Healthy relationships: What message is Penn State sending if alcohol is sold at Beaver Stadium?

For the past 17 years, I’ve written this column in September as school starts and students return to Penn State. While many of those columns have been about the challenges of sending one’s children off to college or back to school, a significant number of them have focused on the particular perils facing college students, especially first year college students, as they navigate the new freedoms that college life brings. It is as regular — and heartbreaking — as clockwork. The new semester brings the start of what is known as the Red Zone.

For football fans, the Red Zone is where you want your team to be, but for those of us who work to prevent sexual violence and support those who experience it, it is a time that we dread. The Red Zone, between the end of August and Thanksgiving, is when nearly 50% of all college sexual assaults occur — and incoming first year students are particularly vulnerable.

First year students who have a new-found freedom are often drawn to the social activities surrounding Penn State football. And many of those activities unfortunately involve large amounts of alcohol. Anyone who has wandered the tailgates around the stadium or walked the streets of State College following a home game knows that all too often those we see have had too much to drink. And all too often, those who start the day full of joy and anticipation of a fun time, end up as victims of sexual violence.

While alcohol does not cause sexual violence, it can be a major contributing factor, according to the National Institutes of Health, citing research studies that “found that about half of sexual assaults on college campuses involve a situation in which the perpetrator, the victim, or both were consuming alcohol. Sexual assaults were more likely to occur in settings where alcohol was consumed (e.g. parties, bars). Potential perpetrators seek out such settings as a way of finding vulnerable individuals.”

So it was with some dismay that I read that Penn State is actively considering selling alcohol at Beaver Stadium during football games as a way to generate revenue. Again, while we know that alcohol doesn’t cause sexual violence, the research cannot be ignored. While the university generates revenue through alcohol sales, it is the wider community that responds to the 911 calls, the overflowing emergency department, and the sexual assaults.

The argument will be, I know, that there will be limits on sales, that no one under 21 will be sold alcohol, that safeguards will be put in place. But what message are we sending to students and to the wider community with this decision? A decision that has been made without any community input or conversation with those in the community who work to pick up the pieces after a sexual assault or worse, an alcohol fueled death. Is the university actively enabling behavior that is problematic and may be life-alteringly dangerous? Alcohol consumption is perfectly legal for those over 21, and responsible adults should be able to drink without judgment. But while it may be legal and profitable to sell alcohol during football games, one has to ask, “Is it wise?’ And does it contribute to or detract from the type of healthy relationships we are trying to build in this community?