Dear Fr. Bur, We have learned recently that St. Joseph’s Prep will be implementing a new random drug-testing policy for current students. We are taking this opportunity to share our thoughts regarding this new policy with you. Your time and consideration are appreciated in this matter. We believe that as alumni we have a special obligation towards the Prep for maintaining the legacy that the Jesuits, past and current faculty and administrations, and the long and esteemed line of alumni that have walked before us have built. We take that obligation seriously and it is for this reason that we are writing you. We were disappointed that we became aware of this new policy from a link on a social media website to a story in a publication called the Nose. As seriously as we take our obligation to the Prep, we feel that we are due a certain amount of consideration commensurate with our roles as stakeholders in the Prep’s legacy. We feel that alumni should have been made aware of this new policy directly from the school. We also feel that it would have been in the interest of the school to engage all of the stakeholders in a dialogue about how to handle any new developments, such as they may be, to a very old problem. We feel that for an institution that has been in existence and doing things the right way for 162 years, sudden and significant changes in how the administration deals with the student body in such a substantial manner is reckless. We are aware that drug use is an unfortunate fact of life in contemporary society. We are also aware that drug use as a percentage of the population has remained at a fairly constant level through the last several decades. We are also aware that drug use at school that have universal, random or no drug testing at all is fairly constant. We do not relish the thought of students using illicit drugs. None of us want any of our own children to use drugs. We recognize that the Prep should in no way be ambivalent towards drug use, but we feel that there are a wide range of more effective measures to prevent drug use at the Prep’s disposal that fall between ambivalence and the draconian policy we have learned of. We also realize that young men make choices, and that sometimes we may not like those choices. We have all made more than our own share that, given the opportunity, we would choose differently. But we know better now because of the foolishness of our youth. St. Ignatius writes that “to find that way through the medium of His grace we will be greatly helped if we search about and make many kinds of experiments.” We agree that any student who is on school grounds or at a school-sanctioned event and is under the influence of drugs or alcohol or who buys or sells drugs on school grounds or at a school sanctioned event should be punished, and counseled, appropriately. But we feel that the new policy is meant to be prophylactic. We understand the desire to act preventatively. But there is far more history and empirical evidence showing that these efforts are dubious in their efficacy. We also feel that this new policy is an abandonment of the rhetoric, logic and reason in persuading young men to make proper decisions that were the hallmarks of our education at the Prep. This is the implementation of sanction and fear to coerce behavior. This is a reward/punishment model more appropriate for a primary school rather than a preparatory school. The recent article in Philadelphia Magazine paraphrases one of the tenets of the Prep, that you cannot develop men if you treat them as children. This new policy treats the students as children. We also have strong misgivings about the firm that has been selected to do the testing and how the firm was chosen. The fact that other schools in the area that aspire to the reputation of the Prep use their services is no reason to divert the school’s scarce resources towards a policy that quite simply will not have the outcome the current administration is hoping for. As alumni who are asked to bolster the school’s resources, we cannot abide this senseless application of those resources. We worry about the student who makes one poor decision on one day and several weeks’ later tests positive for something that he may never have had any desire ever to use again. According to what we know of the policy, that student is subject to regular testing throughout the remainder of his days at the Prep. We worry for the young man who tests positive falsely, what measures are available to him? We worry that the student who objects conscientiously. He will be considered to have tested positive for nothing more than using his mind critically rather than obeisantly. We are disappointed in this new policy. But we have realized that we care as much for the Prep now as we ever have. If we did not care, we would not be disappointed. We would not feel obligated to reach out and share our disappointment. We realize that the school cannot function at the distant direction of any one alumnus, which is why we have chosen to address you as a group. And as a group that does care for the Prep, we are obligated to make our displeasure known and felt in any way we can. We will never disparage the Prep publicly or otherwise. But we will continue to advocate, gentlemanly and professionally, for the rescission of this policy by any means at our disposal. Respectfully submitted, we are