I think that I shall never see a mascot tipsy as this tree

James Taranto's Best of the Web Today column regularly features a "Zero Tolerance Watch", highlighting a few of the many ridiculous outcomes prompted by schools' "zero tolerance" policies. Today, however, the Deadspin sports blog reports an incident where Stanford University's zero tolerance policy worked as intended and took down an alcohol-fueled maniac before she could do serious damage to herself or others:

According to a story first run in the San Jose Mercury News, the Stanford University band’s famous tree mascot was fired for being completely shit-faced during last week’s UC-Irvine/Stanford game. Erin Lashnits, who served as the rowdy tree blew a .157 BAC during the game,the story said.

. . . .

[Band spokesman Sam] Urmy added that the university had previously placed the band on "alcohol suspension," which requires a zero-tolerance policy toward drunkenness. So Lashnits had to go. And finally, to put a neat little cap on the story, Urmy said this:

"We don’t want to risk our core mission of rocking out and bringing funk to the funkless."

Thankfully, this problem was nipped in the bud and, since everyone seems to agree Lashnits deserved to get the ax, there does not appear to be any legal fallout from the University's decision. Still, considering today's litigious society, if Lashnits had not complied when she was asked to leaf, one wonders what wood Stanford have done?