UMass Southwest Towers house 5,500 students
Red Sox World Series win "celebration" 10/30//13
Apparently UMass is heeding advice from the $160,000 Davis Report, a postmortem of the Blarney Blowout, by trying to limit the number of guests UMass students can have on campus for Superbowl Sunday.On the eve of Blarney Blowout the visitors reached 7,000, which should have been a clue that the stage was set for an epic event. Kind of like radar picking up a sky full of planes closing in your sleeping fleet moored in paradise.
Will it work? Probably not. Even without "guests" UMass Southwest area has a h-u-g-e population density with 5,500 college aged youth packed into a quarter mile square area.
And come this Sunday, all too many of them will be under the duel influence of alcohol combined with all those endorphins released by watching large men thump each other on a field of battle.
34 comments:
If it is your home, you can invite over who you want. If it is up to someone else who and when you can invite people over, it is not your home. Sounds like a lot of homeless students on campus. Since the Super Bowl creates this kind of chaos everyone and has not significant positive contribution to society, why isn't the debate about cancelling that game outright? Wouldn't that be more prudent than declaring Marshall Law every time we have a snow storm (the new accepted norm)?
Bad behavior is what Larry thrives on. You know he's rooting for disaster, all the time.
I hope no one gets hurt.
It's as simple as that.
Fear not, the Patriots will get slaughtered. Won't be much to celebrate.
Funny that them using the term "Super Bowl" is copyright infringement against the NFL LOL... That's why non-NFL partners call it "The Big Game"
Amlicar, always wanting to get in on being the voice of conscience. Are you going to be standing atop a car come Sunday, too, Shabizzle?
Nothing wrong with having a conscience. You should try it sometime.
Yeah, they did seem to think that because half the Blarney Blowout arrests were not UMass students it somehow made things better.
It did make things better, Larry, because it forced you and other town members to realize that UMass Amherst isn't the scapegoat you want it to be.
Oh I don't know.
The year before (2013) the shit pretty much hit the fan with negative press (making prominent mention in the Boston Media) and that was with only 6 UMass students arrested.
So even if you factor in the non students arrested in 2014 you still had over three times the number of UMass students arrested from the previous year.
But hey, if it makes YOU feel better ...
Actually, the problem with campus guests DOES suggest that UMass students may not be the core of the rioting problem, which is a good thing. So let's see what happens Sunday.
And, Mr. Shabazz's message here is a constructive one.
Anything wrong with seeing positive things happening?
I just find it significant that someone who is overly familiar with the Civil Rights Movement believes curtailing non-student friends in the dorms for one day is NOT an "infringement on students rights."
I believer Chancellor Subbaswamy has appointed him to any number of important committees, most recently Town Gown Steering Committee
Who cares what Shabbaz thinks.
Having guests is a privilege not a right.
The fact that students can't even have ONE on-campus fellow student guest is a problem. Students can't even watch the game with their friends who live on campus in other dorms. I fear whatever events that take place afterwards will be far worse as a result of that penned up energy - not to mention their hate for this policy.
I just find it significant that someone who is overly familiar with the Civil Rights Movement believes curtailing non-student friends in the dorms for one day is NOT an "infringement on students rights."
It's actually worse than that, Larry.
UMass has long had problems with the "Black" social events & dances. Serious problems -- the worst being two non-students shooting at each other in the Malcolm X Center.
It was proposed, by the administration, that there be a 2-guest limit which was successfully opposed on the grounds that it was somehow racist. And that was a far more rational policy than ths is...
Remember that the Jason Vassell mess started with two non-students who planned to "crash" in the room of a girl they knew from high school but they couldn't get into the dorm.
It's one thing to have lots of non-students distributed throughout lots of dorm rooms -- it's something else entirely having them all collected in one area and mad. That's when cars start rolling over and the rest...
And as to the UM students, one of these days (I don't think this is it, but I do believe it is going to happen soon) they are going to go just one step too far and all hell will break loose. There will be many fatalities.
