Drugs are common on college campuses. Federal stings are not.
But when a freshman at San Diego State University died of a cocaine overdose last May, the campus police chief decided to pursue a full-scale investigation. In December he summoned undercover agents from the federal Drug Enforcement Administration to pose as students and roam the campus in search of illegal drugs.
This month San Diego County’s district attorney disclosed the yearlong investigation — Operation Sudden Fall — and its outcome: 125 arrests, including 95 students. Law-enforcement officers seized $100,000 in drugs, $60,000 in cash, and four guns. University officials suspended six fraternities, as well as 33 students charged with felonies, and congratulated themselves.
“Drug use is a concern on virtually every campus in our country,” the president, Stephen L. Weber, said in a written statement the day the arrests were announced. “SDSU has taken this action to confront it directly.”
But such a sweeping drug investigation raises high-stakes questions. When should a university punish instead of educate? Does inviting undercover federal agents onto a campus strain an administration’s relationship with its students? Will trying to solve a problem make an institution notorious for having it?
San Diego State officials have no regrets. “It’s not just that we were looking at a problem of degree and seeing more drug usage than previously,” Mr. Weber said in an interview with The Chronicle. “We’re talking about what is at least now alleged to be drug trafficking on campus, things like loaded shotguns and semiautomatic weapons. … That’s serious business.”
James R. Kitchen, vice president for student affairs, said the university had two options: “We could either close our eyes to it or make a bold move.”
Covert Investigation
When Shirley J. Poliakoff died of a drug overdose in May 2007, San Diego State police suspected that the freshman’s source was on the 35,000-student campus. The chief, John Browning, told the administration that he would investigate.
“He was seeing a pattern in drug activity that concerned him and that led him to think that it wasn’t just business as usual,” Mr. Weber says of Mr. Browning, who declined to be interviewed for this article.
Officers discovered sophisticated drug trafficking and sales, says Jack Beresford, a university spokesman. In December, without telling the president, Mr. Browning brought in federal drug agents, a rare move in higher education. (In 1991 the Drug Enforcement Administration led a huge raid at the University of Virginia, and a spokeswoman for the agency could not recall another similar case.)
On April 21, two months after a student at a nearby college had died of a drug overdose at a San Diego State fraternity house, Mr. Browning told the president that the investigation was coming to a head and informed him that federal agents had been on the campus. Mr. Weber supported the chief’s decision to involve them.
“In taking these things seriously,” Mr. Weber says, “you run beyond the resources of the university itself.” San Diego State’s police department has about 30 officers, who are too recognizable to go undercover. Also, experts point out, campus police often lack experience in complex drug stings.
Some students and professors at San Diego State have complained that federal agents arrived on the campus without the president’s consent, but Mr. Weber dismisses that concern. “We have a chief of police who’s a law-enforcement professional, whose judgment I trust,” he says. Strict confidentiality, he adds, was necessary to protect the investigation — and the officers involved.
On April 28, Mr. Weber learned that several arrests were planned for May 6. He then tipped off Charles B. Reed, chancellor of the California State University system, and Mr. Kitchen in student affairs.
Mr. Kitchen understood the late notice. Had too many people known in advance, he says, someone may have — intentionally or not — spread the word. He waited a few days to tell his staff members to prepare letters of suspension and eviction from university housing. Law-enforcement authorities did not release the students’ names until May 6.
The university suspended the 33 students charged with felonies, who it says were “arrested as part of the special operation.” Many others in the district attorney’s tally of 95 were charged with possession of marijuana.
Susan Henry, a health educator at San Diego State, first heard about the sting from students. She typically fights drug use with prevention programs, but given the presence of trafficking on the campus, she says, a criminal investigation was necessary. “Education alone doesn’t work,” she says.
‘Zero Tolerance’
Generations of students have tried to get away with illegal activities on college campuses. Often they do, says Max Bromley, an associate professor of criminology at the University of South Florida.
“It’s always a balance between how strict are you going to be versus how far are you going to let things go,” says Mr. Bromley, who served as a campus police officer for more than two decades.
Sometimes firm enforcement is impractical, he says: “If you tried to bust everyone for having a drink at a football game, you’d load the jails for the weekend.”
But over the years, injuries, deaths, and concerns about liability have driven colleges to take tougher stances. “There comes a time,” Mr. Bromley says, “that there will be a zero-tolerance approach.”
Some students and their families have applauded San Diego State’s crackdown. “I am grateful that they took this head-on and did something about it, instead of hoping that the problem went away,” says Jack D. Klunder, a member of the university’s parent-advisory board.
The problem was bigger than the two deaths, says Wendy Fry, a senior. Administrators had to take action, she says: “I’m proud that they did.”
But many students are upset, says Ms. Fry, who has covered the case for the campus newspaper. Some accuse the district attorney of playing up the case, touting the 95 arrests when just a fraction were for dealing drugs. Others, says Ms. Fry, “feel betrayed by having the feds come onto campus and infiltrate their fraternities.”
A faculty member who spoke on the condition of anonymity had a similar concern. “We know what happens when federal agents are authorized to come in,” the professor says. “The original impetus is all about law and order, and ultimately … they may be coming in to investigate or squelch political dissent.”
But university officials say this case was about one thing.
“If the health and safety of your students is your top priority, then you cannot weigh that priority against your reputation,” says Mr. Weber, the president. “At the end of the day, it is more important that the university do what’s right and let its reputation sort itself out.”
http://chronicle.com Section: Students Volume 54, Issue 37, Page A19