The Red and Black

Issue date: 8/20/08 Section: News

ADAMS

University President Michael Adams has yet to weigh in on a new initiative that seeks to start debates about lowering the legal drinking age to 18.

The Amethyst Initiative, launched in July, has gathered support from about 100 college presidents and chancellors, including three from Georgia, who say the 21-year-old drinking age "is not working."

"This is a law that is routinely evaded," said John McCardell, former president of Middlebury College in Vermont who started the organization. "It is a law that the people at whom it is directed believe is unjust and unfair and discriminatory."

Mothers Against Drunk Driving said the presidents are misrepresenting science and looking for an easy way out of an inconvenient problem. "It's very clear the 21-year-old drinking age will not be enforced at those campuses," said Laura Dean-Mooney, national president of MADD. Adams received the proposal, but he has not made a decision due to his schedule, Tom Jackson, vice president for public affairs, said.

"We've had great concern about student abuse of alcohol in the past and would not endorse anything that might encourage that in the future," Jackson said.

The Student Government Association will not have a say in Adams' decision, though the issue is "strictly a student concern," SGA President Connor McCarthy said. The governing organization's hands are tied.

"We're a function of the state," McCarthy said. "Everything we go by has to go along with state law ... even if we are proponents of changing."

But the initiative is gaining increasing support from students.

"(Lowering the drinking age) would probably help," Kelly Troncoso, a freshman from Marietta, said. "If (students) are considered adults, it should be their decision to decide whether to drink or not."

In a phone interview Tuesday, Spelman College President Beverly Tatum said she signed the petition to start a "conversation."

Though the Amethyst Initiative's mission statement says signatories agree current drinking laws have "created a culture of dangerous binge drinking on their campuses," Tatum said that's not the case at Spelman.

"I don't see alcohol as a problem at my institution," she said. "But I would be naive to believe there aren't students on every campus that engage in underage drinking."

Presidents from Oglethorpe University and Georgia Southwestern State University also signed.

After initially signing the petition, Morehouse President Robert M. Franklin withdrew his support of the initiative after "re-consideration" in a statement released Tuesday evening.

"While we welcome and encourage spirited public debate about appropriate standards of behavior, we do not support policies that would have the effect of encouraging or making it more likely that younger citizens would use alcohol or drugs," Franklin said.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

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