An incident at the annual Black Student Union dance last Friday, Sep. 12, resulted in the arrest of a first-year student on alcohol-related charges.

Housed in the Reid Campus Center Ballroom, the event was monitored by both organizers and campus security to try to prevent clearly intoxicated students from entering and ensure students did not bring alcohol into the dance.

“The policy for the BSU dance is if a student has clearly consumed alcohol and appears drunk then they are not allowed to enter the event,” said former BSU President Sarah Deming, who is currently studying abroad. “We have people watching the door to tell people to leave if they are too drunk… We have security guards at these dances precisely for these reasons –– if we ask a student to leave and they refuse, that is typically when we will have the security guards step in.”

Associate Dean of Students Barbara Maxwell, who said she was not present at the event but had since reviewed security logs for the night, cited Whitman’s alcohol policy in response to questions about the arrest.

“Obviously, the Reid Campus Center Ballroom is a public area in a campus building, so the policy forbids alcohol from this location,” Maxwell said.

According to Maxwell, alcohol was also strictly off-limits at this event because the BSU is ASWC-funded.

Deming emphasized that the incident was not due to lack of diligence on the part of the BSU, and points to preventative measures that were taken at the dance, such as the security presence and the fact that students were not allowed to take coats or bags into the ballroom.

“We took precautions against these problems,” she said.

Both Deming and Maxwell noted that the arrest was highly atypical of events hosted in Reid, including past BSU dances.

“To my knowledge, this is an isolated incident –– I am not aware of any other Whitman students who have been arrested in events hosted in Reid Campus Center,” Maxwell said.