In an effort to better support Emory’s Tobacco-Free Environment Policy, Campus Life recently announced the hiring of four student monitors to patrol popular smoking areas. The student monitors will warn potential violators of the policy before they start smoking, and if a potential violator becomes belligerent, monitors will ask for IDs, and violators could face disciplinary action from the Conduct Board.
Though we at the Wheel commend Emory for its efforts to become tobacco-free, applaud the University for its progress toward this goal and support increased enforcement of this policy, we feel that this particular enforcement strategy is misguided.
When considering this topic, we discussed Emory’s justifications for its tobacco ban in the first place. What right does the University have to tell its community members how to treat their bodies? American anti-smoking campaigns have been so effective that almost everyone knows the health risks of smoking, and if Americans choose to engage in that particular activity, they know they do so at their own risk.
However, the negative side effects that smoking causes for others in the environment sets smoking apart from other actions associated with negative health effects. Smoking releases secondhand smoke, which can prove harmful to those with respiratory diseases and is a general threat to health in a smoker’s vicinity. The presence of multiple hospitals on our campus — the Emory University Hospital, Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and Winship Cancer Institute — renders these side effects extremely relevant to our campus, where recovering patients exist alongside students and visitors. The University is justified in its desire to create an environment in which every member of its community can lead a healthy lifestyle.
However, Campus Life’s decision to implement increased enforcement of this policy testifies to the fact that the stated tobacco ban by itself has not proved completely effective, hardly a surprise to anyone who spends time on campus or passes by the corridor behind Bowden Hall near the library. Although some people continue to smoke on campus despite the elimination of such zones, we commend the University for taking step towards creating a tobacco-free campus.
It’s been three years since the ban took effect. Before Emory went completely tobacco-free, there were designated smoking zones scattered around campus. Now, we need to ask how — and whether — the University should continue to strive for a completely tobacco-free campus.
Creating a tobacco-free campus is a commendable goal, and not one that should be lightly compromised. We oppose the creation of designated smoking areas. Community members with respiratory diseases should not need to fear walking around any part of campus. Students who wish to avoid cigarette smoke should not have to plan their route to class around the smoking areas.
It is clear that the University has looked for ways to increase enforcement of the ban, but what is the best way? If we are unhappy with the current level of compliance with the policy and do not wish to return to designated smoking areas, then increasing enforcement is the only option left open to us. However, we at the Wheel feel that Campus Life’s policy of hiring dedicated student monitors is not the best way to increase enforcement.
The problem lies in the fact that we would be hiring students to police other students. This is not a job that a University should ask its students to perform. Students are at Emory to learn, grow and build bonds with other students. We are not here trying to catch each other breaking the rules.
While Resident Advisors (RA) and Honor Council members are counterexamples to the above claim, students in both of these positions have very different tasks than the student monitors of the tobacco ban. An RA’s role is primarily to nurture his or her residents, not to punish them. They have the power to write up residents when they violate Emory policy, but they do so to protect students, not to police them. Nor does the Honor Council police Emory students — members of the council do not patrol areas where cheating is likely to occur.
Unlike an RA, these student monitors will have a solely punitive relationship with the rest of the student body. Unlike a member of the Honor Council, these student monitors go searching for violations. Neither of these positions is an appropriate one for the University to place a student in — especially when the student may only be doing so because the University is paying them. Instead, we suggest that the University leave enforcement of its tobacco policy to those who are already tasked with enforcing rules of campus — namely, Residence Life staff and security staff.
Presumably the University already asks people in these positions to enforce its policy, but it should re-emphasize to them that enforcement of this policy is part of their job. If it finds additional enforcement necessary, then the University should hire dedicated staff enforcers, not people who are also students here.
We hope that in the years to come Emory becomes a completely tobacco-free campus. However, we also hope that it proves able to do so without paying its students to police each other.
The above staff editorial represents the majority opinion of the Wheel’s editorial board.
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