off because of involvement in drugs. Half of the students have the financial means to obtain drugs and alcohol. Basically, half of the students will have a different set of consequences from substance use and abuse from the other half.
Reed students on the whole are very privileged, but its more nuanced than that. Some students are getting their first tastes of (educational) privileged and won't do anything that could but that in jeopardy. Other students are coming from economic and social privileged to educational privileged only to go back to economic and social privilege when they are done, so the stakes of drugs and alcohol are not that high for them. It's a spectrum. I've made a lot of generalizations, but even the less privileged Reedies I've known who got involved in drugs and alcohol couldn't even afford to stay at Reed because their grades dropped and couldn't maintain the GPA to receive financial aid from Reed (not even talking about federal aid). So there is privileged at play even among using Reedies.

posted 5 years ago
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