A few days ago the previously-beloved Yale College Dean Mary Miller gave returning Yalies a lovely welcome-back present. In an email sent out to the student body on August 10th, Dean Miller outlined a few new student activities regulations for the upcoming year. Off-campus parties, freshman rush, and tailgating are all now subject to Dean Miller’s party-pooping ways:

• Any off-campus party hosting more than 50 people must be registered with the Yale College Dean’s Office
• Freshman must wait until spring semester to rush a fraternity or sorority
• Kegs and U-Hauls will now be banned in the so-called “student tailgate village” and tailgate festivities must end at kickoff.

Most of this is not entirely unexpected. Postponement of freshman rush was announced back in March, and, after last year’s tragic accident which resulted in the death of one woman and left two others injured, tailgating rules were bound to change. Yale’s new tailgating policies are no stricter than those of its fellow Ivy League schools; most (Harvard included) have already banned kegs and U-Hauls. (It’ll be interesting to see if these new regulations hold up, or if they’ll go down the path of last year’s “wristband policy”, whose effectiveness during last year’s game was about as successful as the Yale football team.)

As for ending tailgate at kickoff? Sounds like a lame attempt to boost student attendance for the actual games. Here’s hoping the Yale football team brings the same fire and determination to this year’s season as it does to fighting at Toad’s.

The creation of the “student tailgate village,” however, is a bit laughable:

New tailgate rules, now in effect, relocate the student tailgate section—now the student tailgate village—much closer to the student section inside the Yale Bowl. Under the new rules, kegs and vehicles will no longer be permitted in the student tailgate village, and student tailgates will end at kickoff.

Look, unless they built a literal village in which students can now tailgate (but…without drinking or dancing on U-Hauls), relocating or renaming anything isn’t going to make much of a difference. This only makes us think of the Olympic Village, which we all know is a holy place free of sin and debauchery. (So maybe they’ll supply free condoms?)

But the most puzzling new policy is the registration of off-campus parties. This system of party registration is already in place for on-campus parties, but that system holds about as much power as the Yale College Republicans. Considering non-registered on-campus parties don’t face any consequences to begin with, it’s difficult to see what consequences a non-registered off-campus party might face. (A personal visit from Peter Salovey’s mustache?)

Instigating new rules that are so obviously difficult to enforce only serves to undermine those very policies. (And the people who come up with them.) Don’t be such a party pooper, Dean Miller. We’ll invite you—and Salovey—to the next rager. You only have to ask.