For the past few weeks, Stanford students have been beleaguered by what is known as “The Bike Ban.” The restriction of bicycles from the Main Quad’s arcades is undoubtedly a serious inconvenience, and in all likelihood does little to promote safety or some overall beneficial goal. Most student complaints are probably true. Yes, the ban was passed with little, if any, student consultation. Certainly, the ban will prevent students from being able to shelter their bikes from the rain during the inevitable downpours that come with Winter Quarter. And I suppose this year’s ban also takes away from “what makes Stanford fun,” especially when coupled with the castration of the Band. From the perspective of student freedom, the ban is unquestionably a bad idea.

What I find most surprising about the student response to the ban, however, is political. When examined in the context of political beliefs, the Bike Ban can really only be justified by the ideological principles held by Democrats and, broadly speaking, political liberals in general. Since the majority of the student population at Stanford can generally be described as being left-of-center, it is worth noting that they are unwilling to adhere to these ideals when it comes to a policy that affects them directly.

The Bike Ban is a very liberal policy. It protects pedestrians from the threat of reckless bikers and prevents students in wheelchairs from having to navigate arcades cluttered with large numbers of bicycles. Liberals tend to favor policies obstructing majority expediency in order to facilitate the needs of minority groups, such as affirmative action and the Americans with Disabilities Act, requiring the majority of the population to take extra steps to ensure that minorities are accommodated. On this campus, pedestrians and students in wheelchairs are undeniably a minority whose lives are made more convenient by the ban.

The Bike Ban also coheres with liberals’ favorable view of paternalism. The political left generally supports laws such as smoking bans and gun control. Arguments for these policies rely on the assumption that individuals take dangerous risks when left alone, requiring the government to step in and impose the desired outcome. People simply cannot be trusted with their cigarettes and guns. Yet that same argument applies to cyclists. Many Stanford bikers undeniably engage in reckless disregard for the welfare of pedestrians and other bikers. Their behavior leads to many bike accidents. Regulating the arcades where bikers can’t see around corners and might speed into opening classroom doors can only reduce the number of harmful accidents that can occur, and it’s all in the interest of the common good, right?

Finally, the Bike Ban parallels the liberal view that corporations (and, in this case, university administrations) should be responsible for every single one of their consumers’ safety. Trial lawyers are one of the largest constituencies of the Democratic party, and they are the first group to attack any company that releases a product which ends up resulting in an injury, no matter how unforeseen. If corporations should take every step possible to ensure that not a single consumer is harmed, shouldn’t Stanford impose regulations that protect its students as much as possible? After all, with fewer locations for bicycles, bike accidents may become less common, and students will be saved from injury. The Bike Ban, seen this way, is Stanford’s way of meeting its corporate responsibilities to its customers.

Stanford students claim they are prepared to support national laws that accommodate minorities, remove individual freedoms and maximize corporate liability, yet they are unwilling to support university laws which respond to the same principles. Alternately, it may be possible that students have not yet grasped the connection between their broader political views and the administration’s policies.

I consider myself a libertarian; I oppose the Bike Ban, but I also oppose mandatory affirmative action, the ADA, smoking restrictions and frivolous lawsuits. The controversy over the Bike Ban has shown that, at the very least, many Stanford students are not fully committed to the principles of liberal policy which they enthusiastically espouse. Instead, they fiercely defend this tradition, claiming self-enforcement as a right against inefficient regulation. This is welcome news to me, as students’ opposition to this policy shows that perhaps there are more libertarians out there that may just not know it yet.

Ray Seilie is a senior majoring in political science and philosophy. He can be reached at rseilie@stanford.edu.