First published in The Record, Aug. 31, 2020

On a big college campus, even covid can’t stop the party.

NEW BRUNSWICK — It was only 10:30 at night, but Miranda Jones was already late for the party. She arrived at the white townhouse on Mine Street, then checked the address on her phone. From the back patio, she heard dozens of people shouting over pop music. She heard someone open a beer can, its metallic click-shushhh softened by the night’s wet air.

Beside the town house stood a wooden gate leading to the patio. Jones placed her hands on the gate. She peered through the slats and listened to the party. So many people. Nobody wearing masks. After a few minutes, she turned and walked away.

“We were under the impression it was just going to be a small party,” said Jones, 21, a senior at Rutgers University. “But now we’re here, and the music is really loud. There's a lot of people. That’s not safe. I live with my parents. I can’t get them sick.”

At universities across the country, Saturday night is party night. And in a normal year this Saturday — the first of the academic year, with students returning to the Rutgers campus from all over the world — would be a blowout. Anticipation for this weekend ran even higher this summer, after five months of quarantine from COVID-19 forced New Jersey residents of all ages to see their friends only in the hiccup-y videos of Facetime and Zoom.

“We just wanted to meet up with a few friends, hang out and relax,” said Jones’ friend, Kristin, who declined to give her last name.

Party (not so) hard!

But in New Brunswick during the traditional night of transgression, little was transgressed.

Rules were bent, not broken.

On a campus that normally houses thousands of students, only 1,200 will be allowed to live in dormitories this fall, to limit the spread of COVID-19, said Neal Buccino, a university spokesman. Between 8,000 and 10,000 additional students are expected to move into off-campus housing in New Brunswick and nearby towns, according to an email from Anne Newman, dean of students at Rutgers.

All students are expected to follow Gov. Phil Murphy’s latest executive order for public events during the pandemic, as well as the university’s code of conduct. Parties observed in New Brunswick on Saturday appeared to comply with the governor’s order limiting outdoor gatherings to 500 people, and indoor gatherings to 100. The governor encourages everyone at gatherings to wear masks, however, and that encouragement was largely ignored. This may also be a violation of the university’s rule that bans “intentionally or recklessly endangering the welfare of any individual.”

It could have been worse. The parties at Rutgers this weekend were dwarfed by massive events in recent weeks at the University of North Georgia, Central Michigan University and elsewhere, with many hundreds of people captured in videos with no masks in sight.

It also could have been better. COVID-19 spreads with such ease that even the small parties witnessed on Saturday risked becoming super-spreader events. At a comparably sized gathering — a March choir practice in Washington State attended by 61 people — 52 contracted the virus, according to the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention.

Two of the singers died.

Dr. Anthony Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, told Congress last month that COVID-19 is so contagious, it may never be eradicated.

“I do not believe it would disappear, because it’s such a highly transmissible virus,” Fauci said. 

So it makes sense that at Rutgers on Saturday, the mood was subdued and wary. On Friday night, police officers broke up an off-campus party of about 100 people, according to reports.

On Saturday afternoon, freshmen and their parents turned as red as their new Rutgers T-shirts, sweating hard as they moved boxes into their dorm rooms.

“I know I’m not leaving my room,” said Brandon Almont, 17, an incoming freshman whose mother drove him to the university’s Busch Campus from their home in Union Township. “I’m going to be here by myself, in isolation, until the virus passes or they find a vaccine. I don’t want to get my mom sick.”

New Brunswick’s traditional party central lies across the Raritan River from the Bush campus, in a tight triangle of streets that for decades has served as a grungy flophouse for New Jersey’s largest residential campus. As night fell, every block hummed with multiple parties. But the streets were dark, the partiers hidden. Moving in packs as large as a dozen, young people walked the broken sidewalks, laughing and checking their phones.

When they arrived at the correct house they slipped quickly inside, slamming the door shut behind them.

Quick glimpses over fences and through gaps in window shades revealed the same party scenes as ever, only smaller. Red plastic cups sat on ping-pong tables beside bottles of beer and tequila. Christmas lights dangled and twinkled. No one wore masks.

“This isn’t a party,” said a young man standing on a porch on Sicard Street, surrounded by a gathering of shouting young people that was most definitely a party. “This is a small social gathering among friends.”

Cops come knocking

Campus police did not seem to agree. All night, a trio of white Rutgers police SUVs sped around the neighborhood, looking for trouble. Twenty minutes after Miranda Jones left the party on Mine Street, the SUVs arrived. The officers shined their spotlights and flashlights at the white town house, then pounded on the front door.

“Open up!” an officer yelled.

Out back, on the patio, someone killed the music. Police blocked the front gate, and a rickety fence blocked escape out the back. Trapped, three dozen young people stood in place, silent.

Eventually the officers left.

A young man climbed a flight of stairs overlooking the patio.

“This is it! No one’s coming inside,” he said. “Party’s over. Get out.”

One block over on Stone Street, dozens of young people stood behind a rowhouse. Nobody shouted, and the party had no music. The same Rutgers police officers arrived anyway, banged on the door, and aimed their flashlights down the driveway toward the garage.  

This time, dozens of people ran. Like a herd of frightened deer, they hopped through a series of backyards, burst onto the sidewalk — and then speed-walked away.

The police officers did not chase them. One officer stood on the porch, punching the front door with the back of his fist.

“If I don’t get a resident, everybody’s going to get a ticket!” he yelled. “Open up!”

Eventually six young people walked downstairs. One opened the door and identified herself as a resident of the house, with her name on the lease.

“I’m actually really sorry about that,” she said about the party.

At both houses, the officers warned that if they returned to find that the party had resumed, people would be arrested or receive summonses.

As the police left, two young men greeted each other in the middle of the street with a handshake and hug. Neither wore a mask.

“Dude, that was ridiculous,” said one of the men. “I don’t know why the cops even came.”