The Debate Behind Assembly Debate

I could, presumably, use this article to lambaste all the people criticizing the new Assembly policy. I could rant about how disappointing it must be for a renowned Assembly speaker to be giving a speech before a nearly empty audience. And I could point out that Exeter really isn’t asking that much of us—and I should know, having gone to a junior boarding school that locked our phones and computers in a closet every night at 9:30.

Or, on the other side, I could argue on behalf of faculty members who now have to give up flexibility in their schedules to check in fifteen students in a random section of Assembly Hall. I could enter an impassioned tirade about Assembly taking 20 minutes longer because of attendance. You get the point by now—I’m not going to do that, because I think it’s boring, frankly, and there’s no reason for me to rehash arguments already being made across campus.

However, I do think this whole debate is actually an interesting case study into our attitudes about legal enforcement. Broadly speaking, there seem to be three camps. The first, more or less, can be called the “criminalization” camp. Their argument is that because Assembly is a required appointment, it should be treated as such, and Administration should take actions to enforce attendance. Why else, they argue, would it be a required appointment? From my understanding, some faculty members and several administrators seem to hold this general view. As such, this side tends to punch above its weight in terms of influence and is arguably the driving force in the new Assembly policy, for better or worse.

The second camp, as I describe it, seems to hold the general opinions of the student body and, if silent, a few faculty members. Let’s call them the “decriminalizers.”  The decriminalizers mostly believe that though Assembly attendance should be required, most strict enforcement mechanisms are counter-productive or cumbersome. Some decriminalizers might have supported the old Assembly check policy, or are at least praising it now in contrast with the new plan. Further, some might argue that the punishment for dicking Assembly should be diminished, though they might be unclear on how this is to be done.

The last camp, I believe, expresses the secret sentiments of some students who want Assembly to become entirely optional. I’ll call them the “legalizers.” Their opinion might be held for a few reasons—because they want the extra free time, because they don’t see value in Assembly, or maybe because they think there are more productive uses of students’ time. The list goes on. I’d say that they probably represent the smallest or at least the least vocal group among the three.

So, we have three sides to this debate assembled—legalizers, decriminalizers, and criminalizers. The debate centers around a particular issue that remains controversial but arguably victimless. Namely, people dicking Assembly. One camp, invoking liberty, argues that it should be entirely legal, while another, invoking a sort of legal moralism, is fighting to enforce attendance at the expense of seeming draconian to the other camps. And in the meantime, there are some who lie somewhere in the middle, looking for milder enforcement or reduced consequences for a variety of reasons. There’s also a generational gap at play here—older individuals tend to support stricter enforcement, while younger people, some of whom are dicking Assembly themselves, tend not to. Now, what does this remind you of?

Immediately, I already see plenty of parallels to the national drug policy debate. Not seeing it yet? Consider ideology, for instance. Just as in our Assembly case study, the group arguing for criminalization makes an argument fundamentally rooted in legal moralism—the belief that laws are made to legislate morality. This can generally be true, as there are some things we do illegalize sheerly because they are wrong. In the drug debate, this takes the form of the criminalizers arguing that drug laws are needed because drug use is bad and unhealthy. In the Assembly Hall case, the Administrator’s argument ultimately centers around the belief that dicking Assembly is bad, disrespectful, or harmful to a student’s education. In both cases, the other side is really divided in two—those seeking relaxed enforcement and those seeking complete legalization. And this side tends to argue from liberty—the belief that students at Exeter deserve more freedom and with it, less oversight.

There are even more nuanced sub-debates hidden in here. For instance, should dicking Assembly be treated the same as dicking math class? At present, it is. Similarly, per the DEA’s guidelines for enforcement, cannabis use is treated with the same severity as heroin. Is this fair, in either case? Some would argue no, for clear reasons, but the criminalizers would retort that dicking a required appointment is dicking a required appointment. Drug use is drug use. See the parallel?

Of course, the two aren’t entirely similar, in large part because the drug debate is tied up with the broader social issues surrounding race in America, but the fundamental forces at play here are rather similar. And I’m interested to see this all play out, because I think this debate is a microcosm for much larger societal discussions, even if we pretend it isn’t. It is a clash of legal systems, of moral models, of generations, and of power dynamics, all playing out on a small scale. And I’m sure there are connections I’m missing as well.

In short, I’m not taking a side. I just think it’s quite fascinating, and really hope the debate doesn’t just sizzle out.