<p>So my son lets me know that he may be in trouble at school. He shares a room with 3 other students; one of those students is over 21 years old. The student who is over 21 has been purchasing alcohol and keeping it in the room. Their room is not allowed to have alcohol (it would be ok in small amounts if they were ALL over 21). So my son is in his bedroom and the roommate is having a party in the living room. He even posted on Facebook that he was so annoyed that he couldn't sleep while this roommate "partied". Apparently the roommate leaves, security comes to the door, my son answers and they see alcohol in the room. Now he may be in trouble.
Now I am fairly sure that my son wasn't drinking (he has a strong aversion to the taste of just about everything... he is a picky eater and has never had any interest in drinking and seems very forthcoming and honest when talking about the fact that his roommates DO drink and that he has played a drinking game with them while he drank 'shots' of tap water rather than beer). I hope I don't just sound like a naive mom... it's not that I would find it impossible to believe that he drank, but seriously, he is just not a "party" type of kid.<br>
So, the school may take disciplinary action and I'm not sure what his options are.<br>
Are students entitled to some sort of "representation" if the school wants to take disciplinary action? I'm wondering if this sort of offense is likely to result in a warning, probation, or suspension/expulsion? Will he be allowed to reside in the dorms in the future? He is a freshman (18 years old), has not been in any trouble before, has good grades... not sure if any of that matters.</p>
<p>It varies very heavily across schools, but at my school (UMD) students are allowed representation at disciplinary hearings, and you would never be kicked out for a first alcohol offense. Probation is possible. But if he’s at a private school it’s a huge difference.</p>
<p>Were the others at the party willing to step up and say your son was not involved with the party, that the older student was the host and stepped out for a bit? It seems that there would be plenty of witnesses from the party to say your son was not involved in the drinking.</p>
<p>Totally depends on the school. He may also want to be proactive and make an appointment to speak with the Dean of Students. He can then explain the situation (his side) and see what the school will do and maybe ask for another chance. I know this is similar to what happened to my son at a very conservative school and nothing came of it.</p>
<p>He will probably be interviewed first (as should the other people in the room). i’ve never heard of someone being expelled over something like this, although it may be possible at very strict “dry” campuses (which your school isn’t since they allow it for over-21s).</p>
<p>I could expect him to be expelled if it were BYU or Liberty, but not most schools. Otherwise just disciplinary actions. I agree with having party members interviewed (including the roommate).</p>
<p>If student gotten expelled because alcohol is found in the dorm, I would guess 30% or higher of the college students would be kicked out.</p>
<p>When we went to visit DS over thanksgiving break. The refrigirator was full of beer and there were several empty bottles of hard stuff. This is a freshmen dorm!!! </p>
<p>“do you drink?” DW asked DS, “no”. That was it. We trust him. He moved to another dorm building later.</p>
<p>Stuff like this happens. Usually, if someone “fesses up” that the alcohol was theirs, then only that student will get in trouble. In this case it seems like the 21+ student should be the one saying that he was drinking and that he didn’t serve your son.</p>
<p>I honestly don’t think much should happen if this is his first offense, he wasn’t drinking at the time along with the roommate’s confession that the liquor was his own.</p>
<p>I just don’t think this is going to be a big deal other than perhaps a citation. At S’s school you need three of those before there are repercussions.</p>
<p>When we moved D into her campus apartment as a transfer sophomore, age 20, we saw several bottles of vodka in her freezer. We were mildly surprised but as far as we know the school never did anything about it, even tho the apartment building was supposed to be populated with sophomores, most of whom were 20 years or under, which is under the legal drinking age.
D admits she tried a rum & coke one night & didn’t much like it. She said her room mates didn’t drink much, despite the vodka in the freezer (guess it keeps it cold & leaves more room in the fridge).
