Security has never been a particularly high priority for Amherst students. Living in the Amherst bubble, we often neglect to lock our doors or show the least bit of concern about wandering around campus at two, three or four in the morning. The recent stabbing of a fellow Amherst student at a party on campus was, to say the least, a rude awakening.

In reaction to the events of Feb. 8, the College has banned the advertisement of Amherst parties at other Five College campuses while a committee decides how to respond to the event. Since this is the most effective way to keep students away from parties, the College has, in essence, banned Five College students from Amherst parties. While it is understandable that something must be done, this effective ban is a mistake and the editorial board of The Student urges the administration not to adopt it as a formal, long-term policy of the College.

Student safety is important, but, at the same time, one isolated incident is not indicative of Five College students as a whole. The actions of one student should not adversely affect students that had no part in it.

Furthermore, banning Five College students limits the social scene to the 1,600 students that constitute Amherst College. Many students and student groups rely on the Five College student population to add diversity and well appreciated numbers to the social life on campus. The College prides itself on the collaboration of the Five Colleges, both academically and socially. The interactions between the students within the Consortium are part of the experience that the College offers, and pitches hard, to prospective students each year. To confine College students to such a small world of our most intimately known peers is to cripple our entire college experience. It becomes our cell — a warm, familiar, safe cell to be sure, but a cell nonetheless, supposedly cut off from the real world where violence does occur, people do disagree and still the machinery keeps working. Safety that comes at the price of preventing the expansion of our minds through diverse interactions is safety to which we will not quickly submit. We are not so fragile that a single incident can frighten us away from all Five College students and the opportunities their presence offers.

For the school that already suffers from the stereotype of preppy elitism, banning Five College students is precisely the wrong thing to do. A ban would immediately reinforce perceptions of us as aloof outsiders who must consciously attempt to condescend to the level of the rest of the Five Colleges who do not share our view from the ivory tower. If the ban were to remain enforced as a permanent or extended measure, it would undeniably affect the mentality of incoming first-years, as well as the opinions of students in the schools near to Amherst and the residents of the town of Amherst.

As an alternative, the College should institute the use of handheld metal detectors at parties. These metal detectors would keep students from sneaking in dangerous weapons, such as knives. There would be the necessary security without completely sealing Amherst off from the rest of the world. Since waving a metal detector wand around a person can be done relatively quickly, this would be an efficient and feasible measure.

We have come a long way in shedding our elitist attitude and adopting an inclusive identity — it is part of the reason the College pushes the Five College system so hard — so to encourage next year’s freshman to adopt an exclusive, superior mindset is antithetical to the College’s mission.