In a recent article (“Ceasefire: Fire Safety Inspections Halted for Semester,” Volume CXLV, no. 1), we reported that Fire Safety had stopped random inspections of student rooms. Despite the recent campus-wide e-mails notifying students that Fire Safety was reversing their decision to halt room inspections—and that “the Argus” had reported the facts incorrectly—we stand by our reporting. Joyce Topshe, the associate vice president of Facilities, never explicitly denied that there would be no more general room inspections this semester. Instead, she disingenuously told us that no policies had been altered because current policy only dictates that there be one campus-wide inspection per year. One inspection had already occurred when we spoke to her, and over the past few years Fire Safety has conducted far more than one general search. All indications from Topshe were that something had changed, especially considering that the WSA, after months of negotiations with the department, told us that they reached an agreement that effectively halted general room inspections for the rest of the semester. Topshe could have easily refuted this by saying that inspections would continue as normal, yet she did not. Now, three weeks later, the Argus has “incorrectly reported” the facts, according to Fran Koerting’s campus-wide e-mail. Forgive us if this we find this delay somewhat suspect.

Beyond such insulting behavior from the supposed “adults” on campus, the real point is that the purpose and method of the inspections has become so confused that they no longer have much to do with protecting us from fire hazards. It remains unclear why fire safety inspections still closely resemble random drug searches. Why is a bag of pot lying on someone’s desk a fire hazard? Why are University employees that are hired specifically to prevent fires doing the work of the Middletown Police Narcotics Unit?

As the “rules” currently stand, once students are caught with drugs, Fire Safety officers are supposedly required to notify Public Safety, who then notify the MPD. This system often leads to students spending thousands of dollars in legal fees to keep themselves from being thrown into jail. At most of our peer institutions, these matters are dealt with internally. Isn’t Wesleyan supposed to be liberal?

In order for this policy to be effective in any way, Fire Safety must look very carefully at the message that it is sending to students with its recent memorandum. Notifying the student body that there will be inspections, for example, completely defeats the purpose of random, unannounced searches. It simply tells students to hide their drugs and candles. While most students surely appreciate the heads up, such a warning is completely counter-productive to any sort of punitive system that’s meant to encourage compliance with fire safety guidelines.

Here are a few suggestions to turn the current program into a mildly competent attempt at campus fire safety enforcement.

First, Fire Safety should stop reporting drugs to the authorities. It’s not their job.

Second, rather than imposing massive fines for minor offenses that are insulting to students on financial aid, Fire Safety should drop the fines system altogether. While they currently issue a warning before fines or confiscation, they should confiscate banned items (not including drugs) for first offenses. The punishment is clear: students must walk all the way down to the Physical Plant building (across from Long Lane Farm) in order to retrieve their personal belongings. More often than not, students don’t pay the fines themselves (their parents do), and, for those who do have money, the pain is less severe than a walk down to Long Lane.

Both the drug policy and the current fines system are essentially classist measures: they punish the less privileged members of the Wesleyan community exponentially more than their rich cohorts, as finding money for legal fees or fines puts a much larger strain on poorer students.

These problems are exactly why we needed the open conversations that Fire Safety was supposed to be conducting over the next few weeks instead of having the inspections that are almost sure to be completely ineffective now that they’ve announced them to the entire campus. This flawed system, and Fire Safety’s apparent attempt to avoid changing it by investing their time in inspections rather than conversations, simply underlines Fire Safety’s hypocrisy in its attempt to avoid liability. We urge them to abandon the planned inspections and to hastily resume talks with the student body about fixing this pathetic excuse for a safety policy. In the meantime, we encourage you to hide your drugs and anything else that nonsensically violates fire safety regulations—it’s not impossible that you’ll be in jail next week if you don’t.