University’s policies designed to keep school functioning, stifling celebrations is by-product
With St. Patrick’s Day coming up, Wilfrid Laurier University in Waterloo has banned merchandise related to the day and will be locking doors on campus to make it more difficult for partiers to get into university buildings.
Some people have speculated about what the response would be if these policies were put in place for another holiday or ethnic celebration. We can disagree with the efficacy of these regulations, but it’s necessary to recognize that this one set of restrictions doesn’t signal some new war on Irish-Canadians.
Increasing security is a reasonable policy, given that campuses will likely be full of students drinking heavily. Last year Waterloo police handed out 269 tickets on St. Patrick’s Day. The thought of drunk students lurching around lecture halls and disrupting classes, among probably other things, makes the security increase a reasonable decision.
Locking doors on campus only makes it slightly more difficult to move around and go about your daily routine, while the banning the sale of gimmicky merchandise isn’t really impacting anyone’s day at all.
Placing restrictions on St. Patrick’s’ Day isn’t an assault on Irish culture because the measures, while they may increase safety, won’t deter anyone from participating.
Irish-Canadians also currently don’t face the same level of discrimination as other groups in Canada, such as Aboriginal Canadians or Chinese Canadians (however, they did during the years following the mass emigration and potato famine of 1847).
It’s worth noting that Irish-Canadians are a substantial part of the population, and in fact represent the fourth largest ethnic group in Canada.
If St. Patrick’s Day was really about celebrating Irish culture then perhaps some outrage could be forgiven, but the reality is that for many it is a day for largely uninhibited drinking and vague shouts of “Kiss me, I’m Irish.” The history of the Irish in North America is a much more complicated one, and one that shouldn’t be shoved haphazardly into a day of gaudy green mass produced garbage, and that includes the terrible beer with food colouring in it.
As a university space designed for education, and as a place of business for many, Laurier has the right to do what it thinks is best to maintain operations.
