The Shell Game of Corrupted Government Exposed
UNC-Chapel Hill goes after binge drinking, but the real enemy may be date rape
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The author of this post is Harry Painter.
In 2012, a UNC-Chapel Hill freshman with a blood level of alcohol nearly three times the legal limit was found dead. Winston Crisp, vice chancellor for student affairs, saw this as indicative of a nationwide problem-one he has been working to address since then.
"Binge-drinking-and the abuse of substances-is part and parcel of almost anything bad that happens to or around students on college campuses," says Crisp. He and James W. Dean, Jr., the provost, have set out to solve the difficult problem at Carolina.
When Crisp says "anything bad," he certainly means accidents like the tragic fate of that freshman. He also means violence and declining academic performance. But one drinking-related phenomenon in particular has received endless local and national attention recently: sexual assault. If Crisp and Dean's goal is not solely to reduce sexual assault, that is a huge part of it.
Sexual assault has been a hot-button topic in higher education recently, from the individual college level all the way up to the U.S. Congress, where Senator Claire McCaskill has held (rather one-sided) hearings and introduced legislation to address sexual violence.
Indeed, the focus on women as victims has been so intense that people who offer prevention strategies have been vilified, as in the case of George Washington University ex-president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld. Suggesting that women can prevent date rape by refraining from drinking to the point of incapacitation is verboten.
Colleges around the country are scrambling to eliminate sexual violence and avoid federal sanctions; they are tightening consent policies, hiring staff, mandating diversity programs, and even banning Greek life.
UNC-Chapel Hill has already taken a mind-numbing series of steps to address sexual assault. The reason is likely a combination of ideology, involvement in a high-profile lawsuit, and demands from the federal Department of Education that colleges make it easier to punish alleged offenders.
So far, however, most universities, including UNC, have stayed politically correct in their battle against sexual violence. Perhaps for fear of receiving the "victim-blamer" tag, few colleges are addressing the connection between alcohol and date rape. UNC-Chapel Hill appears to be trying everything, and thankfully this now includes reducing binge drinking.
Vice Chancellor Crisp's concern over alcohol abuse and campus violence echoes the findings of a July report from the UNC system's Campus Security Initiative, a task force of staff and students chaired by two chancellors. UNC president Thomas Ross convened the group in August 2013 to study student safety. Crisp was heavily involved in the task force.
However, Provost Dean told the Pope Center that curbing sexual assault is "certainly not the impetus behind" the report. "I think it's reasonable to expect that there would be some impact on sexual assault, but that's not the main reason we're doing it," he said. At the same time, Dean acknowledged a link between drinking and campus sexual assault. "Virtually every instance of sexual assault is associated with alcohol," he said-though not necessarily binge-drinking.
In any case, while the report focused on three areas-sexual assault, alcohol and substance abuse, and non-sexual campus crime-sexual assault dominated the report's "priority recommendations" and took up by far the most space.
A white paper by Crisp's drug and alcohol advisory group, prepared for the Campus Security Initiative, cited a 2002 study finding that alcohol involvement was reported in 90 percent of sexual assaults in college communities, and that 97 percent of those assaults were perpetrated by someone the victim knew.
The paper found that numerous policies are already in place across the UNC system to curb binge drinking. In addition to education about alcohol and drug use, UNC schools are also trying more law enforcement and "alcohol medical amnesty. " That is a "Good Samaritan" policy to protect underage students from punishment if they seek medical attention after drinking.
Dean and Crisp believe there is more to do. They are assembling a committee, as recommended by the Campus Security Initiative; it will be made up of "a small group of very senior administrators," according to Crisp.
So far, that is the extent of Chapel Hill's plan to reduce excessive drinking; the committee will work out the details. All we know so far is that the committee will look at binge drinking from a public-health perspective, as the university did with its 2008 tobacco ban.
How exactly does a major university reduce drinking in 2014, when many students prioritize drinking over schoolwork? Besides the many things UNC-Chapel Hill says it is already doing, there is probably not much it can do that won't have unfavorable side effects.
