Opinion: Wright Police State

With the arrival of a new academic year at WSU, the perennial complaints of over-sold parking rise from the exhaust of lots brimming with idling cars and wandering pedestrians. Before the collective eye-rolling of faculty, staff, and veteran students begins, I should like to distinguish this grievance as a matter of personal liberty rather than yet another infeasible solution to a problem that can be solved by simply planning ahead.

 

A former student myself, returning as a graduate assistant, I knew better than to show up any later than an hour ahead of class, and took pains to arrive early. Preparing myself for what would ultimately be a hunt, I was surprised to find a checkpoint on University Boulevard (beside the former park-and-ride lot, lot 20, now diminished by a Sports Complex) before I got within 1000 feet of campus. It was tended by a member of parking services, security, or physical plant—the more vague the authority, the less likely they might be identified, and made accountable. He certainly looked the part, with his law-enforcement-style sunglasses and Stalin-esque haircut, holding his hand out over the narrowed single-lane implied by a line of orange pylons.

 

“Going to class?” he asked, leaning into my open window.

“In about three hours.” (Like I said, I used to be a student here.)

“Where are you going now?” Excuse me?

 

Let’s stop here. I have and had a valid parking pass; I have and held employment with the university; I was and am enrolled in classes.

 

“To my office.”

At this point, he leans around the front of my car to check the parking pass hanging from my rearview mirror. “You don’t have a faculty pass.”

“Yeah, they don’t give them to TA’s,” (an issue for another day) “Can I go now?”

“Good luck, they’re not gonna let you in—“

At this point I drove away.

 

This is my Alma Mater, (the Nourishing Mother, in case your Latin is rusty) and while I appreciate that new students require an education in over-sold parking lots, the task of these traffic bouncers seems largely to be one of obstruction, not facilitation. When left to our own devices, we students seem to negotiate the parking situation just fine.

 

But when enrolled, tuition-paying students are interrogated, students who without whom there would be no University, no administration, and no parking gestapo—I take issue. Wright State, you have effectively communicated your opinion of us: “You are our commodity. Justify your purpose on our grounds.” As undergrads, we used to jokingly call it Wright Police State. Congratulations, you have lived up to the moniker. Papers please.