February 23, 2012
A year ago, 31 public high school students in Florida were arrested for selling marijuana to undercover police officers posing as students. One of those individuals, an 18-year-old honor student, is facing a felony charge for giving a small amount to an undercover policewoman who flirted with him for several weeks while constantly asking him for marijuana. He did not smoke marijuana, but he procured some for his insistent sweetheart. She tried to pay him for it but he declined—it was a gift.
This story is indicative of the psychological principle described by the Pygmalion effect. Evidence for the Pygmalion effect has shown that expectations have significant effects on the behavior of all parties. The person with expectations acts differently towards the person they have expectations of. The object of expectation reacts to the expectations being projected onto them. The infatuated teenager who became a drug dealer to woo an undercover cop is a particularly deliberate and bizarre example of the Pygmalion effect. Thus, social pressure should be used positively, not negatively.
With the establishment of the anonymous TipNow program, Hamilton College is projecting expectations of an untrustworthy student body, à la the Pygmalion effect. Students are explicitly asked to turn over their peers for judgment by a judicial system that seems both opaque and detached from truly effective discipline. Rather than building towards a positive-minded community where controversial issues are discussed openly, and rules are determined by consensus from all members, Hamilton is deploying fear-tactics to enforce seemingly arbitrary rules. Psychological and institutional violence, while more subtle than physical violence, can be just as damaging to communities and may be more damaging in the long term.
Disturbing reports about the abuse of this system are already circulating in the community. For example, a student was studying in his room when Campus Safety officers entered his room and searched it under the authority of an anonymous tip. Another student was sleeping in his room when he was subjected to a similarly unfounded room search. Six students were walking in the glen when they were approached and searched by Kirkland police officers. The police officers claimed that they were responding to a tip from Hamilton while Campus Safety claims that the officers were responding to a direct call to the police. Both Hamilton’s Campus Safety and the Kirkland police were put into these unfortunate circumstances because of the responsibilities of their jobs. These stories are word of mouth, but they illustrate the atmosphere that arises when such systems of control are implemented.
Similarly, one aspect of 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant’s moral imperative is that individuals always be treated as ends in themselves, rather than merely means. By asking students to call Campus Safety and the police on other members of their community the College is treating individuals as means towards the end of an improved College image. The message is that if individuals do not fit within the parameters of the ideal Hamilton student then they are a liability to the success of the College and must therefore be removed.
I do not intend this indictment as a moral judgment, but as a call to awareness of the adverse effects that fear-based policies have on the community and, more specifically, each individual’s sense of community.
As a private institution, Hamilton College has the prerogative to remove members, but it is important to remember that Hamilton is made up of its students. The true power rests with the students, past and present, of the College. Fear of expulsion is a strong compulsion to stay within the boundaries drawn by the
administration, but the administration must also respect the relationship of the student body with the College.
Mahatma Gandhi likewise recognized that oppression is only possible with the cooperation of the oppressed. The student body should not forget this principle. While students should proceed with a mature readiness to compromise, we must at the same time retain a healthy awareness of our relationship with the College.
The question that remains is whether we want to accept a relationship with the College based on fear and polarization within the community. If not, what are we willing to do to affect policy change? This question cannot be answered by small contingencies. The answer must arise collectively from the true voice of every member of the community. Do we want to be suspicious and nervous around each other? Do we want to live in a schizophrenic community where the student body feels obligated to inform on itself? Accepting this system without speaking up implies consent to invasion of privacy and basic liberties via unreasonable search and seizure.
By enrolling at Hamilton we agree to play by the rules of the College, but we have the right to question the rules and effect change in the system. We ought to build a community that improves itself through transparent shared self-reflection and consensus, not through systems of opaque fear, polarization, and rejection.