If the school models its alcohol policy after its smoking policy, that will mean banning alcohol. Good luck with that. Ironically, going in the other direction-relaxing Chapel Hill's alcohol policy-might be the way to go.
Repealing its ban on the sale of alcohol at athletic events and campus performances, for example, could curtail binge drinking. Just as national Prohibition drove drinking underground, the current policy, implemented in 1996, encourages underground binge drinking. When students who want to drink are threatened with punishment for tailgating or are unable to buy beer at the game, they "pregame," which usually means binge drinking at home before leaving for the event. If the goal is to prevent tragedies, allowing open and controlled drinking is more likely to do that.
On the same principle, the committee could go even further and endorse a lower state minimum drinking age. While such a change would be an uphill battle and ultimately out of the committee's hands, it would allow for more oversight of student drinking and could reduce sexual assault.
In 2008, 135 college presidents signed the Amethyst Initiative, which proposed just that-lowering the drinking age to 18 so that nearly all students would be able to drink legally on campus. The initiative was a project of John M. McCardell, Jr., president emeritus of Middlebury College and current vice chancellor of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The signers argued that the 21-year-old limit encouraged binge drinking and pushed all drinking off campus, away from the influence of administrators.
In an email to the Pope Center, McCardell said that the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was due for reauthorization hearings in 2009, but they never took place. "If and when the new Congress decides to hold hearings, I expect to revive Amethyst. But I am doubtful that will happen any time soon."
Unfortunately, the Campus Security Initiative report specifically recommends that UNC institutions "publicly support the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) law and educate faculty, staff, alumni and parents about the research behind it." The recommendation is not binding, but it sends the message that advocating for this possibly life-saving solution is taboo in North Carolina.
On the other hand, Provost Dean told the Pope Center that the committee "would consider anything that we think is reasonable to help curb binge-drinking on campus."
(Editor's note: Read arguments for and against lowering the drinking age).
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The author of this post is Harry Painter.
In 2012, a UNC-Chapel Hill freshman with a blood level of alcohol nearly three times the legal limit was found dead. Winston Crisp, vice chancellor for student affairs, saw this as indicative of a nationwide problem-one he has been working to address since then.
"Binge-drinking-and the abuse of substances-is part and parcel of almost anything bad that happens to or around students on college campuses," says Crisp. He and James W. Dean, Jr., the provost, have set out to solve the difficult problem at Carolina.
When Crisp says "anything bad," he certainly means accidents like the tragic fate of that freshman. He also means violence and declining academic performance. But one drinking-related phenomenon in particular has received endless local and national attention recently: sexual assault. If Crisp and Dean's goal is not solely to reduce sexual assault, that is a huge part of it.
Sexual assault has been a hot-button topic in higher education recently, from the individual college level all the way up to the U.S. Congress, where Senator Claire McCaskill has held (rather one-sided) hearings and introduced legislation to address sexual violence.
Indeed, the focus on women as victims has been so intense that people who offer prevention strategies have been vilified, as in the case of George Washington University ex-president Stephen Joel Trachtenberg and Yale law professor Jed Rubenfeld. Suggesting that women can prevent date rape by refraining from drinking to the point of incapacitation is verboten.
Colleges around the country are scrambling to eliminate sexual violence and avoid federal sanctions; they are tightening consent policies, hiring staff, mandating diversity programs, and even banning Greek life.
UNC-Chapel Hill has already taken a mind-numbing series of steps to address sexual assault. The reason is likely a combination of ideology, involvement in a high-profile lawsuit, and demands from the federal Department of Education that colleges make it easier to punish alleged offenders.
So far, however, most universities, including UNC, have stayed politically correct in their battle against sexual violence. Perhaps for fear of receiving the "victim-blamer" tag, few colleges are addressing the connection between alcohol and date rape. UNC-Chapel Hill appears to be trying everything, and thankfully this now includes reducing binge drinking.
