College leaders urge drinking age debate

By Erica Perez
Milwaukee Journal Sentinel

David C. Joyce, president of the 1,000-student Ripon College, is the only Wisconsin college president so far to sign on to the newly formed Amethyst Initiative, a collection of about 100 university leaders who say the 21-year-old drinking age is not working and that it has created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses.

The group’s Web site does not go so far as to blatantly call for lowering the drinking age to 18, but the statement by the group’s signatories does say that raising the drinking age has had negative effects. The statement encourages public debate on the issue.

“Alcohol education that mandates abstinence as the only legal option has not resulted in significant constructive behavioral change among our students,” the statement reads. “Adults under 21 are deemed capable of voting, signing contracts, serving on juries and enlisting in the military, but are told they are not mature enough to have a beer. By choosing to use fake IDs, students make ethical compromises that erode respect for the law.”

Joyce said he signed onto Amethyst earlier this year after consulting with his senior staff.

“We’ve created a culture of drinking instead of responsibility. Simply saying you can’t drink until you’re age 21 has not worked and is not working,” he said. “Probably one of the most pervasive problems we face in higher education is abuse of alcohol. That’s what I lose sleep about at night.”

The organization was started by John McCardell, president emeritus of Middlebury College in Vermont.

The list of signatories includes mostly private liberal arts schools, but it does feature some big names, including Duke, Tufts and Syracuse universities and Dartmouth College. It also includes a few big public schools, such as Ohio State University, the University of Maryland-College Park and the University System of Maryland.

Other than Ripon, however, Wisconsin’s colleges and universities were noticeably absent from the list.

Meanwhile, Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety, the American Medical Association, the National Transportation Safety Board and other organizations slammed the Amethyst Initiative in a statement released Tuesday, pointing to studies that show raising the drinking age has saved lives.

Also weighing in against lowering the drinking age is Donna Shalala, the University of Miami president, former U.S. health and human services secretary and past chancellor of the University of Wisconsin–Madison.

“Signing this initiative does serious harm to the education and enforcement efforts on our campuses and ultimately endangers young lives even more,” Shalala said in a statement on the MADD Web site.

UW-Madison officials did receive information about the initiative but decided not to make an institutional commitment because of an upcoming leadership change, a university spokesman said. Chancellor John Wiley steps down in September to pass the torch to former Cornell University Provost Biddy Martin.

UW–Oshkosh Chancellor Richard Wells said that while he hasn’t signed the Amethyst statement, he thinks it has potential to spark much-needed debate about what types of changes in law could help curb binge drinking. He says it’s not a clear-cut issue.