Jenna Lowenstein, Hillary Clinton’s deputy digital director, infuriated her fellow students in 2007 when she tried to ban off-campus parties from having multiple kegs.
Lowenstein — who graduated from Georgetown University before working for Media Matters and EMILY’s List and then joining the Clinton ’16 effort — started in politics as a college sophomore, when she was elected the sole student commissioner on the Georgetown neighborhood’s Advisory Neighborhood Commission (ANC), which regulates local zoning issues.
Running on a platform of student safety and not bothering the university’s neighbors, Lowenstein won her seat in an uncontested election in October 2006, and hurriedly went about alienating her constituents.
Lowenstein co-sponsored an ANC resolution to urge Georgetown to enact a “one-keg policy” for off-campus parties in addition to on-campus parties, which were already relegated to one keg. Lowenstein passed the resolution through the ANC and then brought a letter to Georgetown’s vice president of student affairs urging the university to enforce the measure.
Lowenstein’s policy proposal garnered emotional opposition from her fellow students, as she admitted in a February 6, 2007 op-ed for The Hoya, Georgetown’s student newspaper, in which she defended the measure on the grounds of safety and not bothering the university’s neighbors.
“Beyond the policy itself, however, a question exists about whether the university has a right to intrude on the lives of its students when they are off campus,” Lowenstein wrote. “Whether or not one believes the university has such a right, it already exercises it…The university has acted on that right in the past, regarding issues of trash disposal, noise and property destruction…My resolution – despite its expected unpopularity – directly addresses both of my campaign promises, and I stand by it.”
Then-Georgetown student Matthew Stoller rebutted Lowenstein his own Hoya op-ed that same day, railing against Lowenstein’s government overreach.
“That freedom may be soon taken away if Jenna Lowenstein (COL ’09), the sole student commissioner on the local Advisory Neighborhood Commission, has her way,” Stoller wrote.
“Lowenstein presented a letter last week to Vice President for Student Affairs Todd Olson on behalf of the ANC recommending that the university expand its one-keg limit to non-university student housing…” Stoller continued. “There is currently no limit enforced by the city on the number of kegs a person can have. Yet our student commissioner, who is supposed to advance and defend our interests, would have Georgetown step outside its accepted areas of jurisdiction and tell students in privately owned houses that they may only have one keg at a time. She relies on an ambiguously worded sentence in the student Code of Conduct, which states that when off-campus violations of student conduct occur, ‘the University reserves the right to take appropriate action when the alleged conduct has a negative impact on the University community.'”
“It is beyond me how having two kegs in a privately owned house would negatively impact the university. What’s next? Is the university going to apply its alcohol policy to all residents in the Georgetown neighborhood?,” Stoller railed.
“Has Lowenstein even consulted with any students to see how they feel about this? When I lived in Darnall Hall freshman year, I didn’t complain that my dorm was dry, even while Hoyas in Village A and Henle were allowed to have alcohol in their residence halls. Similarly, I doubt many students are falling over each other to denounce the off-campus students for not having to abide by the keg limit…As our student representative on the local board, Jenna Lowenstein should have taken the issue to the students first – the ones she serves and supposedly represents – rather than forcing through a potentially momentous proposal with little or no discussion.”
Stoller invited students to “protest” the decision by writing directly to Lowenstein.
The student protest against Lowenstein was obviously influential, because she backed off from her own initiative within two days.
“Student Association leaders had conversations with Lowenstein about her decision and they deserve praise for immediately taking steps to change her position,” the Georgetown Voice editorial board stated on February 8, 2007 in an op-ed entitled “Somebody buy this girl a drink.” The editorial noted that students started a Facebook petition to block Lowenstein’s planned policy.
“Though Lowenstein was right to change her position and plans to propose a new amendment reversing the original proposal, the chances of it passing are slim since the one-keg recommendation passed unanimously at the last meeting,” the Voice editorial board wrote. “Especially given her position on the University & Community Relations Committee, Lowenstein should have tried to prevent the recommendation from being written in the first place.”
“More importantly, she should have solicited student input before supporting something she knew they would object to,” the Voice editorial board continued. “We encourage students to contact her in the future, but it’s Lowenstein’s responsibility to seek student opinions before controversial ANC proposals. She failed to do so in this case, and if she wants any credibility with her constituents, she needs to represent them.”
Lowenstein’s proposal did not pass off-campus, and Georgetown University later repealed its on-campus keg limit in 2013.
Lowenstein, years removed from her disastrous first taste of politics, now tweets on the handle @Just_Jenna, where she encourages condemnation of advertisers that run “sexist” Super Bowl ads.
Lowenstein did not immediately return a request for comment on social media.