And I will, unfortunately, be saying "I told you so..."
Students CAN watch the games with friends from other dorms. Umass said they will have areas set up for that. *quityerbitchin*
As legal adults, like the students, how would the other residents of Amherst feel if the town govt regulated who can come over to watch the game? It sadly sounds like if the town made such a law/rule, you would not like it, but like sheep, it would be accepted and Larry would call for more police for enforcement of it and to raise the kids while the parents are watching it.
This is simply a violation of their civil rights. The dorms are their homes, not their prisons. The university should not have a say about law abiding citizens visiting people who happen to live on campus, this need to be the decision of the tenant.....unless they signed an agreement or lease that states that someone else gets to decide who has the right to visit them. And if that was the case....kick them out of the university for not being smart enough to find fair housing.
They did sign an agreement. When you visit colleges they are very clear on the rules about who gets into your kids dorm. When you sign the mountain of paperwork, its right in there.
"UMass has long had problems with the "Black" social events & dances. Serious problems -- the worst being two non-students shooting at each other in the Malcolm X Center."
That is not at all relevant. All students, regardless of race or gender have the same restriction on guests during the Super Bowl. This is not singling out a particular segment of the student population.
"Students CAN watch the games with friends from other dorms."
With a beer?
Of course not.
And if you didn't tell them they can't, so loudly and so often, if you didn't make it the "forbidden fruit" to the extent you folks do, it very well might be just one beer...
One of these days, it won't be Sunday but ZI fear it will be soon, you're going to have problems of a vastly different sort. Instead of the traditional "riotous" behavior, you're gonna have not only a REAL riot similar to the ones in Ferguson, but a mob intent on harming any & all UMass administrators.
That's when things will truly get ugly, when a lot of people -- students, staff, cops, and even innocent bystanders -- are going to get badly hurt or worse. That'll be the end of UMass Amherst, an institution that never should have been built where it is, two hours away from both where the students live and where they want to play.
And one other thing: legally, the dorm room IS the student's residence -- even out-of=state students are called to jury duty on the basis of this "residence" and it serves as a legal residence for those who wish to vote.
Limiting the number of guests that one may have in a relatively small room -- if Larry Kelly wanted to pack 50,000 guests into his home, the town quite likely would have something to say about it, rightly so.
But banning guests outright is the same thing as the APD parking a cruiser in his driveway and prohibiting Larry from having any guests in his house. The right to unfettered exclusive control of a space, unless & until you are being disruptive to the community, is called "quiet enjoyment" -- it's a legal right of those paying money to live in a portion of a building owned by another.
UMass is a subdivision of the Commonwealth, everything it does is state action and hence subject to the restrictions of the Federal and Massachusetts Constitution. If the ACLU actually cared about civil rights, I suspect they'd be asking some serious questions about UMass' asinine guest ban.
And Larry, would you tolerate being told that you couldn't have a friend in your residence watching the game with you -- that you had to go to, say, the Bangs Center if you wanted to watch the game with said friend? I don't think you would...
And as to *quityerbitchin* , you folks are creating an awful lot of truly happy memories amongst your future alumni. Even if the number of student judicial charges didn't nearly equal the number of students in the freshman class, things like this asinine guest ban build a life-long visceral resentment that no amount of public relations can ever abate.
Reality is that it is at least 30 years before most graduates have the financial ability to make more than a token donation -- at least 50 before they die and distribute their assets via their will.
Reality is that the donations that UMass is getting now is based on goodwill that was built up in the 1950's, 1960's, 1970'a & 1980's. The people donating today have fond memories of fun times with friends, and a gratitude for a university they credit for enabling them to be successful in life. Gene Isenberg is a good example of this -- I've had breakfast with him, without knowing who he was.
