Fourteen of Pennsylvania's state universities' recent decision to ban smoking on campus is the continuation of a persistent problem. College administrations are increasingly taking the role of campus mother and enforcing unwanted regulation on students. In this case, the universities selectively interpreted a law on "clean air" to mean their whole campus.
There are certainly reasons for some regulation of where people can smoke. Indeed, many states have enacted laws that keep smokers between 15 and 50 feet away from building entrances, allowing unsuspecting passersby to bypass an unwanted cloud of smoke. People who don't want to smoke should have a legitimate chance to avoid it. But to apply this logic to a whole campus is ludicrous and borders on insanity. Worst of all, most students affected by the smoking ban didn't know of the ban until they were already students. This is unfair to smokers who chose to attend these schools before the ban went into effect. With this information, they could have chosen to attend other more smoker-friendly universities.
There are many other options available to a college before its administration decides to use this over-the-top solution. Campuses can create designated smoking zones that will leave both smokers and non-smokers happy.
The most recent statistics from the American Lung Association show that about one-fifth of college students smoke. It is outrageous for a university to alienate one out of every five students. College campuses are supposed to be an inclusive and diverse place. Smokers, like any other group or demographic, deserve to be able to participate in this culture and do it comfortably. If someone wants to have a cigarette between class and stays away from doorways and doesn't literally blow smoke into other peoples' faces, then there should be no problem. If there is no other choice but to walk through a cloud of cigarette smoke, then a non-smoker could hold their breath for a few seconds.
On a more clichéd note, this is still the United States. At some point, regulation goes from protecting the rights of some and starts infringing on the rights of others. It may not be in the Bill of Rights, but George Washington would have been awfully confused about this whole affair - he did grow tobacco, after all.
Enough needs to be enough. College administrations cannot become our surrogate mothers. If a person is of the legal age to smoke, which most college students are, then it needs to be that person's own choice whether to smoke or not. At some point, college administrations need to defer to the personal judgments of their students. By enacting laws that make smoking so utterly inconvenient, these colleges are in effect taking away this choice - a choice that should not be theirs to make.
