'It’s midnight on Saturday, I’m a junior, and I’m sitting in my university off campus townhouse with a grand total of four other people watching what I think has to be the saddest game of Beirut. [Don't understand the reference. Is it TV-related??] This is, in a word, pathetic. [If it's about watching tv, for sure.]

I should be out at a party with no fewer than 50 other people. We should be drinking alcohol — responsibly — and enjoying ourselves. We shouldn’t be hiding from the Metropolitan Police Department. We shouldn’t have to worry about the Gestapo tactics [The writer has clearly been studying German history with care.] that have been handed down from our painfully out-of-touch university administration. ["The new restrictions for on-campus residences include a one-keg per party limit, guest restrictions, hosting restraints (at lease two hosts must be 21 or older) and earlier registration requirements."]

Above all, we shouldn’t have to be concerned with the possibility of getting arrested. [The police have apparently moved from citations to arrests in some cases.]

Prior to this year, there existed a reasonable balance between safety and student freedom in the community. Students drank, but they did so in a (mostly) responsible way. They behaved like college students of the nation — nay, the world — over. Georgetown is not a school with a reputation for excessive drinking, partying or crime; indeed, none of these words is the thing people first think of when they hear the school’s name. Perhaps the most outstanding example of the high regard in which Georgetown students were formerly held came just this past March, when hundreds of us ran to the White House in a non-destructive, totally legal celebration of our entry into the Final Four.

The rumor last night — quietly passed from student to student in the small gatherings that these days pass for parties — was that 21 Georgetown students were arrested. Fortunately, only six people were arrested in the Second District this weekend, five for possession of an open container.

Could there be any sharper contrast between the alcohol enforcement of old and of new? I’m not going to talk about how ridiculous it is that someone who is old enough to defend America around the world, old enough to take part in our democracy’s collective decision-making, is somehow not, in the eyes of the law, old enough to enjoy a beer at the end of a week’s worth of studying. This isn’t the venue for that. My point here is simply that, in purely practical terms, the new alcohol policies that have been put into place here at Georgetown are hurting us. They’re hurting the vitality of student life. They’re hurting Georgetown’s reputation with D.C. citizens and with Metro Police. And, perhaps most importantly for the future of our school, they may be hurting the university’s image with prospective students.

I would like at this point to speak to three groups. First, to our Georgetown neighbors; second, to the university administration; and finally, to my fellow students here at Georgetown.

To our neighbors here in Georgetown: I’m sorry. We all are. The last thing we want to do is disrupt your weekend respite. Please understand that we have been put in a position where recreation on our campus has been made impossible [That keg restriction thing.], and consequentially we have been forced to take our leisure activities elsewhere. All I can ask is that you try to remember the time when you were in college, and put yourselves in our shoes. Also, I recommend earplugs.

To the university administration: Fix this. We had a system that worked, and you broke it. We understand that you don’t want us to drink, but there are much more sensible ways to solve the problem than the restrictive tactics that you’ve put into place. If you wanted, you could clamp down entirely on student drinking. You could make campus entirely alcohol-free. Applications would fall through the floor. Our reputation as a highly-competitive, elite university would vanish in a flutter. Do you want a student body composed entirely of ascetic, passionless drones? If so, that’s exactly what you’re angling for.

On the other hand, you could embrace the problem. You could encourage people to drink responsibly, rather than trying to keep up this absurd charade of forcing them not to drink at all. Instead of compounding the problem by forcing it upon our neighbors, you could actually try to solve it. Please, solve it. Find a system that works. Find a system that, at the very least, doesn’t cause so many students to be arrested.

To my fellow students: As impassioned as that plea was, I think we all know that it fell on deaf ears, but there’s a way to hit the administration where it always feels it — the coffers. Call up your parents, your grandparents, your rich uncles and anyone that you know who might at some point consider donating money to Georgetown. Tell them to write in, threatening to withhold any donations if these ludicrous policies are allowed to stand. [Dear Professor Jesuit: If my grandson can't drink freely at enormous on-campus parties, you can forget that money I promised for the library!] If enough people with enough money write in, the university just might listen. We might not, as students, have much power — but a great many of us are here because we’re related to people with lots of pull. [Refreshing of him to admit that.] These are the people upon whom we must now call.'