Fix East Campus' authoritarian security procedures

In 1981, Ada Louise Huxtable, writing in the New York Times, described the entrance to East Campus as the “most skilled and unusual feature” of the then-new dormitory. After the events of this weekend, we have to wonder why Huxtable furnished such glowing praise on an architectural design so poorly suited for its intended function: allowing students to enter (and exit) East Campus.

This weekend, we saw the dissonance between Huxtable’s words and the truth on the ground. As has been the case since time immemorial, there were lines of Communist-era proportions outside of EC. We understand that one of the reasons there are always such long lines is the miserable design of EC’s entrances.

But much of the blame, we have to say, must be laid on the security apparatus in place in East Campus. This apparatus—and we call it an apparatus because the guards at EC often make us feel like our dormitories are a little police state overlooking Morningside Park—may just be the most inefficient system currently in place at Columbia. And that’s saying something at a university that brought you the StarRez portal.

In theory, the guards should try to keep the lines as short as possible. The longer the lines get, the more frustrated the students (and the guards) become. But instead of managing the lines, the guards spend much of their time screaming at students. And so a group of 10 students turns into a group of 20, then 50, then 200.

On Saturday night, a line many have called unprecedented in length formed outside of the towering edifice behind the Columbia Law School. For some reason, the guard decided that the best way to manage this line would be to periodically prevent any students from entering the building. The line ballooned as the guard refused to wave students—many of whom live in EC—through.

At midnight, the guards decided to shut down the dormitory to everyone but EC residents. For half an hour, students were literally locked out. And, of course, though the guards claimed they were letting EC residents in, their incompetence meant that many residents remained stranded outside.

We understand that it is not easy to control a swarm of hundreds of students. But this weekend—and every weekend this semester—it has become apparent that the guards at EC are themselves responsible for creating these swarms.

They have no formal system for separating students who are signing others in from students who are simply entering the building.

They prevent students from entering their own dormitory.

They become verbally abusive toward students even when these students have full right to enter EC. On Saturday, a student politely inquiring about the specific policy governing sign-ins was told by a guard that the policy was “tough shit.” Another student was told that a security guard was “old enough to be your father” and that “smart-ass doesn’t look good on you.”

When the lines become too long, more guards (often of high rank) are brought in. But these guards simply stand around or shout at students. There is, for reasons that escape us, never a second sign-in book, never more than one guard working to move people through, and no effort to shorten the lines.

This system is ridiculous, bizarre, and unfair. It is also unacceptable. We pay more than $50,000 a year to attend Columbia. Housing alone costs more than $10,000 a year. For that amount of money, we should not have to wait in line for hours to get into the dorm rooms for which we are paying. Nor should we be subject to harassment and intimidation from security guards. Just as we expect students to respect those who work at Columbia, so, too, do we expect those who work here to treat us with respect.

Public Safety and Student Affairs: If you do not move to address this problem (and in short order), you are remiss in your responsibilities to the students you ostensibly strive to protect and serve.

Columbia’s complete failure to resolve this issue suggests a callousness toward student concerns and a lack of interest in the quality of student life.

More disturbingly, the administration’s failure on this front endangers the physical safety of students who live in or visit EC. On Saturday night, security guards on multiple occasions blamed the size of the lines on “fire codes.” They claimed that the building has a certain legal capacity and that, by holding up the line, they were somehow ensuring that the building did not exceed that capacity. But, even if this dubious claim was true, that does not change the fact that the teeming horde of students outside the entrance to EC presented a far worse fire hazard than the number of people inside the building.

Had there been an actual fire, anyone exiting the building would have run smack into hundreds of students trying to get in.

In fact, there was a fire alarm Saturday night. Many students did not evacuate. Why? Some because they didn’t care, but others because they had no faith that they would be able to get back inside if they left. And for good reason.

If the security apparatus guarding EC is so incompetent that students must weigh the horrific (though unlikely) possibility of being caught in a fire against the (almost certain) possibility of being stuck outside of the International Affairs Building for hours, we have a serious problem.

This system (if you can call it that) is a joke. But it’s hard to see how feeling like you’re imprisoned in your own dormitory and imperiled by the very men and women who guard it is funny at all.