When former United States president Bill Clinton came to Stony Brook last Fall, the Sports Complex was filled with hundreds of students for the rally and they got in easily enough. They simply walked through the doors and that was that.

Students waited in line for hours before the Bruno Mars concert last May and they too only had to show their tickets and walk through the doors of the Sports Complex.

No bag checks and certainly no pat-downs.

When the mashup team White Panda came to perform in the Student Activity Center’s Ballroom B however, security suddenly deemed both bag checks and thorough pat-downs to be necessary precautions.  Because obviously two guys in white suits and Converse mixing and manipulating music are more controversial—and more likely to invite threats to public safety—than a prominent political figure and a Top 40 Billboard artist.

Sure, that makes total sense.

If it wasn’t  for bad weather,  White Panda would have held their show on the Staller Steps, where countless students could have watched both on the steps and from afar without going through the hassle of security. It would have been impractical, considering how easily students could watch without actually entering the Staller Steps. What aspect of moving the concert indoors made it imperative to extensively search purses and almost inappropriately pat down concert-goers?

Aside from fire code regulations limiting how many students could attend the concert once it was moved to the SAC, there was no clear reason why security tightened so extremely.

Even White Panda noted the seemingly excessive safety precautions in a tweet after their concert: “Haha they got us 30 security guards at Stony Brook tonight. Our very own cavalry. #overkill.”

While it’s great that Stony Brook takes safety so seriously, a little more thought should be put into the safety measures at events. Most people would agree that a former president would garner higher protection than a mashup artist.