After a heroin overdose killed a student at Reed College, in Portland, Ore., in March, county and federal prosecutors told the president of the small liberal-arts college that it needed to bolster its drug-enforcement policy.
That kind of intervention from law enforcement is becoming more common, said Gary Pavela, a lawyer who frequently consults with colleges on student-conduct policies. Although cooperation between the campus and the police is generally a positive thing, institutions also need to be wary of preserving their autonomy in such arrangements, said Mr. Pavela, who is also director of academic integrity at Syracuse University.
Reed, with an enrollment of nearly 1,500 undergraduate and graduate students, has a reputation as a haven for seriously smart and creative students. But it has also been tagged as a place where recreational drug use is accepted as a part of the college’s countercultural image, especially at the college’s annual spring festival, called Renn Fayre.
The drug-related death in March was the second such tragedy the college had suffered in two years, said Dwight C. Holton, U.S. attorney for Oregon. It was also a sign that the college’s drug-prevention policy was being interpreted wrongly, by some students, “as a blessing for drug use as a part of the intellectual process,” he said. Mr. Holton said the college’s positions on drug and alcohol use were too “nuanced,” creating the impression that the college was only ambivalent about discouraging illegal activity.
Clamping Down on a Festival
Norman W. Frink, chief deputy district attorney for Multnomah County, Ore., which includes Portland, said there was a perception that this year’s Renn Fayre was shaping up to be another open-air drug market. In the wake of the second overdose death, law-enforcement officials couldn’t just stand by, he said.
Mr. Holton and county prosecutors summoned Reed’s president, Colin S. Diver, to meet with them about bolstering drug enforcement at this year’s festival, coming this weekend.
“The tone of the conversation,” Mr. Holton said, “was: You’ve got a heck of a problem on your hands: How can we help?”
Mr. Diver, in a statement e-mailed to students following the meeting, said the message from prosecutors was “forceful and direct: Shut down illegal drug use and distribution at Reed College, starting with Renn Fayre.”
Mr. Pavela, of Syracuse, said it is no longer unusual for law-enforcement agencies to give attention to campus problems, but it would have been better if the college had initiated contact.
One campus that did reach out for help with a drug problem was San Diego State University, which alerted federal drug-enforcement agents to problems on the campus after a student died of a cocaine overdose in May 2007. In May 2008, San Diego County prosecutors disclosed a yearlong sting operation that resulted in the arrests of 125 people, including 95 students, and the seizure of drugs valued at $100,000, $60,000 in cash, and four guns.
The advantages of collaborating in cases like that, Mr. Pavela said, are that institutions and law enforcement can avoid legal pitfalls by ensuring that the campus and the police have proper policies for handling evidence and obtaining warrants.
What would be a problem, he added, is if law-enforcement officers took over handling criminal issues on a campus without the knowledge or involvement of the institution. For example, in sexual-assault cases, the institutions must carry out enforcement of gender-discrimination policies regardless of whether a criminal investigation is proceeding.
Kevin T. Myers, a spokesman for Reed, said the college’s year-old plan to combat illegal drug use has resulted in several instances of police involvement on the campus and one instance of FBI involvement. He said he could not reveal any other details of those situations.
Mr. Myers said that the college is not fighting greater involvement by law enforcement and that Reed shares the goal of the local and federal prosecutors. “This intervention was not at the request of the college,” he said, “but if it’s going to keep our campus safe from dangerous and illegal drugs, it’s certainly welcome.”
