Last week, students in Stopher and Johnson halls received an email stating a prank had been found in one of the community lounges. All of the furniture was turned upside down.

The email told students that if it happened again and the person responsible could not be identified, the whole community would be charged a fee so that a specialized moving team could come in and right the furniture.

Often, the charges assessed for these kinds of damages, including things like broken soap dispensers and missing fire extinguishers, are miniscule, amounting to only a few dollars per student.

Students who were not a part of the prank are assessed the fee and are essentially deemed guilty for something they didn’t commit. In fact, who is to say someone outside of the community didn’t pull the prank? There is no way of knowing — especially for pranks that occur outdoors. Should the whole university be assessed for those pranks?

The threat of miniscule fees isn’t enough to convince the guilty to come forward. It isn’t even enough for innocent students to try and make someone admit guilt.

We understand that some pranks require money and time to fix. However, we feel that the small fees to correct these types of pranks should fall under a general maintenance fee assessed to the whole university community each year. This way, one group of students doesn’t take all the blame for something that could have been committed by anyone. Plus, the fees are so small that spreading them out across the university community would not cause much financial impact for any one individual.

It seems to be the fairest option, especially when no one person is deemed guilty.

The above editorial is the consensus opinion of the Daily Kent Stater editorial board.