Apparently our representatives in the Iowa Legislature are completely out of touch with how a university works and unaware of the role alcohol plays on college campuses across the state.

Rep. Rosemary Thomson, R-Marion, is sponsoring a bill in the Iowa House that would ban alcohol in all residence halls at public and private universities in Iowa.

According to The Associated Press, Thomson’s reasoning for enacting such a wide-sweeping, impossibly unenforceable ban is because when students’ “minds are dulled by chemicals, they’re not getting the best education.”

Thomson has obviously been misled by the constant media emphasis the last couple of years on the dangers of college binge drinking, which, by the way, is considerably lower than it was during the 1970s and 1980s.

What exactly does Thomson think about Iowa’s universities when she visualizes them in her narrow mind?

Iowa State is not some big, secretive, nine-month party featuring residence halls packed full of drunkards missing out on their education because they lack the legislative guidance they need to get their lives on track.

The whopping majority of us are here to get an education and a diploma, and believe it or not, an education and the responsible consumption of alcohol are not mutually exclusive.

Sure, there are a few squeaky wheels that could use a dab of grease when it comes to drinking. Alcohol is without a doubt one of the major problems on college campuses, not only in Iowa, but across the nation.

However, this insulting bill will not solve that problem or even ease it in the slightest. An all-out ban on alcohol at universities would be impossible to enforce, making it akin to the infamous “one foot on the floor and one eye open” policy on opposite-sex dorm room visits.

Not only would the regulation be a complete joke to students, it would drive residents of legal age out of the dorms, which would produce nothing but negative effects, from reduced income for the Department of Residence to a lack of peer role models for freshmen and sophomores.

If Thomson had a clue about the post-secondary institutions for which she and her colleagues hold the purse strings, she would recommend allocating money to allow universities to more efficiently enforce the alcohol regulations currently in place and to provide more education on the possible ills of alcohol.

Of course, that would inherently require her to understand the problem she’s attempting to snuff out, which she clearly does not.

Iowa State Daily Editorial Board: Sara Ziegler, Greg Jerrett, Kate Kompas, Carrie Tett and David Roepke.