College leaders hope to renew debate on a lower drinking age

As college students gear up for annual back-to-school parties, a group of university and college presidents in California and across the country this week pushed for a national debate over whether the drinking age should be lowered from 21 to 18.

The current limit ignores the reality of drinking during college years and drives it underground, making binge drinking more dangerous and students less likely to seek help in an emergency, according to a petition signed by more than 100 campus presidents. Though they don't call for an outright age rollback, the campus chiefs said they support "an informed and dispassionate public debate over the effects of the 21-year-old drinking age."

Their statement provoked some controversy as critics contend that a lower drinking age will cause an increase in drunk driving deaths.

In California, the heads of Occidental, Pomona and Whittier colleges signed the petition, along with leaders of Dartmouth, Duke, Johns Hopkins, Mount Holyoke, Tufts and many small liberal arts colleges elsewhere in the country.

Pomona President David W. Oxtoby said colleges now were in the difficult position of having to enforce the underage ban but also to encourage moderation and offer advice to students who might want to help a drunken friend. Schools, he added, can't sponsor events at which students might emulate responsible and controlled drinking, such as campus faculty receptions, where wine is served.

The result, he said, is that too many students wind up drinking by themselves in their rooms, "and that is the most common place they get seriously ill," Oxtoby said.

Whittier College President Sharon Herzberger and Occidental's Robert Skotheim said they signed the petition to encourage discussion, but said they had not decided whether the drinking age should be 18. "It's time we look at the issue afresh and see whether there are better solutions than we currently have in place because, after all, we haven't solved the problem," Herzberger said.

Many colleges, including Whittier, Occidental and USC, require all incoming students to take an online course on the dangers of drinking.

The petition is part of a Vermont-based movement called the Amethyst Initiative, named after the gemstone that ancient Greeks believed warded off drunkenness. It is sponsored by the Choose Responsibility organization founded by John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College, and is funded with private donations, none of which come from the alcoholic beverage industry, its officials said.