Pepperdine wages an endless struggle to balance its religious convictions with the secularity of its students. Understanding that many choose to ignore the policy that sexual intercourse is prohibited on campus, the student Health Center provided contraceptives to anyone who requested them. Understanding that many choose to ignore the policy that binge drinking is prohibited both on and off campus, the Student Government Association established the Safe Rides program to shuttle students who deem themselves unfit to drive.
In response to editorials in the Graphic in the spring of 2001, the university demanded the Health Center stop providing condoms and other forms of birth control. On the other hand, the university has been fully supportive of Safe Rides. This apparent paradox raises an obvious question: Is this inconsistent?
Before answering these questions, one first must understand the history of Safe Rides. SGA designed the program in 2002 as a way of ensuring all students in unsafe situations could have a “safe ride” back to their residence. Whenever former SGA presidents Andrea Krug and Ben Elliott or current SGA President Jason Palmer discussed the initiative, they quickly informed everyone that Safe Rides is not a designated driving program. Of course, if someone somehow ended up in that situation, Safe Rides could be utilized for that purpose.
Palmer said about 90 students have used it since it finally became operational. Although no numbers exist as to exactly why each person has used the service, anecdotal evidence and basic logic suggest its primary function has so far been as a designated driving program. After all, more students binge drink than get flat tires. This fact hinders the argument that Safe Rides differs from the Health Center policy because the former provides a general service for students not necessarily breaking university rules. Anyone who argues on that premise must ignore the glaring fact that Safe Rides’ primary function is to help drunk people who broke university policy.
Nevertheless, one could still distinguish between the two policies in defense of the university’s apparent inconsistency. The university can argue along the lines of the Catholic Church and say using contraceptives is an immoral act compounding the immoral act of having pre-marital sexual intercourse. No one would argue, however, that driving a drunk person in itself is an immoral act. Thus, a distinction could be made if the university were to say using contraceptives is as an immoral act as fornication. However, the Churches of Christ, to which Pepperdine is affiliated, generally supports the notion that contraceptives, just like sex, are wrong only outside of marriage.
Another difference between the two policies is that Safe Rides can only be utilized after Pepperdine policy has been broken. Safe Rides does not offer to take students to bars or parties. This, one can argue, varies from the policy of distributing condoms in preparation for sex, because one enables the immoral act while the other is a reaction to the immoral act. Again, however, this argument fails. Distributing contraceptives does not enable a sexual act. Distributing prostitutes and gigolos would enable sex.
Like Safe Rides, handing out the pill or condoms to students who requested them would be a means to react to the fact that students have decided to act immorally, according to university policy, but nevertheless want to act responsibly.
The final argument to distinguish the two involves the locations at which each service is provided. It would be inconsistent, one could argue, to distribute condoms on campus while having a policy against having sex on campus. And because Safe Rides does not function on campus (except for the occasional ride back to a dormitory), the policy is acceptable. However, Pepperdine prohibits binge drinking both on and off campus, while it only prohibits sexual intercourse on campus. Therefore, both policies extend into areas that the university has an opposite stance in its handbook.
The university should examine these two policies before charges of inconsistency become charges of hypocrisy.
October 30, 2003