With four years gone by, a majority of students on campus couldn’t say what Veishea was like without all of the heavy restrictions. Aside from what they might have seen on television back in high school, Veishea for a lot of students on campus is a time to go home for the weekend.

It really shouldn’t come as a shock to anyone either of the mass exodus that occurs early on Friday of students fleeing the campus-wide lockdown. And why shouldn’t students leave? Having every door in your dorm locked, RAs, DPS and Student Security constantly making their rounds in the halls and on campus and being restricted from having visitors, can anyone honestly be shocked that Veishea isn’t fun?

Aside from the police state, there are other reasons Veishea doesn’t work anymore. One of the largest reasons is having classes on Friday. The multitude of booths, demonstrations, and the like are set up around campus and most students simply don’t have the time to see anything because they have to hurry off to class. Classes also potentially remove students from running booths and representing their particular organizations during Veishea.

For a brief moment, students had a glimmer of hope, and perhaps Veishea was going to be an enjoyable experience, because of IRHA’s Non-celebratory Celebration bill.

The presidents of all three residence associations came together to create the bill in hopes of bringing back a little of the fun.

The bill requested that security rounds be less frequent, doors inside the residence halls be unlocked, the special visitors policy be removed and that students of age be allowed to drink.

Simple requests really, making it so students don’t have to feel like the school is going into lockdown mode, and allowing students the rights to drink for those of age.

All of these requests were spearheaded by IRHA taking a position of boycotting Veishea if their requests weren’t met. Too often students complain that they don’t see our campus organizations like GSB or IRHA with any real power, and here IRHA was attempting to flex some muscle, but alas, that power is no more.

We can all thank the other members of IRHA who were foolish enough to remove the portion of the bill that would boycott Veishea. In one swift motion IRHA has neutered itself.

Apparently, several IRHA members are trying to be like GSB by passing meaningless bills that do nothing but whine.

Being able to boycott Veishea would have sent a powerful message to the administration that we as students aren’t going to be run through the motions of putting on a dog and pony show for the rest of Iowa at the expense of our own fun.

While there is something to be said with trying to reason with the administration, especially with President Geoffroy, the same can’t be said for other figures who often dislike listening to reason, like Randy Alexander.

Alexander, of course, assumes that everything the bill is for is just a smokescreen so that students can drink again, and questions that we as students can’t drink during Veishea. What he fails to realize is that many students don’t drink every weekend, but that it is the right of those who are 21 and over and have chosen to stay in the residents halls for whatever reason, to have a beer if they so please.

We don’t need alcohol to have a good time, sure, but when you have to live in an environment where fun is being actively quashed, you can’t fault someone for wanting a drink.

The bill even mentioned that irresponsible consumption of alcohol, such as underage drinking, providing to the underaged, and public intoxication, would receive stiffer punishment.

We can always hope that President Geoffroy will see the reasons the bill was written and that students aren’t able to have a good time at Veishea.

But for now this hope is all we have, because we can be assured that the more distrustful members of the administration won’t welcome anything resembling students having a good time.

Blaine Moyle is a senior in English and secondary education from Des Moines.