Grab, you are missing the point. I am not arguing against students being required to carry ID cards. (Maybe that argument should be made, but it is irrelevant to the main point I am making here.) I am arguing against using unfair, unreasonable, and possibly illegal methods of forcing them to do it.

One detail you seem to have missed (I mentioned it in my last message and I regret I didn't stress it earlier) is that whoever is issuing the cards, conducting orientation of new students, or publishing official rules is doing a terrible job. They are giving the students ZERO information about what the card is for, at least as far as the campus post office is concerned. As far as I have been able to determine, NOBODY is telling them during new-student orientation or anywhere else, that they are supposed to carry the ID card at all times. NOBODY (outside the post office) is telling them they will need the ID card to pick up a package. The first time they hear it is the first time they show up at the post office window trying to claim a package. It comes as a complete surprise to them. At that point, it IS unfair and unreasonable to deny them their own property as a means of forcing them to do something they previously had no idea they were supposed to do.

Remember, we have a new crop of students every year, and a near-complete turnover every four years. The fact that somebody might have sent out an e-mail 3 years ago telling students to always carry their ID doesn't cut it.

At least I had one small victory yesterday. I was to get one my coworkers to concede that IF in fact there is an official policy that students should always carry their ID, then this policy ought to be published somewhere, and we ought to be able to find it. So far, we haven't found it. The only evidence we have that such a policy exists is "oral tradition" passed down among employees of the campus post office!

And, yes, this is a private institution (although our Guest above mistakenly assumed it was a public one, and argued from that premise), and the board of trustees, if they wanted to, could even turn it into a military academy and require all our students to stand at attention and salute us. They could put up barbed wire around the perimeters to keep the public out. But if they did that, it would not be the kind of institution I would want to work for, or want my son to attend.

As an employee, I feel it is my right and my duty to argue against any policies—or alleged policies—that I feel are detrimental to the mission of the institution as a whole, and I am doing just that.