College of William and Mary President Taylor Reveley has said he is uncertain about signing the Amethyst Initiative.
The Amethyst Initiative is a public statement calling for open debate concerning the national drinking age, considering the prevalence of underage drinking. Since its inception in July of this year, 130 university chancellors and presidents have signed their name to the statement.
“I haven’t decided whether it would be useful for me to sign the Amethyst Initiative,” Reveley said. “It doesn’t look like many, if any, of the presidents of public colleges and universities in Virginia have signed so far.”
A bill which urges Reveley to add his name to the list of signatories unanimously passed last week in the Student Assembly. Sen. Ross Gillingham ’10, who co-sponsored the bill with Sens. Steven Nelson ’10 and Ben Brown ’11, said he felt compelled by the realities he observed on campus.
“There is an unsafe drinking environment at the College as evidenced by medical cases and the fact the majority of judicial sanctions are alcohol related,” Gillingham said. “Steven, Ben Brown and I all think this debate is worth having and while we have reason to believe the current alcohol policy is flawed, it’s important to note the initiative does not proscribe any change to the law.”
Beyond the legal and safety issues concerning alcohol, there are serious sociological complexities underlying drinking practices in this country, according to sociology professor Graham Ousey.
“As a society, we make distinctions between adult and child status in part on the basis of age. But the distinction is more than an age threshold. It’s a maturity and responsibility threshold,” Ousey said. “As the Amethyst Initiative notes, we believe adults younger than 21 are responsible enough to vote, sign contracts, serve on juries and serve in the military, but not to make informed decisions about the use of alcohol.”
He explained that such threshold discrepancies mark national disagreement about the age of responsibility and is indicative of powerful interest groups that influence policies based on particular issues, rather than principles of adulthood.
Additionally, Ousey voiced skepticism about whether a change in the legal drinking age would ultimately lead to safer drinking practices.
“Shifting the legal drinking age is not, in itself, likely to radically change usage patterns or drastically affect safety,” he said. “In my view, the safer consumption of alcohol seems to require a well-developed culture that stresses responsibility in drinking decisions.”
Interim Vice President for Student Affairs Ginger Ambler ’88 Ph.D ’06 said that she shares the concerns of the SA bill’s sponsors, especially when it comes to the practices of high-risk behavior such as binge drinking. Considering these concerns, she expressed support for the initiative.
“I welcome this broad national conversation,” she said.
Upon the bill’s passage, the co-sponsors sent Reveley a message that included the results of the vote and their plans to elicit student support for the initiative.
Kenneth P. Ruscio, president of the private Washington and Lee University, is the only president from Virginia to sign the initiative. In a letter to the Washington and Lee community, he explained why he joined the other signatories.
“As educators, we want young adults to make responsible decisions about alcohol, and we question whether the current law leads to behaviors that are irresponsible and, often, dangerous,” he said.
Reveley agreed and expressed support for the debate the initiative calls for.
“It’s very good, however, that the initiative seems to have started a serious national conversation about whether the legal age for drinking should move from 21 to 18,” he said.
Reveley did express some hesitation about the wider effects a lower drinking age could cause.
“If the only issue were how colleges and universities could best seek responsible drinking by their students, moving the age to 18 would make a lot of sense,” he said. “Traffic deaths from drunk drivers under 21, however, must also be taken into account.”
Disputed data and disagreements over the effects of such a change persist, but Reveley explained that the Amethyst Initiative’s conversation could be important in “shedding light on such disputes.”
Though a national conversation could have a positive impact on curbing unsafe drinking behavior among college students, Reveley believes the policies of individual universities can go a long way in preventing this type of behavior.
Reveley said it is hard to know exactly which policies are most effective.
“My best guess is that colleges are most useful when they provide credible, compelling information to their students on two scores: first, the inescapable health and safety consequences of irresponsible drinking, and, second, campus-specific information showing that many students choose not to drink at all and even more choose not to drink irresponsibly,” he said. “In the final analysis, though, I believe the most effective constraint on irresponsible drinking by college students is peer pressure.”
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11 Comments
The sub headline of this
The sub headline of this article (and the overall article as a whole) is quite misleading. After the Amethyst Act passed unanimously in the Senate last week, I personally forwarded President Reveley a copy of the bill. He replied just the other day with a mention of this article, stating that “...the most important part of the article (so far as what I think) comes in its last two paragraphs”. I feel comfortable quoting him here, as I feel he’d like the truth to be known as to where he actually stands on the issue. President Reveley believes strongly that reopening the debate on the drinking age has been, and will be, useful. He is simply unsure about whether or not it’s a good idea to join the presidents who have signed on already.
I suggest you speak with him again after Dr. John McCardell visits the campus on October 22. Though he very well may not elect to sign the initiative, I would appreciate it (and I’m sure he would as well) if you more accurately portrayed his current stance on the issue.
Heads up, according to
Heads up, according to reliable sources, your article has misrepresented the reality. More to come soon.
@Chris, Can you honestly
@Chris,
Can you honestly think of another issue that DIRECTLY affects more people our age than the drinking age? Think about how many people in the 18-21 age bracket break the law by consuming alcohol, and all the risks that come with that: legal action, judicial council, etc. I say “DIRECTLY affects” because this is obviously a relatively obscure policy to debate in relation to say, the war or the economy, but when it comes to things the Student Assembly can have a say in…this is quite relevant.
