<p>Last night I was in my neighbor's room with 4 girls and 5 other guys, and we were keeping it pretty quiet. One guy was drinking and 3 of the girls were drinking, but the rest of us ** weren't. **</p>
<p>One of the guys we were with was extremely drunk and when he was walking back from the restroom, an RA from Harper 7 (floor above us) walked by and asked if he was going into "that room" (he had left the door open), and he invited her in not knowing she was an RA and she immediately saw empty shot glasses and Jager as well as weed, and we all had to sit in a line against the wall in the hallway as she took our names and ID's and made us watch her pour out the alcohol into the drinking fountain. </p>
<p>Even though only 3-4 people were drinking, we were all guilty by association. </p>
<p>I, as well as everyone from last night I've spoken to, got an email saying that we have a meeting on Tuesday at Eigenmann with a substance counselor and that "consequences will follow."</p>
<p>Is anyone familiar with this policy or how much the fine is/what the punishment was, even if we weren't drinking?</p>
<p>Its been a couple years, but I was a j-board member at Eigenmann once upon a time. </p>
<p>I believe if you can convince them you were not drinking you might be able to get out of it, but they are going to need to see some good evidence for you to prove you were not drinking.</p>
<p>However, even if you do get “found responsible” (they do not use guilty/not guilty), it is a slap on the wrist for drinking (you need to take a short class and meet with a substance abuse counselor). Your parents do not get notified.</p>
<p>The weed is a little more serious. You need to make sure you are “not found responsible” for that. I think they have to inform the police about it and then there are extra consequences in addition to whatever the Bloomington Police Department does. It was two years ago and I forgot the specifics, so I am sorry I can’t be of more help.</p>
<p>My experiences with the RAs in Foster have been unpleasant for the most part. They seem pretty angry with their lives, so this does not surprise me at all.</p>
<p>Thanks, maxellis! I don’t know if it’s exactly proveable that I wasn’t drinking. They didn’t breathalyze and they only asked me to say my name and give them my ID card. The R.A. said that we were all responsible and that even if some of us weren’t drinking, it’s a misprison of misconduct since we didn’t report those who were. The weed only belonged to one kid, and then again I don’t know how to prove that without risking getting the kid who it did belong to (one of my best friends) royally screwed. Any suggestions? And who exactly am I gonna be talking to?</p>
<p>And yeah, it really does seem like the R.A.'s are merely here to bust us. The one on my floor is pretty chillaxed but the one above us patrols our floor like you don’t even know.</p>
<p>You will be talking with 7-11 dorm students (90+% of them will be freshman) on the j-board, and they will vote on whether or not you are found responsible, and if so, what the consequences will be. However, for drinking it is always a slap on the wrist. There is also some staff member (usually the head of the dorm) who oversees the board, but does not vote.</p>
<p>On a side note, from my experiences being on Eginmann’s j-board the students who are attracted to those positions are usually jerks who like having the power to control the outcome. (I would like to exclude myself from this group; I was doing it to build up my resume and took no joy in seeing others suffer). They definitely have the mentality of guilty until proven innocent and I found myself constantly voting against them.</p>
<p>Your best bet would be to lay it out truthfully saying you were not drinking and show that you did everything possible to prove at the time you were not drinking. However, if you can say you were not aware of anyone drinking then this would be the best situation. It will be hard to do, but if you are 100% sure you can convince them then it will help. It might be guilty by association - that was the rule when I was on the board, but if we were positive the person was not drinking then we would ignore that rule and not issue any consequences. </p>
<p>Also, while I am not sure what to do in regards to your friend with the weed (they might want to be a good friend and own up to it, but then again I dont think the police can do anything if they are unsure whose it was), you should all make sure you have your stories straight (i.e. say the exact same thing happened) before you go in (they will talk to you each individually). If the stories are not the same, they will find out who is lying and it might be harder on that person.</p>
<p>One recommendation is that you should seem friendly when you are talking with the board. I know it will be hard to do so, but when someone was friendly when telling us what happened/while we were questioning them, it went a long way.</p>
<p>Hey bud, how exactly do you get onto the J-Board. Is there any website or specific law major you should be interested in to be a part of that team?</p>
<p>Not really! At orientation they said that alcohol and drugs are bad and stuff like that but they never laid down any procedures or told us what would happen if we got caught. On the first day our R.A. basically just said “alcohol… you can’t have it” but he never enforces the rules anyways as R.A’s from other floors get called to our floor almost every night.</p>
