This weekend was Meliora Weekend at Rochester, a weekend full of fun and excitement for parents and alum. However, there was a huge controversy over tickets to see the keynote speaker, former President Bill Clinton.
The controversy was that the tickets were limited and the alum and "big donors" got first dibs on the tickets. The rest of the university had to go online while the registration crashed and were unable to get tickets. There was then a lottery for some students to get tickets, but most students scalped these tickets.
The University of Rochester violated the Rule of Law. This says that there should be no special privilege given by a governing body to certain people. The University did just this as they gave the alum and donors the tickets to see Bill Clinton (indirectly because they had early registration) and had everyone else get what was left over.
Some students were in uproar and articles in the school newspaper showed how upset some students were at the Universities unfairness. They thought there should be no favoritism and if there was then it should be to the students who go to the University - the alum had their turn here.
Every group is going to say they should have the special privilege but no one should. If anyone should get the privilege, I can see why they would give it to the alum as they are the ones donating to this new $1.2 billion plan.
But there was no equity in the ticket distribution. There was no horizontal equity that treated everyone as equal people. Instead they favored one certain group, violating the Rule of Law.
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