The problem with citing
The problem with citing lower alcohol-related traffic fatalities is that other factors than the drinking age must be taken into account. While the federal government’s efforts to raise the state drinking ages to 21 preceded this reduction of deaths through the late 1980s and into the 1990s, even bigger changes to automobiles occurred: improved safety features (airbags, seat belt laws), anti-lock brakes, steering columns that crunch in the event of an accident rather than pierce the driver’s chest, and improved DWI enforcement.
You can’t ignore these factors when discussing the situation, which is exactly why the Amethyst Initiative must be advanced. For 20 years, the U.S. has been held hostage by the emotional arguments of Mothers Against Drunk Driving, who would rather use antiquated, idealistic rhetoric than dispassionate, logical discourse. Has this stopped you, or many people you know, from breaking the law and consuming alcohol purely for the reason that it’s illegal to do so until your 21st birthday?
The opponents of lowering
The opponents of lowering the drinking age are mostly citing evidence for lower rates of alcohol-related car accidents. But you’d have to take it all into account—rates of alcohol poisoning, alcoholism, alcohol-related injuries and deaths, etc. (and drunk driving). Maybe the 21 drinking age lowers drunk driving accidents, but I bet it increases alcohol-related injuries, binge drinking and alcoholism, the deaths from which probably outnumber the lives that are saved by keeping the age at 21. But we don’t see any statistics on these numbers cited do we?
When it’s illegal, drinking is pushed underground and out of sight. Maybe people aren’t out driving, but they are hiding in their dorm rooms getting alcohol poisoning. Additionally, it wasn’t until recently we got amnesty from the administration. I bet many many students in the years before were in their dorm rooms suffering but were too afraid to call 911.
Lowering the drinking age will help create the culture surrounding drinking that is necessary to promote responsible behavior, like in Europe and elsewhere around the world.
The United States is all about denying itself simple pleasures, while under the surface people boil over, engaging in such fun activities as binge drinking. Maybe that’s why the U.S. is only ranked the 16th happiest country in the world even though it is the richest. (http://www.cnn.com/2008/HEALTH/07/02/nations.happiness/index.html)
The New York Times
The New York Times editorial board, not exactly a bastion of conservative thought or restrictive social policies, agrees with Reveley on this one:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/17/opinion/17wed3.html?ref=opinion
Colleges should NOT be pushing to lower the drinking age. Some excerpts:
“Two in five students at four-year colleges binge drink, according to the 14-year College Alcohol Study by the Harvard School of Public Health. The Harvard researchers indicate, however, that age may not be the chief factor. Their study found a strong link between heavy alcohol use and drinking cultures at many colleges, where there are heavily marketed cheap alcohol, high-volume sellers and weak enforcement of the law by the schools, states or both.”
“Since the drinking age was set at 21 in 1984, research shows alcohol-related traffic deaths among those 18 to 20 years old have declined by 11 percent, even after accounting for safer vehicles.”
This isn’t nonsense;
This isn’t nonsense; it’s an important and growing national movement that should be addressed by this administration. We’re talking about civil rights here. Would you have said the same if, in the 1950s, the SA sent the president a bill recommending he take a look at segregation policies at the College?
Doesn’t our Student
Doesn’t our Student Assembly have anything better to do? Really? Unanimously voting to support an initiative “calling for open debate concerning the national drinking age?” I have no idea what is currently preventing an open debate about the national drinking age, but certainly saying you support a debate accomplishes a lot. If they really had an agenda, just pass a resolution supporting lowering the drinking age. Reveley is right to hesitate to sign this. Its a cloak and dagger initiative that can’t get enough support to openly support a lower drinking age, so it instead calls for “open debate.” Another example of our excellent Student Assembly and it’s ability to focus on important issues.
To be accurate, President
To be accurate, President Ruscio at Washington and Lee was not the only president in Virginia to sign the Amethyst Initiative. Others who signed were President Walter M. Bortz, Hampden-Sydney College; President Nancy O. Gray, Hollins University; President Robert R. Lindgren, Randolph-Macon College; President Elisabeth S. Muhlenfeld, Sweet Briar College.
Although I do not suspect
Although I do not suspect that even the most ardent advocates of a reduction in the drinking age would expect an overnight improvement in the safety of youth drinking practices, there is certainly some evidence to support the conclusion that our temperance based model prevents youth from effectively learning to drink in moderation. Lowering the drinking age to eighteen would not be the silver bullet, but it would be a start. As a society, we also need to make it clear that it is acceptable for parents to give limited amounts of alcohol to their children with meals from a much younger age than eighteen. More frequent, less intense drinking, often with meals, is the bedrock of a responsible drinking culture. Please consider this article on problems associated with drinking in temperance cultures by Queens College Sociologist Harry Levine: http://dragon.soc.qc.cuny.edu/Staff/levine/Temperance-Cultures.pdf.
Stop distracting Reveley
Stop distracting Reveley with this nonsense. He’s got real work to do.