HaKatan: I disagree. I don’t think there is any attitude of modernity trumping Halacha at all. Ad’rabba, when you want to do more borderline things, you have to be much more cognizant of the intricate details of Halacha so you can know what is Muttar and what is not. You’re assuming these people want to do things then search for Heterim. In my experience, it’s the opposite. They know and research what is Muttar and how, and then they know what they can do.
I don’t want to get into an argument about every Commentator and Kol Hamevaser article, but once again it’s fallacious to assume that it represents anywhere near the ideas of the whole student body. As a general rule (but it’s not true about everyone), the more intellectual/academic students are the one who write and the “Frummer”/people who learn more stay quiet to themselves. One of the best passtimes of parts of the Frum crowd is to read through those on Friday nights and laugh at the humor, mistakes, idiocy, and borderline Apikorsus contained therein.
And stop bringing up the Beacon. We get it. The editor’s not Frum. Why does constantly reiterating that make it any more indicative of the Frum people there? One of the founders (the one who originally thought of it and has since moved on) was completely anti-religious. The Beacon says nothing, nothing about YU as a whole.