This story’s language has been clarified to emphasize that Krzyston has not been convicted of a crime.
On Jan. 14, Alexander Krzyston will attend the preliminary hearing regarding his role in the death of Matthew Sunshine, who died after playing a drinking game with others in his residence hall. Krzyston, who police allege provided the alcohol for Sunshine and others on the night of the death, was charged on Dec. 14 with the felony count of “unlawful delivery of liquor to a minor.” This makes him culpable in Sunshine’s death, according to the Evanston Police press release.
If Kryzston did supply alcohol on the night of Sunshine’s death, the law implicates him as responsible. The 21+ law exists precisely to prevent deaths like this from happening, as 21 is supposedly the age where we can be trusted to handle the responsibility of alcohol. But to hold Krzyston up as the single cause of Sunshine’s death is unfair. Underage students obtaining alcohol from older friends is a frequent and common occurrence on college campuses, and making an example out of Krzyston won’t teach anyone safer drinking practices.
Freshmen and sophomores face few obstacles in procuring alcohol. The majority of students in Norris and on Sheridan Road informally polled said that they had either illegally obtained alcohol or given liquor to someone younger than 21 in the past. Most of the underage students who admitted to getting alcohol from an older student went on to say that they have multiple friends who could provide alcohol for them. If John can’t do it one night, then Sally certainly can. If Krzyston didn’t provide the alcohol that night, somebody else would have.
It’s nothing short of devastating when someone dies as a result of alcohol poisoning, but it is important to note that underage students aren’t being forced to drink the alcohol. They ask for it. It is their decision to drink. Although the Evanston Police Department wouldn’t comment on whether the authorities believe Krzyston forced the alcohol on Sunshine, it’s not likely that anyone was coerced into drink that night. And while nobody drinks expecting the night to go horribly wrong, social drinking, whether legal or illegal, safe or unsafe, is a personal choice.
In tragic circumstances like Sunshine’s death, it’s human to want to find someone to blame; but pointing the finger at a single person accomplishes very little. After MIT freshman Scott Krueger’s death at a Phi Gamma Delta rushing event in 1997, the MIT committee on discipline revoked the diploma of Charles Yoo, the Phi Gamma Delta pledge master, making his role in Krueger’s death comparable to Krzyston’s role in Sunshine’s death. That disciplinary action was taken against Yoo is fair, but that MIT singled him out was undeserved. Both Krzyston and Yoo are essentially made into scapegoats in these circumstances. Yet, Phi Gamma Delta was made up of a brotherhood of men, not just Yoo, and a drinking game cannot be played alone.
Making one person take the fall for these deaths does not make up for the loss of Krueger or Sunshine nor does it make any progress toward curtailing unsafe drinking habits on college campuses. Research by the American Psychiatric Association shows that four out of five college students drink and about half of college student drinkers engage in heavy episodic consumption. Furthermore, binge drinking trends among college students, in fact, has neither dramatically risen nor declined in the last 15 years, according to the Monitoring the Future Project at the University of Michigan. Despite the example made of Yoo and the potential example made of Krzyston, college students still drink and will continue to drink.
As Krzyston’s hearing nears, we should remember that the goal is to promote safer drinking practices, not to prosecute someone that could’ve been anyone. As there are 1,400 alcohol-related deaths per year among college students, it’s clear that there’s a breakdown in communication between universities, public authorities, and students. It’s not a matter of whether someone is 18 or 22 years old. It’s a matter of counseling college students of all ages on safe alcoholic consumption.
Although the loss of Sunshine is a grievous and painful memory, sentencing Krzyston to 1-3 years in prison and making a criminal of him is not the way to promote better drinking habits among students. Perhaps, it would be a step in the right direction to model Krzyston’s punishment on that of Michael McCullough and Brandon Overlie after the death of University of Minnesota student Kyle Sharbonno, 19, in 2007. Like Krzyston, McCullough and Overlie (21 and 22, respectively) faced possible prison time for providing alcohol to an underage student who passed in an alcohol-related accident. Instead of prison, however, McCullough and Overlie were sentenced to two years of probation and 80 hours of community service. Additionally, they were required to wear electronic monitors for six months and attend alcohol awareness counseling.
The probation, community service, and counseling prescribed to McCullough and Overlie will undoubtedly do much more to lessen unsafe underage drinking than will sentencing Krzyston to prison. At the very least, training and counseling is more of an appropriate punishment than putting an average college student behind bars.
There is definitely no easy solution to reduce unsafe drinking. Otherwise, young men like Sunshine, Krueger and Sharbonno wouldn’t be so tragically lost. Clearly, though, the mechanisms that universities currently have in place are not working. Students are not receptive to the PowerPoint presentations they are forced to sit through during freshman orientation, and thus, there is no progress toward increased student safety on campus.
There are many different roads to explore, but however we try to achieve safer drinking practices, we should work together as a community. Krzyston, a member of this community, will hear a decision at his hearing that will change his life. If found guilty, I hope he will be given the chance to learn how to drink safely with us, not barred away from us.