Thousands of Bostonians took to the streets after Sunday night’s Patriots victory starting fires, tipping over cars and destroying city property – and the city’s college students are being blamed for almost all of it.
According to The Boston Globe, both Boston Mayor Thomas Menino and City Councilor Mike Ross (Back Bay, Fenway) are blaming the tumultuous rioting after Sunday’s Super Bowl game on “knucklehead” college students (as Menino referred to them) and universities’ inability to control them. Ross is taking a cheap shot at universities and college students, who incidentally helped get him elected in the first place, in a cheap ploy to gain political points with other local residents by asking that schools help to cover the cost of the damages created by the riots.
Indeed, it wasn’t the best night for college students’ reputations in the city. After they streamed down the sidewalks of Commonwealth Avenue immediately following Adam Vinatieri’s winning kick and poured out of the bars on Lansdowne Street into the familiar rioting grounds of Fenway Park, they wreaked havoc on the streets all across the city. The crowds were likely mostly college students and most of the worst vandalism and rioting took place near college campuses – Northeastern University and Boston University especially.
But while many college students participated in the riots, neither they nor the schools they attend deserve all of the blame. Those who caused damaged should be punished, but city officials should not target their schools and group everyone in their age group together. And not every rioter was a student. Schools should not be asked to pay for damages their students didn’t even cause – the people who caused the damages should be forced to pay. Most schools will be more than willing to force students to pay for damages if and when it is determined that they caused destruction.
College students are constantly used as scapegoats for real problems in the city. Such a cheap shot is a political ploy used to appease Boston’s residents who resent the fact that the city is filled with students from 22 different colleges and universities. Sure, the large number of schools in Boston can create problems, but the large number of schools also adds far more to Boston’s reputation than any one night takes away. Boston is famous for being a college town and it would not be the same without each and every college.
Many schools provide a public service to the city of Boston. They provide a significant number of jobs for the city, pay a considerable amount in taxes and payments in lieu of taxes and increase the city’s reputation in countless ways. Research grants, up-to-date technologies and well known intellectuals are just a few of the many ways in which higher education contributes positively to the city of Boston.
Most schools also provide their own methods of protection – Boston University in particular has its own police force that patrols BU’s extremely large campus and other areas of the city where BU students live. This service allows Boston to concentrate their efforts on other areas besides BU’s campus and allows BU to provide reinforcements to help when problems are on campus. If Ross is calling on the university to pay up for its students’ behavior Sunday night, the city should pay the school back for all the times Boston police get to defer to BU police.
But Menino has not stopped at blaming college students for the problems on Sunday. He also blames a recently lifted ban on Sunday alcohol sales, claiming the additional availability of alcohol contributed to a larger number of intoxicated fans rampaging down the streets. But again, he’s missed the real problems. Additional alcohol sales could not have been the sole contributor the riots – rioting also took place in 2002 when the ban was still in place.
Menino has proposed meeting with local schools in an effort to prevent further problems. This is a great idea, but it would have been an even better idea two weeks ago. Instead of going public with his consternation, he should have consulted collegiate officials and ironed out any problems. But regardless, the meeting should be productive and should yield results.
Politicians’ immediate finger pointing is not surprising by any means. For years, city officials – most of whom could care less what college students think about them because students don’t vote – have tagged students as the cause of all sorts of city problems and scored points with Boston residents as a result. But they should look deeper this time. College students were not at their best Sunday night, but they were not the only ones who caused problems. City officials should stop singling out college students – there were many other people who were equally culpable.