<p>I feel like if those of us who ** weren’t ** drinking get penalized for this, it’s worth an appeal or a sue if the penalty is bad enough considering they NEVER told us that we’re guilty by association and that it’s against the rules for being in a room with people who’re drinking even if you’re not drinking.</p>
<p>During first semester I was written up for drinking. Event though the alcohol had just came in (the RA’s saw somebody enter the room with it and ran to the door, so I couldn’t leave) and I wasn’t doing anything wrong really, I got written up. I had the option of going to the J-Board to try to prove my innocence, or take a $100 dollar fine and go see a counselor about it. I thought about going to the J-Board, but if you are found guilty, it goes on your record, period (and I was in a room with alcohol, so I think that makes me guilty. Welcome to stupid rules). But I chose the other option because as long as I am not written up again, it doesn’t go on my record. </p>
<p>I tried to tell the counselor at Eigenmann that I didn’t do anything but she didn’t care and made me sit through her hour lecture about the dangers of alcohol.</p>
<p>But the fact that weed was involved makes it a whole different situation than what I went through.</p>
<p>^ That’s weird, we never even got the option go see the J-Board. We just got sent straight to the counselor at Eigenmann and she had a video for us to watch as well as a lecture, and then she gave us all little index cards and she said to anonymously write down who the marijuana belonged to and that if our response didn’t single someone out, we’d all be guilty. We all knew who it was.</p>
<p>Needless to say, we’re all guilty. Friends don’t screw friends over like that. Luckily all that came from that is the community service and parental notification. We got the case filed for 120 days and it’ll be on our transcript for 2 years after graduation but she said “not to worry.”</p>
<p>Im not sure. She said there’s third-party access to the incident report for 120 days after being found responsible, but she didn’t tell us who’d be looking at it, if anyone. The incident report gets forwarded to a dean and then within 14 days the dean decides if further sanctions are necessary, but the person we talked to today assured us that the dean challenging an imposed sanction is rare.</p>
<p>And she also failed to tell us what the transcript would say. It’s actually noted on something called a conduct report, which is a seperate document from the transcript, and she said that only some companies request it when hiring candidates. So basically I think it’s just a list of misconducts with dates. </p>
<p>She spit all this info out in like, literally the last 45 seconds of the meeting and then just told us that we got lucky because consequences could’ve been much worse.</p>
<p>I know you all think you were doing the honorable thing by taking a joint fall for the guy who owned the weed. Personally, I think the truly honorable thing would have been if he had taken responsibility for his own actions and spared the rest of you the possible ramifications. </p>
<p>Now, you have to hope that no future potential employers ask to see your conduct report, and if they do, that they won’t care. However, if they are asking for it, I bet they do. In a tight job market, the last thing you want to do is give a potential employer a reason to pick the other guy instead of you.</p>
<p>I hope you don’t wind up regretting your decision.</p>
<p>Unless you apply for a job that requires a background check (and even then this doesn’t qualify as a deal breaker, your a freshman in college for crying out loud) this is NOT going to ruin your prospects for getting hired after you graduate! </p>
<p>For God’s sake, the last three Presidents of the U.S. did much worse than you and your friends.</p>
<p>Relax, don’t get in any more trouble, and all will be fine. </p>
<p>I do have to say that your “friend” owes you!!!</p>
<p>The judicial system at IU is a little tricky because any case could be seen in front of J-board or could be seen by a judicial officer (its sounds as if you got the ladder). Also, it is late now, but for anyone else who finds themselves in this situation the absolute best thing a person can do is clearly state to the RA that you are not drinking/smoking/etc. IF the RA on duty is doing their job they will note this in their incident report they write after they leave the room. Also volunteer to help pour beer cans out etc. and be respectful to the RAs (no matter how respectful or not respectful they are) it will do nothing but help your case. I was an RA for two years and trust me when I say that this makes a huge difference when your case comes up. LoonLake I’m sorry this happened to you, it sounds like your RA and judicial system failed you. Tons of other students do the same but don’t get caught and sadly you were caught in the wrong place at the wrong time. I know it may seem like RAs are doing nothing but trying to get you in trouble but not all of us are terrible, it seems like you got stuck with the wrong kind for your floor and who wrote you up.</p>