Have not heard of anyone at our kids’ or niece’s or nephew’s private Us having any problems with possessing alcohol while under the age of 21. Of course, it’s best to find out the policy of your kid’s own U & also get the person who bought/owned the alcohol to admit & exhonerate your S.</p>
<p>Assuming that your S is telling the truth, I would hope that the other participants would be honorable enough to state that he was not part of the party. If indeed he wasn’t drinking, your S should not hesitate to approach the others and ask them to specifically say so. (He might also want to make it clear that he will not testify to anything that he did not actually witness…)</p>
<p>Again assuming that he is telling the truth, I would fight any attempts to assign him a violation, even if they have a policy like that which Modadunn describes. In earlier threads, people have talked about schools assuming blanket guilt for everyone in a room. I think that is grossly unjust. If he is truly innocent, I’d fight it to the max. These things can come back to bite you.</p>
<p>If the college allows 21 year old to have alcohol in the dorms and allows under 21’s to room with over 21’s, what they heck? Do they expect that an under 21 will never be without the over 21 in the room with the alcohol? It’s the under 21’s room too!</p>
<p>The fact that this is a school that lets 21 year olds have alcohol in their dorms is sort of a good sign. This isn’t a super strict school. I wonder if your son will get some sort of a warning. The sort of event you described must happen very often there and it is probably easiest on their judicial system if they just give students a warning whenever something like this happens.</p>
<p>Thank you all for the feedback. </p>
<p>Here are a few key points:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>My son goes to a CA state school (probably not too strict about drinking in general)</p></li>
<li><p>Their discipline policy is a bit unclear, however I found a statement that said, “Possession of alcohol (open or unopened) shall be interpreted as consumption of alcohol”.</p></li>
<li><p>My son’s room is considered “dry” because of the underage students… no alcohol allowed.</p></li>
<li><p>Really, why, would they room a 21+ yr old with underage students when they allow the 21+'s to drink and possess alcohol?</p></li>
<li><p>I hope that the roommate would be willing to vouch for my son, but I do not know him, so I really have no idea.</p></li>
<li><p>I do believe my son was not involved in the drinking/party in any way.</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I appreciate hearing from all of the parents who have so much more experience with college students/life than I do. :)) I will post an update when I hear what the school’s next step is.</p>
<p>I’m looking only at your posting 13, and I’m referring [only] to school rules there…
items 2,3, and 4 are NOT inconsistent.</p>
<p>To # 4:
Why do they permit someone 21 to room with someone less than 21? Because no alcohol is permitted in the room.
Therefore since students are expected to follow rule 3, then rule 2 will never be a concern. In this case, the partiers and your S broke the rules(2 and 3) by permitting alcohol in the room.</p>
<p>At 50, I may be a legal drinker, but it doesn’t mean I can drink anywhere, anytime.
Similar for those who are legal smokers, they may of an age to buy and smoke, but they have restrictions.</p>
<p>I would fight the whole issue if it were me. You might remember that big bust in an Ivy League school not too long ago? We knew the roommate of one of the kids and the police followed the “guilt by association” rule until the Dad got an attorney and it became very clear that the roommate (our friends son) was clueless as to what was going on in his room. Now, your son wasn’t clueless but it certainly doesn’t sound like he was partaking in any way. You can have a large family party with lots of kids under 21 and still consume alcohol as long as no kids under 21 partake; other than the “dry room” rule at the college I see no reason why your son should get any kind of reprimand.</p>
<p>I also agree that you need to find out how all of this is going to affect your son. Even if he should get a citation, he will have to report it on any grad school applications under the question concerning academic and diciplinary actions by the college.</p>
<p>If there is law school in his future it will not only come up in the law school application but also in his C & F for the bar (where he will have to disclose).</p>
<p>Is the student who is over 21 also a freshman? It seems odd to me that they would room freshmen with much older students like that, and somehow expect the freshman to be willing/able to enforce the “dry room” rule. There’s an imbalance of power there, IMO.</p>
<p>i’m a student and it definitely depends on the school and its policies. i’m pretty sure it varies a lot between schools. </p>
<p>for us it’s really not a big deal AT ALL. if you get caught by the RA you get a citation for a “JA”, have to have a meeting with the head RA of your building, attend an alcohol education class, etc. The JA is completely school related and doesn’t show up on your permanent record at all. The reason they do it is because if you accumulate a lot of JA’s (like 6-8) you can get suspended/put on probation, etc. I’ve heard of this happening to a few kids, but never expulsion (and their JA’s weren’t just for alcohol)</p>
<p>The policy for marijuana is a bit more strict…they have the RA call the police if they are suspicious instead of confronting the kids themselves. So the police “bust” you and basically threaten you to arrest you, but if you’re cooperative and apologetic they just leave you with a JA and you have to do the meeting, a drug education class, and volunteer work too. </p>
<p>Does your son know anyone who has been in a similar situation? It happens a lot, I’m sure if he asked around he might be able to get some information about the school’s policy/previous measures taken</p>
<p>If this is a dorm where your son has a bedroom separate from the 21 yo who had alcohol, and separate from the living are where there was a party, and he was in his room not participating, but had to walk to the door to answer it, he needs to make things clear as to what went down, and he needs to get the suite mate to own up. If he had no alcohol in his bedroom, then he needs to fight whatever happens. Yeah, they tell the kids in a suite they are responsible for what goes on in the suite, but if this guy kept alcohol in a separate bedroom from your son, you son needs to speak up. </p>
<p>I think it is a bad policy to put a 21 yo in a suite with 18 yo freshman. The school holds some blame in this situation.</p>
<p>Something like this happened to me many years ago. My roomate had a keg party, kegs were prohibited. I was away during the party, roomate left after the party was over, I came home. RA comes to room, sees keg, I’m it. I told my roomate I would not go to the disciplinary hearing and testify against him, asked that he go and fess up. He would not. I did not attend the discipinary hearing and was put on probation for one semester. I have had to describe this when applying for various things, such as admission to law school and admission to the bar, but have never had any negative consequences. In hindsight, I probably should have gone and told them it wasn’t me, it was him. Something for your son to think about is that grad schools, professional organizations and the like often will ask a question along the lines of “have you ever been on disciplinary probation?”</p>