In a surprising new announcement, the FIU Board of Trustees (BOT) says they have passed an amendment to the long standing Parking and Motor Vehicle Regulations, which have remained unchanged since 1997. This is a surprising development as the Board rarely moves so forcibly.
The new rules, which are to be put in place immediately, stipulate that FIU now has legal authority to vandalize any student’s car (faculty and staff were excluded) in the event of any vehicle-related moving or non-moving violation. The authority for this heavy handed new ruling stems from an obscure line of text in the FIU Student Agreement of Terms contract that all students signed upon entry into the University. The text reads ‘I the undersigned agree to any retroactive alterations in any and all regulatory agreements subject to the interests of the Board of Trustees.’
Students are free to opt out of this ruling at any time by clicking a check box in the self service section of their PantherSoft account. However, doing so will place an automatic hold on their account barring them from registering for any further classes.
The exact extent of the new rules were made painfully clear in the new legal agreement recently published by the BOT, which states the following: “Failure to obtain a valid and semester appropriate decal will result in one broken window.” Further, “Any student who is apprehended traveling above the posted speed limit will watch as FIU Police slowly let the air out of their tires.” And most shocking, “Any student parked in a Faculty/Staff space without a proper decal will have ‘SLUT’ keyed into their driver’s side door.”
This is sure to cause a tremendous amount of controversy among students at every campus. One of our reporters caught up with one student who has already suffered the wrath of the new ruling. “At first I thought my girlfriend broke up with me or something. My windows were shattered and there were terrible things keyed all across my car. But then another student told me about the new rules. It all seems so unjust.” The student wished to remain nameless for fear of upsetting the BOT.
We reached out to the BOT for a statement regarding the new rulings, and they released to us this joint statement: “Suffer, little children, suffer!”
