Mom’s Weekend is generally a good time for everyone: local businesses’, the OSU campus, and the Corvallis community thrive with the excitement and expectation of the visiting mom. I was expecting to spend this year’s Mom’s Weekend like I did the last: enjoying some good quality time with the single parent who was putting me through college.
Saturday April 30th, around 4:40 in the afternoon, just as my mother and I were preparing to leave for our dinner reservations, a knock came at my door.
I pulled the door open immediately and found myself face to face with an Oregon State Police Officer.
He asked me if I knew why he was here and I told him no. According to the office someone had been smoking marijuana and the RA’s in my dorm had determined that it had come from my room.
My room also stands at the end of the hall, with no other room directly across from it and the exit door only inches away. I guess I was in too much of shock to immediately jump to the reasoning that anybody could have been smoking on the exit patio.
I was either in too much shock, or completely frustrated by the fact that my mother was with me, I hadn’t done anything that they had accused me of, and both my mother and I were facing public humiliation during a weekend where she was supposed to feel welcomed, not whispered about by the other residents and moms staying at the hall.
The OSP officer was insisting that I was exhibiting symptoms of someone under the influence of drugs and that I had failed all his tests thus far (which included sticking my tongue out, being told my pupils were dilated and didn’t react to light and then having a flashlight thrust into my eyes and told that my eyes were to jumpy).
It was immediately obvious to me that the officer was making this up because, well, I was innocent. He was using intimidation tactics as an abuse of power and as a technique to get me to confess to something I didn't do.
After a bit the officer let me go, determining that there would be no further action. Still in shock and by now in tears, I grabbed my purse and my mother and we immediately left for dinner. I didn’t lock my door.
When we returned my door was locked and upon entering the room it was obvious that someone had riffled not only through my belongings, but my mom’s as well.
My mother and I pay thousands and thousands of dollars of tuition, not to mention thousands of dollars to live in a residence hall on campus. I’m a hard working student who has held various leadership roles on campus and my mother is a hard working single mom who has done everything she can to support me.
The way we were treated by UHDS and the Oregon State Police was awful, un called for and completely unacceptable for the amount of money I pay to live in a broke down residence hall. The accusations they made were hasty and generally unsupported by any profound evidence.
I will be spending my week moving out of my room. I will be spending my years at OSU telling this story and doing my best to make sure that unsuspecting students moving into UHDS residence halls know the consequences of their choice. I will not idly stand by.
I just hope the people who searched my room after I left were happy with what they found. I hope they felt shame for their hasty assumptions and accusations. Lastly, I hope that UHDS steps up and apologizes for the way both my mother and I were treated during OSU’s “grandeur” Mom’s Weekend.
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