While topics concerning healthcare, economic recession and environmental awareness flood the media as the most critical problems facing our government today, one issue has completely fallen off the radar: that of the current drinking age. I feel obligated, in light of the recent tightening of the proverbial leash around the neck of Greek life, to re-approach this issue that is the cause of so much controversy around campus. It seems like every crime report I’ve ever seen in The Hustler includes some mention of a drunken party goer caught sleeping it off in a bush or under a tree somewhere on campus. It reads something like, “Student Found Passed out on Lawn Outside of Building X. They Admitted to Being Drunk.” No kidding? You’re sure they weren’t just napping outside their dorm on Saturday at 2:30 a.m.?
It frustrates me to see reports like this. They are not particularly amusing and they make Vanderbilt students, especially the Greek demographic, seem like a bunch of binge drinking buffoons. I believe many instances like those mentioned in the crime reports could be avoided if Vanderbilt would take a more dynamic approach towards managing the drinking habits of its under-age college students. The school continues to follow a strategy that fosters under-age drinking behind closed doors, but only because it has to as a law-abiding, credible university. Vanderbilt provides its students with the services of a private, more tolerable police force within the parameters of campus. But there is only so much it can do to turn a blind eye to prevalent under-age consumption. The problem is, minors continue to consume alcohol. As of 2008, nearly half of graduating high school seniors consumed alcohol at least occasionally. As much as Vanderbilt would like to claim otherwise in their anti-drinking campaign, we don’t need statistics to prove that a vast majority of Vanderbilt students have (at one point or another) drank underage. If you don’t believe it, you can collect some of your own data at the Branscomb Munchie Mart at 2 a.m. Despite the obvious prevalence of alcohol on campus, Vanderbilt continues to react in kind with more strict regulations and more probation. Students who choose to disobey the law are forced to compromise the otherwise healthy relationship they have with the school. It’s safe to say no one likes dealing with social probation and its implications, least of all Vanderbilt. Furthermore, the school’s consequences for under-age consumption put pressure on many of the social scenes around Vanderbilt, including frat row, which inevitably results in infraction and punishment. Punishments with repercussions that can carry on past your 21st birthday, and quite possibly your Vanderbilt career. It’s a difficult and complicated situation that continually strains the relationship between students and the administration.
In fact, there is a group of 135 college presidents pushing for a reconsideration of the drinking age. The Amethyst Initiative, as it is so aptly named (Amethyst in ancient Greece was thought to ward off drunkenness), hopes to bring much of college drinking out of hiding without the constraints of under-age consumption laws directing university actions. There is a laundry list of social ramifications that must be addressed if this legislation were to pass. But with the direction Vanderbilt seems to be taking regarding alcohol policy and the social scene, it seems to me Zeppos could at least sign the petition as an act of good will. Maybe it would open up more constructive dialogue on the subject and break the tension a bit. Or all minors at Vanderbilt could stop drinking all at once. What do I care? I’m 21 already.
—Will Ratliff is a senior in the College of Arts and Science. He can be reached at w.ratliff@vanderbilt.edu.
