… has just performed its first West Virginia University student riot of the year (they riot all the time at Gordon Gee’s WVU). This one featured almost a thousand students hurling beer bottles at city workers trying to plow snow from the street students had chosen for their couch burning. As WVU sociologist Karen Weiss notes in her WVU-inspired book, Party School:
[T]he party school is itself a business, and alcohol is part of the business model. Schools lure students to attend their schools with the promise of sports, other leisure activities and overall fun. Part of this fun, whether schools like it or not, is drinking. Thus, even as university officials want to keep students safe, they also need to keep their consumers happy.
They riot so much at WVU that it’s news when they don’t, as in this headline:
NO RIOTING IN MORGANTOWN AFTER WVU LOSS
This latest riot was quite violent and quite protracted, drawing various police forces and extensive weaponry.