Legal Commentary

Having spent most of my adult life in a college town - either as a student or faculty member - I was pretty sure that I had heard just about every story about party colleges, and well ... partying. Nothing could shock me - I was "unshockable," and, in fact, many years ago I may or may not have even done some shocking myself. But during a long car drive I listened to an intriguing episode of Ira Glass's "This American Life" (itself a sign that I am well past shocking age). This episode explored the newly crowned #1 Party School, Penn State. I was absolutely floored. I can not do the podcast justice here - you will have to listen to the entire thing yourself.

One highlight is that a huge problem in Happy Vallley is drunken students breaking into local's homes so that they can sleep it off. This is not just an occasional problem; it apparently happens rather frequently. Another story involved a police officer who was waved down in his squad car by three drunken students who demanded that he drive them to their next location. He refused and one of them kicked his squad car. He got out of the car to arrest the student and the other two physically blocked him while the other ran away.

Again, I can't do justice to the whole podcast here; you'll have to listen to it. I also invite Happy Valley people stick up for PSU in the comments (everyone deserves a fair defense). There is a response to the podcast here by a PSU student, but frankly he sounds more embarrassed than defensive. If anyone can beat the stories told in this podcast, I'd love to hear them - it's kind of good to know that you can still be shocked.