Vice Chancellor Crisp's concern over alcohol abuse and campus violence echoes the findings of a July report from the UNC system's Campus Security Initiative, a task force of staff and students chaired by two chancellors. UNC president Thomas Ross convened the group in August 2013 to study student safety. Crisp was heavily involved in the task force.
However, Provost Dean told the Pope Center that curbing sexual assault is "certainly not the impetus behind" the report. "I think it's reasonable to expect that there would be some impact on sexual assault, but that's not the main reason we're doing it," he said. At the same time, Dean acknowledged a link between drinking and campus sexual assault. "Virtually every instance of sexual assault is associated with alcohol," he said-though not necessarily binge-drinking.
In any case, while the report focused on three areas-sexual assault, alcohol and substance abuse, and non-sexual campus crime-sexual assault dominated the report's "priority recommendations" and took up by far the most space.
A white paper by Crisp's drug and alcohol advisory group, prepared for the Campus Security Initiative, cited a 2002 study finding that alcohol involvement was reported in 90 percent of sexual assaults in college communities, and that 97 percent of those assaults were perpetrated by someone the victim knew.
The paper found that numerous policies are already in place across the UNC system to curb binge drinking. In addition to education about alcohol and drug use, UNC schools are also trying more law enforcement and "alcohol medical amnesty. " That is a "Good Samaritan" policy to protect underage students from punishment if they seek medical attention after drinking.
Dean and Crisp believe there is more to do. They are assembling a committee, as recommended by the Campus Security Initiative; it will be made up of "a small group of very senior administrators," according to Crisp.
So far, that is the extent of Chapel Hill's plan to reduce excessive drinking; the committee will work out the details. All we know so far is that the committee will look at binge drinking from a public-health perspective, as the university did with its 2008 tobacco ban.
How exactly does a major university reduce drinking in 2014, when many students prioritize drinking over schoolwork? Besides the many things UNC-Chapel Hill says it is already doing, there is probably not much it can do that won't have unfavorable side effects.
If the school models its alcohol policy after its smoking policy, that will mean banning alcohol. Good luck with that. Ironically, going in the other direction-relaxing Chapel Hill's alcohol policy-might be the way to go.
Repealing its ban on the sale of alcohol at athletic events and campus performances, for example, could curtail binge drinking. Just as national Prohibition drove drinking underground, the current policy, implemented in 1996, encourages underground binge drinking. When students who want to drink are threatened with punishment for tailgating or are unable to buy beer at the game, they "pregame," which usually means binge drinking at home before leaving for the event. If the goal is to prevent tragedies, allowing open and controlled drinking is more likely to do that.
On the same principle, the committee could go even further and endorse a lower state minimum drinking age. While such a change would be an uphill battle and ultimately out of the committee's hands, it would allow for more oversight of student drinking and could reduce sexual assault.
In 2008, 135 college presidents signed the Amethyst Initiative, which proposed just that-lowering the drinking age to 18 so that nearly all students would be able to drink legally on campus. The initiative was a project of John M. McCardell, Jr., president emeritus of Middlebury College and current vice chancellor of the University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee. The signers argued that the 21-year-old limit encouraged binge drinking and pushed all drinking off campus, away from the influence of administrators.
In an email to the Pope Center, McCardell said that the National Minimum Drinking Age Act was due for reauthorization hearings in 2009, but they never took place. "If and when the new Congress decides to hold hearings, I expect to revive Amethyst. But I am doubtful that will happen any time soon."
Unfortunately, the Campus Security Initiative report specifically recommends that UNC institutions "publicly support the minimum legal drinking age (MLDA) law and educate faculty, staff, alumni and parents about the research behind it." The recommendation is not binding, but it sends the message that advocating for this possibly life-saving solution is taboo in North Carolina.
On the other hand, Provost Dean told the Pope Center that the committee "would consider anything that we think is reasonable to help curb binge-drinking on campus."
(Editor's note: Read arguments for and against lowering the drinking age).
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