Elitism on the dance floor

The new addition to the student dance policy will require all attendees to present a college or university ID at the door for all dances held in major on-campus venues ("College IDs to be required at dances," Oct. 28). The Student Activities Office insists that the change to standard security measures has nothing to do with the incident following the Alpha Phi Alpha dance Sept. 17, when gun shots were heard outside the Indiana Memorial Union. But we don't buy it; policies don't change on a whim.\nSAO has an obligation to admit the factors the committee took into account when making the decision and to justify changing the policy by stating the purpose of the change. SAO has done neither, and so the change in the policy is unjustified. Without a clear explanation of why the dance policy has changed and what SAO hopes to accomplish with the change, the new development is merely one step further to instilling an elitist dance policy.\nThe purpose of SAO's dance committee is not only to plan dances but also to make sure the security measures at the dances are appropriate. It's natural to infer that the new policy does concern itself with the safety of students at on-campus dances. In fact, the policy switch might not be a response to the incident following the Alpha Phi Alpha dance but rather a confirmation of the fraternity's initiative to implement security measures. \nThe fraternity signed in everyone who couldn't produce a university ID, a decision that played a role in the police investigation of gun shots the night of Sept. 17 outside the IMU. Whether or not the fraternity's policy concerning nonstudents demonstrated appropriate security measures or a lack thereof Sept. 17, surely the gun shots, which posed a potential threat to students on campus, played a role in the SAO decision last week.\nIU Police Department Capt. Keith Cash, the dance committee representative for the IU Police Department, said the policy is evolving so that only college or university students will be admitted to dances in major venues on campus. This excludes any residents of Bloomington who are college-age and not enrolled in the University, as well as graduates who no longer have a university ID. \nThis act of exclusion is sheer snobbishness, excluding college-age students who might not have the money or the inclination to attend a university. The dance committee has not stated what danger it hopes to avoid by changing the policy -- it certainly hasn't clearly demonstrated dangers posed to students by the current policy, since it denies the events of Sept. 17 playing any role in its decision. Without demonstrating the danger to students operating under the present policy, the SAO dance committee is unjustified in making the switch.\nIf SAO wants students to support the new policy, it needs to provide a concrete justification for changing the old -- by demonstrating the old policy puts IU and other university students at risk. Owning up to the role the Sept. 17 gun shots played in the decision would be a step in that direction. Without an explanation, the policy change is only a tool for exclusion and a symbol of on-campus elitism.