Letters & Submissons
Privacy issues on a private campus
College: the time when we leave our nests, free from
over-restricting parents, cut loose to dabble in different
things and open to new ideas.
College students know this period as a time of freedom: one
with no restrictions. But how free are college students
today?
Today’s college students are becoming more and more
refined, both by the schools security, classmates and even
teachers.
In actuality, college students who live on campus have close
to no privacy and are rarely left alone.
Colleges across America should loosen their reins on college
students, giving them some sense of privacy instead of
leaving them without any kind of private life.
Before most students came to college, they had their own
bedrooms, which for the most part were their private
sanctuaries.
A teenager’s bedroom is a place where he or she can
escape the trials and tribulations of
adolescence.
College eliminates this sense of privacy for students, at
least in terms of being able to escape from the outside
world.
This is a feeling that hits home for me, considering I had
private items taken from my room while I was away, which
sequentially led to on school probation and plenty of
fines.
This leaves you with no option of privacy: even if you have
your own locked safe, they have the right to go through it,
believe me, I know. My room was searched and it was searched
until something was found.
The pockets on my dress shirts were searched along with my
trashcan and the gum wrappers that were placed in the
trashcan. They are subject to questioning you on
everything that you own and keep in your room, even if it is
perfectly legal to have.
I was written up on the basis that campus security searched
my room and found marijuana seeds in my trashcan from over
three months ago.
What most people don’t grasp is the majority of
college students move into a room with someone they have
never met before. The idea that someone, that I hardly
know, has complete access to my belongings practically all
the time is somewhat disturbing to me.
How often are students actually alone in their rooms, free
to do what they please? The answer to this is hardly
ever.
People wandering up and down halls can walk into a room
whenever they please if the door isn’t locked, and in
the case that it is locked, it seems that, college security
hasn’t figured out that with a simple credit card, any
room can become accessible.
This again leaves students who are paying plenty of money to
attend high-class universities without the one thing that is
most important to a man, his privacy.
What is even more disturbing is that truthfully, when you
sign that you agree to live on campus, you are signing away
your rights of privacy.
The campus authorities needs no reason to search your room
and can whenever they feel obliged to.
I am not saying that what they found was legal, but I do
believe that the steps they took seemed quite harsh, and I
feel like my privacy was invaded to the fullest
extent.
What is even more outrageous is the reason for campus
security’s investigation of my room. Items from my room
were taken while I was away and left in a public place where
officials found them, and the person who took the rap was
me. Campus security then proceeded to leave my suite,
instead of searching everyone else’s room as they were
supposed to do.
This random act of invasion has left me with restitution
hours, fines and what’s even more is a reputation as a
“pot head.” I am not saying that I
shouldn’t have to take the consequences for my actions,
but I ‘m saying that I believe campus security abused
their power and invaded my only private place on
campus.
Not only are students stripped of their privacy when they
live on campus, but at Elon they are also subject to being
displayed without consent in the school’s newspaper for
actions that the school finds inappropriate.
Who gives the school the right to publish my name and my
actions? Why the school even becomes involved with their
students actions, publishing them to anyone who wishes to
read, is absurd and is once again the school’s way of
violating my privacy. Who wants their English teacher
to know that they were arrested for streaking up and down the
campus, or even for such small details as not wearing a seat
belt?
Whatever the case may be, Elon publishes this information
weekly, allowing anyone who wishes the right to see
who’s been naughty or nice. This is a clear
violation of all students’ privacy whose names have
been published without their consent.
The point that I am trying to make is that college may be a
time of freedom away from ones parents, with no curfews and
no restrictions, but it is more of a time when one’s
personal privacy is no longer available.
Once in college, you will never have time to be alone, and
what is yours may as well be everyone else’s that you
go to school with.
College, as it may be the most fun experience of your life,
will also be the most invaded and publicized time that one
will ever go through.
–Peter Ustach, ’09 | 
