Article By: Alex Pearlman

Last week’s article regarding the inconsistencies in both punishments and recorded numbers of the Ride Along Program predictably stirred up a number of opinions on campus, mostly in regards to the suggestion that Suffolk’s underage Orientation Leaders aren’t perfect.

Well, who is?

The Journal received a number of angry phone calls demanding we release the names of anonymous sources used for the article, as well as complaints from student OLs who believe that one vague sentence about their program in the Suffolk Journal will significantly impact their ability to be hired after graduation.

First, I would like to point out that the Ride Along Program and the University administration’s apparent targeting of certain students while they allow others to fly under the radar has been a pet project of the Journal staff since its inception four years ago. The numbers the office of Student Affairs records of students who are apprehended and punished are consistently wrong, confusing, and mysteriously change randomly, which the Journal has concluded is either an evil attempt to doctor them in an effort convince the Beacon Hill Civic Association that Suffolk students are far less rowdy than those at other schools and that the school’s Institutional Master Plan (aka the hostile takeover of downtown) should proceed – or the people adding the numbers up are unable to use a calculator. Either way, it is clear the program is both unfair and probably illegal. It is also clear that the punishments for being a student leader, overage and off campus are significantly harsher than those for student leaders who are underage and on campus. The design flaws of this university’s policies abound. This was the point of the article, not to rag on OLs.

Second, demanding that a newspaper divulge confidential sources, even one as seemingly unimportant as this one, is ludicrous. The writers at the Journal abide by all the same standards and ethics as reporters at real world, professional dailies. The assertion from the Summer Programs and Orientation Office that something in the Journal “might be made up” because we wouldn’t reveal sources whose confidentiality was promised is not only insulting to the student journalists at this paper and the rest of the school, but it shows a lack of respect for facts.

My third point is this: Students in college drink underage, even the best ones. To think that because Orientation Leaders, SGA e-board members and Suffolk Journal editors don’t occasionally break laws and school rules because of their positions at Suffolk is nuts! And what’s even crazier is that students take their summer OL jobs so seriously that they’ll threaten Journal editors and insist that one sentence in one issue of a student newspaper will negatively impact their futures. Yeah, because the HR people at the places you’re trying to get a job most certainly will have read last week’s issue and not hire you because some OLs drank in the dorms when they were underage. OH MY GOD, people drink underage when they’re in college? In the dorms? You’ve got to be kidding me!!

Reality check, please. Donahue building, fourth and fifth floors.