The people donating now remember a university that truly was "affordable" -- which it was until 1989. Many of the people donating now met their spouse at UMass, which people used to do back when UM had "freshman mixers" and concentrated on heterosexual relationships instead of gay/lesbian/bisexual/transgendered ones. Many of the people donating today have lingering gratitude toward university administrators who gave them a "break" and dealt with their youthful transgressions in a manner so as not to destroy their future carers.
That was then, this is now. UMass has been "eating it's seed corn" for at least the past few decades -- it has increasingly been doing this. The younger alumni have neither a debt of gratitude to UMass nor positive memories about their experiences at UMass.
n what would have been a public meeting if any member of the public wanted to attend, then-Trustee Jennifer Braceras, a 1989 UM grad, stated that she was surprised at both the level of visceral resentment amongst the students, and in the places she was seeing it. The younger alumni may donate -- if they're getting something for it, they aren't & wont donate out of gratitude and a sense of obligation.
"They did sign an agreement. When you visit colleges they are very clear on the rules about who gets into your kids dorm."
What's next, an agreement that female students who are raped won't report the crime to the police?
There is an underlying legal principle that contracts (agreements) which are contrary to public policy are not enforceable -- that one is under no obligation to comply with such an agreement.
The example I give is that of a "contract killing." Alpha pays Bravo to kill Charlie, but Bravo doesn't kill Charlie. There is nothing (that is legal) that Alpha can do -- even if it was "reduced to writing" and Bravo signed an agreement promising to kill Charlie.
Murder is illegal -- no court would ever order Bravo to kill Charlie.
A more common example is any of the contractual "agreements" not to file discrimination and/or sexual harassment complaints against an employer, or the clauses slumlords put in leases precluding tenants from exercising their legal rights as tenants.
It doesn't matter if you signed such an agreement -- you are under absolutely no obligation to comply with it.
But more importantly, UMass is a public university -- everything it does is the government interacting with a citizen.
That is what makes this really messy -- not that UMass concerns itself with things like civil rights...
"When you sign the mountain of paperwork, its right in there.'
Even if this were an enforceable agreement, which it isn't, even if there weren't the Constitutional issues raised by UMass being a public university, if something is "buried in a mountain of paperwork", if someone signs it without knowing what he/she/it is signing, that also becomes legally problematic.
"That is not at all relevant. All students, regardless of race or gender have the same restriction on guests during the Super Bowl. This is not singling out a particular segment of the student population."
Nice try.
Racist bigots historically have tried this -- making the same argument as they targeted minority neighborhoods, minority events and minority-frequented venues. Courts have not accepted it though...
It is discrimination when you treat a "Black" event differently from other events, and that goes both ways.
But my point was more an ethical one -- after having agreed not to even limit the number of guests at "Black" events, notwithstanding a very legitimate reason for doing so, how can UM then outright ban guests at other events when there is a less compelling reason to do so?
No one has ever been shot at a Superbowl celebration, no UMPD officer has ever made the (correct) decision to let an armed thug escape, that's happened at "Black" events.....
What happened to "more concise, Dr.?" Don't make us go back to calling you Mr. Ed.
Godalmighty. Enough. Ed, I'm beggin' ya.
Your getting even more ridiculous Mr Ed.
What does Ed get out of writing comments that no one will read?
I'm always suspicious when a town or gown officials tells me not to question an impromptu policy officials intend to enforce against a small group of citizens, because in their estimation, the policy makes "plain common sense".
"Common Sense" is what they tell you the rationale is when they don't have any facts or data to support their opinions.
School and government leaders used to tell us that separate bathrooms for whites and blacks made "plain common sense".
Yes and "accepted science" once was that the earth was flat. Or later, that the sun revolved around it. Oh they didn't cotton much to dissenters, did they. But we digress. Or at least I do.
What does Ed get out of writing comments that no one will read?
The satisfaction of knowing I did everything I could to prevent the coming carnage and -- when it occurs -- the ability to publicly condemn those responsible with a clear conscience.
"The coming carnage"
What will it look like, oh great Swami?
Jackson State with overtones of Ferguson.
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